Doctoral Dissertation Research: Identifying and Characterizing Human-Insect Relations through Material Culture in Western Alaska

Insects appear in material culture, oral tradition and archaeological contexts across Alaska, yet have received limited attention from scholars. This project explores the representation and meaning of insects in Indigenous material culture of western Alaska. The project will identify Yup’ik and Iñupiaq insect objects from archaeological sites and museum collections; contextualize insects within Indigenous worldviews; and compare and contrast Indigenous insect categories with scientific Linnaean taxonomies. This project advances understanding of the world’s most numerous taxon, both in terms of species and numbers of individuals, and highlights the role of Indigenous knowledge in understanding arctic ecosystems. Funding for this project supports survey of insect objects in eight museum collections; formal iconographic analysis; and the application of both scientific and Indigenous taxonomic identifications to insect depictions. Ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources, combined with interview data, will contextualize the materials. Project findings will be disseminated via an insect-object catalog, conference presentations, peer-reviewed journal articles, and a dissertation. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.