Hunting and History in Northern B.C

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‘But We Are Still Native People’: Talking about Hunting and History in Northern Athapaskan Village

by Thomas McIlwraith Ph.D

Abstract:

My dissertation is a study of hunting in the northern Athapaskan village of Iskut, British Columbia, Canada. Hunting serves as a cultural system uniting Iskut people in a place where ethnic identity is not as easy to identify as outsiders might expect. Moreover, non-natives sometimes suggest that Iskut hunting activities reflect cultural and economic poverty. Still, interest in Iskut knowledge about animals and the land persists in and outside of Iskut. Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is in demand in bureaucratic settings, for example, but Iskut knowledge about food and animals resists easy interpretation. I turn to the ‘ethnography of speaking’ as a way of learning about hunting and of moving beyond the fact-finding often associated with bureaucratic TEK projects. I attend to hunting stories and group history to understand why Iskut people talk about hunting with such passion. Studying talk of hunting and its etiquette reveals a wide range of lived experiences and practices at Iskut Village. It shows how Iskut people draw their history into contemporary resource conflicts. And, it illustrates a cultural system in a place where different family histories exist.

Read More (PDF): Here
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The Sociality of Water

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As concerns over climate change intensify, anthropologists have emerged as key participants in conversations about water use. Such work is crucial not only to assess the implications of floods, droughts and water rights conflicts today, but also the ways in which water has always been a mediated resource, and how communities’ relationships with water might change in the future.

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The following commentary series focuses on water governance and management, examining water access and power relationships, development initiatives, water conservation and availability, water as commons and commodity, and emerging trends in sustainable water management.

John Wagner
Water Governance Today

Barbara Rose Johnston
Water, Culture and Power Negotiations at the UN

Antina von Schnitzler
Gauging Politics: Water, Commensuration and Citizenship in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Eleanor E Shoreman
Muddy Waters: Water Conservation and Environmental Ethics in the Mississippi Delta

Ashley Carse
Moral Economies of Water Management: Tensions in the Panama Canal Watershed

Jessica Cattelino
Citizenship and Nation in the Everglades

Carla Roncoli
Participatory Models and Exclusionary Frames in Water Management* More photos by Carla Roncoli related to this article are available on Flickr.

Kathryn Hicks, Nicole Fabricant and Carlos Revilla
The New Water Wars: Collective Action after Decentralization in El Alto, Bolivia

Nan Bress
The Water Spigot: Water Access, Safety and Perception Near the Ashokan Reservoir* More photos by Nan Bress related to this article are available on Flickr.

Simanti Dasgupta
Transactions in Transparency: Water, Market and Politics in the Indian Silicon Plateau


SOURCE: http://aaanet.org/publications/articles.cfm
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Tahltan EthnoBlography Project

The purpose of this blog is twofold:

1. To express solidarity with the Tahltan people in their (and our) battle with imperial, colonial and corporate encroachments on vital natural ecosystems.

2. To collect and organize available Tahltan-related material and relevant anthropological literature - as part of an ongoing ethnographic research project.

* PLEASE NOTE: this project is in a very early state, and revisions and extensions will be frequent.

If you have any questions, thoughts or concerns please leave me a message here, and I will respond as soon as possible.

Thank you.
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