Community Co-leadership

The AHTC consists of a committee overseeing game management in the Mackenzie Delta and on the Beaufort Sea Coast. The committee is represented by the AHTC’s Resource Person. The AHTC committee members co-lead this research with the Inuvialuit Game Council and Alex Oehler and Sarah Abbott.

The IGC “plays a vital role in the co-management system. Under the IFA, the IGC represents the collective Inuvialuit interest in all matters pertaining to the management of wildlife and wildlife habitat in the ISR. This responsibility gives the IGC authority for matters related to harvesting rights, renewable resource management, and conservation.” (Joint Secretariat) The IGC co-leads this research with Alex Oehler and Sarah Abbott.

Graduate Students

Alesha is a Masters student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Regina, Canada. She is interested in women hunters, human-animal relationships, human-land relationships, the Circumpolar North, interspecies communication, Indigenous Knowledges, gender relations, sensory ethnography, and multi-species ethnography. Her fieldwork is based in the Northwest Territories. Alesha also assists with administrative tasks of SACTS.

Bobo is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Regina, Canada. He is interested in multispecies nonverbal communication and human perception of nonhuman knowledge. His most recent research deconstructs the transspecies pidgin of mushing (sled dog racing) in the Canadian North. Currently he is working on Rangifer-human relationships in the Northwest Territories. He also assists with administrative tasks of SACTS.

Research Team

Sara is an anthropologist and leading voice on communication and meaning making in more-than-human worlds. She focuses on avian extinction studies and conservation at the University of Oslo. Sara is responsible for helping guide our team into cutting-edge theoretical debates surrounding non-verbal interspecies communication through her active participation as a discussant in our annual meetings and reading group meetings.

Victoria is a multi-species ethnographer and social anthropologist at the University of Helsinki. As regional fieldworker, Victoria is responsible for collecting data on sensory interactions between herders and horses in free-range herding contexts in one of Inner Asian field sites. As an Indigenous scholar, she helps guide the team in Indigenous storying methodologies for Northern and Inner Asian community contexts.

Charlotte is a social anthropologist and Mongolian Studies specialist at INALCO, Paris. Charlotte is responsible for collecting cattle-human data in one of our Inner Asian field sites. She also consults with our team on satellite tracking and GIS data for free roaming herds. As regional fieldworker, she assists with Mongolian language needs, staying in close contact with the team during field seasons.

Thorsten is an environmental anthropologist based at the Czech Academy of Sciences, working in central Europe on sensory and phenomenological approaches to hunting as a form of human-animal relations. He is interested in the affective dimensions of human-wolf relations, and currently investigates the coexistence of humans and wild boar in shared landscapes through tracking. He is responsible for helping our team advance methodological and theoretical approaches to sensory animal-human communication by consulting with other team members and contributing to our team meetings and reading group.

Natasha is a social anthropologist with a background in ethology at Australian National University in Canberra. As regional fieldworker, Natasha is responsible for collecting horse-human data in one of our Mongolian sites. She contributes expertise in observational filmmaking and multi-sensory methodologies in human-animal contexts, and co-steers the direction of our annual meetings.

Mark is a senior biologist and animal ecologist at the University of Regina. Mark is responsible for overseeing the ethological aspects of our fieldwork. As a remote consultant he provides feedback during our Doctoral Research Student’s apprenticeship with hunters and herders. He is available to the team during field seasons, attends annual meetings, and co-authors and co-edits with our team.

Robert is an ethnomusicologist, sound artist, and filmmaker at the Center for Advanced Studies in Music (MIAM), Istanbul Technical University. As a regional fieldworker, Robert collects sensory data (including on atmospheric perception) in animal-human encounters in our Inner Asian field sites. He contributes to our Team expertise in the sensory study of sound and atmosphere, as well as Inner Asian ethnomusicology as it relates to animal-human interactions.

Sarah is a specialist in human-plant relations. She is also a seasoned film-maker and educator in film studies for 20+ years. Sarah’s research emphasizes communicative acts between humans, plants, and trees. She oversees plant-related topics, and collects data in our Canadian sites. Sarah is responsible for the academic supervision of one MFA Student Researcher and co-instructs at the Undergraduate Ethnographic Field School, as well as in Regina. She assists with the Team’s sensory data collection and film work, and co-organizes annual Team meetings.

Alex is an environmental anthropologist. His work focuses on human-animal and language-land relations in the Circumpolar North, where he has worked for 10+ years. Alex supervises two of the graduate researchers, is the lead-instructor at the Undergraduate Ethnographic Field School and on campus in Regina. He assists in the Team’s sensory data collection and organizes the project’s annual team meetings, while directing the theoretical trajectory of the project, including overseeing its finances, logistics, operations, and monthly reading group. Alex oversees the project’s data collection and publication output, assisting graduate researchers in the field.