In this article we examine what can be captured, recorded, remembered, and shared through differe... more In this article we examine what can be captured, recorded, remembered, and shared through different note-taking modalities. The case narrated is one of a simultaneous fieldwork experience carried out as part of a larger interdisciplinary project in Greenland. It reveals how the same situation is recorded differently in our respective notebooks; and that the way we write fieldnotes is not just determined by the anthropologists, but also by the field. We present three kinds of fieldnotes from the same day, produced partly by writing/not writing in notebooks, and by using handheld GPS devices that map activities related to hunting and travel. We suggest that our fieldnotes may best be understood as fragments, details and contexts. Although our fieldnotes may add up an entirety, they cannot represent a complete whole. Together, these fragments are mosaic configurations rather than complete or coherent sets of registered events and situations that come together kaleidoscopically.
This article addresses the role of Atlantic walrus (Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus) in present-day Av... more This article addresses the role of Atlantic walrus (Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus) in present-day Avanersuaq from anthropological and biological perspectives, and asks whether or not sustainable resource utilisation is a useful concept in northwest Greenland. We describe the relations that unfold around walrus and walrus hunting, in the communities living adjacent to the North Water polynya on the eastern side of Smith Sound. We examine the interplay of walrus population abundance, hunting practices, uses, and formal (governmental) and informal (traditional) ways of regulating the hunt, and we analyse how walruses acquire multiple values as they circulate in different networks. Sustainable resource utilisation, we conclude, is a concept that is relevant in Avanersuaq and beyond, because it works as a biological standard, and hence organises laws, norms, and practices of formal management. Simultaneously, the term is problematic, because it ignores manifold levels of human and societal values connected to walrus. Keywords Atlantic walrus Á Greenland Á Hunting communities Á Management Á Sustainability Ó The Author(s) 2018. This article is an open access publication www.kva.se/en
Despite the remoteness of the North Water, Northwest Greenland, the local Inughuit population is ... more Despite the remoteness of the North Water, Northwest Greenland, the local Inughuit population is affected by global anthropogenic pollution and climate change. Using a cross-disciplinary approach combining Mercury (Hg) analysis, catch information, and historical and anthropological perspectives, this article elucidates how the traditional diet is compromised by Hg pollution originating from lower latitudes. In a new approach we here show how the Inughuits in Avanersuaq are subject to high Hg exposure from the hunted traditional food, consisting of mainly marine seabirds and mammals. Violation of the provisional tolerably yearly intake of Hg, on average by a factor of 11 (range 7-15) over the last 20 years as well as the provisional tolerably monthly intake by a factor of 6 (range 2-16), raises health concerns. The surplus of Selenium (Se) in wildlife tissues including narwhals showed Se:Hg molar ratios of 1.5, 2.3, and 16.7 in muscle, liver, and mattak, respectively, likely to provi...
The little auk is the most numerous seabird in the North Atlantic and its most important breeding... more The little auk is the most numerous seabird in the North Atlantic and its most important breeding area is the eastern shores of the North Water polynya. Here, a population of an estimated 33 million pairs breeds in huge colonies and significantly shapes the ecosystem. Archaeological remains in the colonies document that the little auk has been harvested over millennia. Anthropological research discloses how the little auk has a role both as social engineer and as a significant resource for the Inughuit today. The hunting can be practiced without costly equipment, and has no gender and age discrimination in contrast to the dominant hunt for marine mammals. Little auks are ecological engineers in the sense that they transport vast amounts of nutrients from sea to land, where the nutrients are deposited as guano. Here, the fertilized vegetation provides important foraging opportunities for hares, geese, fox, reindeer, and the introduced muskox. We estimate that the relative muskox dens...
Information from a collaborative GPS tracking project, Piniariarneq, involving 17 occupational hu... more Information from a collaborative GPS tracking project, Piniariarneq, involving 17 occupational hunters from Qaanaaq and Savissivik, Northwest Greenland, is used to explore the resource spaces of hunters in Avanersuaq today. By comparison with historical records from the time of the Thule Trading Station and the decades following its closure, we reveal a marked variability in resource spaces over time. It is argued that the dynamics of resources and resource spaces in Thule are not underlain by animal distribution and migration patterns, or changes in weather and sea ice conditions alone; but also by economic opportunities, human mobility, settlement patterns, particular historical events and trajectories, and not least by economic and political interests developed outside the region.
From May 2015 until May 2016, nineteen occupational hunters, two anthropologists, two biologists,... more From May 2015 until May 2016, nineteen occupational hunters, two anthropologists, two biologists, and one GIS expert engaged in a project of collaborative data collection in Northwest Greenland. With handheld GPS devices and a specially designed software called Piniariarneq (Hunting Trip), hunters tracked their hunting routes, registered animals caught and observed, and photographed and videoed important places, events, and other phenomena they found interesting and relevant to register. This essay describes the conception and implementation of Piniariarneq, and uses this experience as a lens through which to examine questions about appropriation, responsibility, and ownership in collaborative research endeavors. By scrutinizing how different collaborative partners engaged in the process with differing interests and aims, and by showing how partners took ownership of Piniariarneq in different ways, we argue that collaboration always takes place through particular relations, position...
