Adam Dunstan

Salmon. Sustainability. Sacred Spaces. Saints (Latter-day). Sociolinguistics.

My work examines the intersections of environment, policy, language, and knowledge systems, including religious philosophies. I utilize ethnography and sociolinguistics to investigate the lived experiences and discourses of places - especially sacred places - and the politics that surround them.

Recently, I have two major research projects. One involves Latter-day Saints' experiences and perceptions of sacred historic sites in upstate New York. The other documents histories of Indigenous Knowledge and fishery sustainability in southcentral Alaska.

Prior to these projects, I was involved in a number of different research projects. During my graduate work, I explored impacts of, and opposition to, a ski resort located on a mountain held sacred by members of the Navajo Nation, and twelve other Indigenous nations. My thesis dissertation and several articles explore the limits of policy and the complex discourses of activist groups in northern Arizona, and in particular the ways in which the blending of traditional indigenous knowledge, bioscience, and other modes of discourse both emerge from, and sustain, cross-cultural activist collaborations around sacred space. This research was funded at various points by the Jacobs Research Funds, McNulty Fellowship for Cultural Studies, and the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, among others.

Since then I was also involved into research on how Texans living in a highly "fracked" environment perceived their air quality and respiratory health.  I also consult with organizations and individuals on environmental policy, cultural heritage, tourism, and air quality issues, among others.

I am an assistant professor of anthropology at Kenai Peninsula College, where I teach courses in the the anthropology of religion, environmental anthropology, and Alaska Native Cultures, among other topics. Previously I taught at University of North Texas.