Ann Fienup-Riordan An independent scholar, Ann Fienup-Riordan received the Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1989. She has lived, worked, and taught in Alaska since 1973. Her books include The Nelson Island Eskimo, Eskimo Essays, The Real People and the Children of Thunder, Boundaries and Passages, Freeze Frame: Alaska Eskimos in the Movies, and The Living Tradition of Yup'ik Masks. She was named 1991 Historian of the Year by the Alaska Historical Society and 1983 Humanist of the Year by the Alaska Historical Society. Since 1994 she has worked with the Anchorage Museum and the Yup'ik Cultural Center in Bethel curating the exhibit of Yup'ik masks Agayuliyararput: Our Way of Making Prayer.

Abstract of paper given at Indigenous Traditions and Ecology conference:
A Guest on the Table: Ecology from the Yup'ik Eskimo Point of View

The distinctive treatment of animals as nonhuman persons meriting respect and acting intentionally toward their human hosts is a key feature differentiating at least some hunter-gatherers from small-scale agricultural and pastoral societies. It certainly differentiates many contemporary artic and subartic hunters from the non-native biologists, sports hunters, and animal rights activists whose different views of animals conflict in Alaska and Canada today. The presentation will focus on one such conflict--the debate over research and regulation of geese in general and black brant in particular--as a window into how different views of the environment shape action and attitude in the modern world.

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Indigenous Traditions and Ecology conference participants