In this article we examine what can be captured, recorded, remembered, and shared through differe... more In this article we examine what can be captured, recorded, remembered, and shared through different note-taking modalities. The case narrated is one of a simultaneous fieldwork experience carried out as part of a larger interdisciplinary project in Greenland. It reveals how the same situation is recorded differently in our respective notebooks; and that the way we write fieldnotes is not just determined by the anthropologists, but also by the field. We present three kinds of fieldnotes from the same day, produced partly by writing/not writing in notebooks, and by using handheld GPS devices that map activities related to hunting and travel. We suggest that our fieldnotes may best be understood as fragments, details and contexts. Although our fieldnotes may add up an entirety, they cannot represent a complete whole. Together, these fragments are mosaic configurations rather than complete or coherent sets of registered events and situations that come together kaleidoscopically.
This article addresses the role of Atlantic walrus (Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus) in present-day Av... more This article addresses the role of Atlantic walrus (Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus) in present-day Avanersuaq from anthropological and biological perspectives, and asks whether or not sustainable resource utilisation is a useful concept in northwest Greenland. We describe the relations that unfold around walrus and walrus hunting, in the communities living adjacent to the North Water polynya on the eastern side of Smith Sound. We examine the interplay of walrus population abundance, hunting practices, uses, and formal (governmental) and informal (traditional) ways of regulating the hunt, and we analyse how walruses acquire multiple values as they circulate in different networks. Sustainable resource utilisation, we conclude, is a concept that is relevant in Avanersuaq and beyond, because it works as a biological standard, and hence organises laws, norms, and practices of formal management. Simultaneously, the term is problematic, because it ignores manifold levels of human and societal values connected to walrus. Keywords Atlantic walrus Á Greenland Á Hunting communities Á Management Á Sustainability Ó The Author(s) 2018. This article is an open access publication www.kva.se/en
Despite the remoteness of the North Water, Northwest Greenland, the local Inughuit population is ... more Despite the remoteness of the North Water, Northwest Greenland, the local Inughuit population is affected by global anthropogenic pollution and climate change. Using a cross-disciplinary approach combining Mercury (Hg) analysis, catch information, and historical and anthropological perspectives, this article elucidates how the traditional diet is compromised by Hg pollution originating from lower latitudes. In a new approach we here show how the Inughuits in Avanersuaq are subject to high Hg exposure from the hunted traditional food, consisting of mainly marine seabirds and mammals. Violation of the provisional tolerably yearly intake of Hg, on average by a factor of 11 (range 7-15) over the last 20 years as well as the provisional tolerably monthly intake by a factor of 6 (range 2-16), raises health concerns. The surplus of Selenium (Se) in wildlife tissues including narwhals showed Se:Hg molar ratios of 1.5, 2.3, and 16.7 in muscle, liver, and mattak, respectively, likely to provi...
The little auk is the most numerous seabird in the North Atlantic and its most important breeding... more The little auk is the most numerous seabird in the North Atlantic and its most important breeding area is the eastern shores of the North Water polynya. Here, a population of an estimated 33 million pairs breeds in huge colonies and significantly shapes the ecosystem. Archaeological remains in the colonies document that the little auk has been harvested over millennia. Anthropological research discloses how the little auk has a role both as social engineer and as a significant resource for the Inughuit today. The hunting can be practiced without costly equipment, and has no gender and age discrimination in contrast to the dominant hunt for marine mammals. Little auks are ecological engineers in the sense that they transport vast amounts of nutrients from sea to land, where the nutrients are deposited as guano. Here, the fertilized vegetation provides important foraging opportunities for hares, geese, fox, reindeer, and the introduced muskox. We estimate that the relative muskox dens...
Information from a collaborative GPS tracking project, Piniariarneq, involving 17 occupational hu... more Information from a collaborative GPS tracking project, Piniariarneq, involving 17 occupational hunters from Qaanaaq and Savissivik, Northwest Greenland, is used to explore the resource spaces of hunters in Avanersuaq today. By comparison with historical records from the time of the Thule Trading Station and the decades following its closure, we reveal a marked variability in resource spaces over time. It is argued that the dynamics of resources and resource spaces in Thule are not underlain by animal distribution and migration patterns, or changes in weather and sea ice conditions alone; but also by economic opportunities, human mobility, settlement patterns, particular historical events and trajectories, and not least by economic and political interests developed outside the region.
From May 2015 until May 2016, nineteen occupational hunters, two anthropologists, two biologists,... more From May 2015 until May 2016, nineteen occupational hunters, two anthropologists, two biologists, and one GIS expert engaged in a project of collaborative data collection in Northwest Greenland. With handheld GPS devices and a specially designed software called Piniariarneq (Hunting Trip), hunters tracked their hunting routes, registered animals caught and observed, and photographed and videoed important places, events, and other phenomena they found interesting and relevant to register. This essay describes the conception and implementation of Piniariarneq, and uses this experience as a lens through which to examine questions about appropriation, responsibility, and ownership in collaborative research endeavors. By scrutinizing how different collaborative partners engaged in the process with differing interests and aims, and by showing how partners took ownership of Piniariarneq in different ways, we argue that collaboration always takes place through particular relations, position...
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