Environments by design in the circumpolar North

ENVIRONMENTS BY DESIGN IN THE CIRCUMPOLAR NORTHDavid G. AndersonUniversity of Aberdeen

IUAES Manchester 8 Aug 2013Querying Domestication: The ethnography of human/animal entanglements.

A story about a muskrat hat

Environmental Design in the North• Going beyond the noted North/South divide within two of the most prominent theoretical groupings• STS Science and Technology Studies• Political Ecology

Environmental Design in the North• Going beyond the noted North/South divide within two of the most prominent theoretical groupings• STS Science and Technology Studies• Political Ecology

• “Technobiological Imaginaries” (Joan Fukimura, Sheila Jasanoff)

Environmental Design in the North• Going beyond the noted North/South divide within two of the most prominent theoretical groupings• STS Science and Technology Studies• Political Ecology

• “Technobiological Imaginaries” (Joan Fukimura, Sheila Jasanoff)

• Critique of the “psychological minimalism” within theories of agency – esp. ANT (Peter Taylor)

Environmental Design in the North• Going beyond the noted North/South divide within two of the most prominent theoretical groupings• STS Science and Technology Studies• Political Ecology

• “Technobiological Imaginaries” (Joan Fukimura, Sheila Jasanoff)

• Critique of the “psychological minimalism” within theories of agency – esp. ANT (Peter Taylor)

• An ethnographic account of “acclimatization” / “translocation” / “restoration” of exotic species

Environmental Design in the North• The anthropology of the Gift

Muskrat acclimatization in Stalin’s Russia

We are not able to wait for gifts from nature: our goal is to take them – I.V. Michurin

Muskox translocations during the Cold War

Woolly Mammoth Restoration

Woolly Mammoth Restoration:Pleistocene Park

Sergei Afanasevich Zimov

Environmental Design and a Techno- biological Imaginary

• The machine-organism analogy and what is “lost in translation”

Environmental Design and a Techno- biological Imaginary

• The machine-organism analogy and what is “lost in translation”

• Designer environments• Expert policed ecological balances• Niches – full and empty• Forage and appetites

Environmental Design and a Techno- biological Imaginary

• The machine-organism analogy and what is “lost in translation”

• Designer environments• Expert policed ecological balances• Niches – full and empty• Forage and appetites

• Little interest in the desires of the animals themselves let alone other Northern communities• “playing” with animals

Agencies, human or otherwise• Peter Taylor’s critique of “psychological minimalism” and “egocentric calculation” in the ANT school – esp. the founding myth of scallops in St. Brieuc Bay

Agencies, human or otherwise• Peter Taylor’s critique of “psychological minimalism” and “egocentric calculation” in the ANT school – esp. the founding myth of scallops in St. Brieuc Bay

• All agency reduced to “resistance” or “enrollment” – more complex reflections or sentience “lost in translation”

Agencies, human or otherwise• Peter Taylor’s critique of “psychological minimalism” and “egocentric calculation” in the ANT school – esp. the founding myth of scallops in St. Brieuc Bay

• All agency reduced to “resistance” or “enrollment” – more complex reflections or sentience “lost in translation”

• An anecdote: translating the word agency into Russian

Agencies, human or otherwise• Peter Taylor’s critique of “psychological minimalism” and “egocentric calculation” in the ANT school – esp. the founding myth of scallops in St. Brieuc Bay

• All agency reduced to “resistance” or “enrollment” – more complex reflections or sentience “lost in translation”

• An anecdote: translating the word agency into Russian

• Ethnographic examples of agency in the circumpolar North

Conclusion: Environments of Design in the North«beyond resistance»

Teaching a 4 year bull to know the saddle - Amudisy

Conclusion: Environments of Design in the North«back to the gift»

arcticdomus.org