Anthropology at Aberdeen

Great to be launching an anthropologically-informed outdoor learning resource for schools: ‘A Treescapes Curriculum: Learning with local trees and woods’, from Jo Vergunst’s recent project. On Wednesday 3 June 4-6pm we are hosting Aberdeen school teachers at the Cruickshank Botanic Garden to learn more about it. Feel free to pass this on to any of your school / education contacts! More details in the link.

Researchers discover the value of learning with trees and woods A new toolkit from researchers at the University of Aberdeen reveals how trees in school grounds and nearby woodlands can power learning across the Curriculum for Excellence.

We are very much looking forward to PeopleFest, the ASA's public anthropology festival, in Edinburgh 29-31 May. Highlights from Aberdeen anthropologists are:

Roundtable on Food Sovereignty led by Peter Loovers, Friday 29 May 11.00
https://theasa.org/conferences/peoplefest2026/events/foodroundtable.phtml

Sounds like Edinburgh: A listening walk through the city and Holyrood Park, Jo Vergunst and Andrew Whitehouse, Saturday 30 May 10.00
https://theasa.org/conferences/peoplefest2026/events/soundslikeedinburgh.phtml

Living in Unprecedented Times roundtable discussion featuring Andrew Whitehouse, Sunday 31 May 14.30
https://theasa.org/conferences/peoplefest2026/events/unprecedentedtimes.phtml

If you’re at the festival please come and join us!

Living in Unprecedented Times Anthropology of Time Network

If you're around and on campus tomorrow morning, come to F61 Edward Wright Buildling 10-12. PhD students Maria, Turkhan, Edda and visiting Phd Student Lena will be sharing experiences and reflections from their fieldwork research in Northern Sweden, Mongolia, Brazil and Siberia. Not to be missed!
Department of Anthropology Spring 2026 Post-fieldwork PhD student presentations.
All welcome!

-Maria Nordvall, Tracing Sámi dwellings.
-Turkhan Ajaloghlu. ‘Moving Across Worlds with Reindeer: Dwelling practices of residentially mobile Duha community in the mountainous taiga.’
-Edda Starck, ‘Landscapes of Music: The more-than-human lives and politics of musical instruments’
-Lena Popova (Visiting PhD student, University of Fribourg, Switzerland), ‘Science and Arctic Indigenous knowledge in the Anthropocene in the context of climate change’

And if you can't make it in person, here's the Teams link: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/326301928446378?p=X0gJjzcINEfjNzgzR3

Anthropology Masters student, Izzy Fernando, makes the news!

Izzy is working on Samish and Scottish weaving traditions for her dissertation and took part recently in a weaving retreat hosted by and for citizens of the Samish Nation in Skagit County, Washington State, USA.

You can read more about the retreat in this article: https://www.seattletimes.com/life/culture/samish-tribe-holds-first-weaving-retreat-to-unite-tribal-citizens/?fbclid=PAZnRzaARMMWhleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA8xMjQwMjQ1NzQyODc0MTQAAadDa4ab8Td0jb_pEguFIiDWH6_SCma82eP_w-MLEwMWOxzk-DP72xgJ5o_NgQ_aem_OuBWFsn9FqMeOTd8EAQlQw

Samish Tribe holds first weaving retreat to unite tribal citizens The weaving retreat is part of a larger effort to bring tribal members across the region and beyond “home” to their community.

An inspirational multi-modal artistic methods workshop yesterday as part of our seminar series. 'Sampling Artistic Methods to Decolonize Ethnography' designed by guest anthropologist Michele A. Feder-Nadoff. Experiential and experimental exercises included: drawing, painting, stitching, filming our Edward Wright hallway environment with crayons for rubbing textured surfaces and iphones strapped to our limbs. Fun, but also tied to memory work. Quoting Michele, helping 'participants bond and correspond to each other with care, as fellow-collaborators “compañeros,” rather than as adversarial academic competitors'. Here are a few photos.

Centre for Images and Texts in Antiquity, University of Aberdeen
Inauguration event

Professor PHILIPPE DESCOLA (Collège de France)

Seminar:
‘Forms of the Visible: Anthropology and Ontology’
Sir Duncan Rice Library, Floor 2, Room 224
Thursday, 20 November 2025
10:00-11:45 am

Lecture:
‘World-making: An Anthropology of Figuration’
Sir Duncan Rice Library, Floor 7, Meeting Room 1
Thursday, 20 November 2025
5:30-6:15 pm
(followed by Q&A and reception)

Registration available at: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/dhpa/events/23113/

Scottish Arctic Expedition fund. Funding under-30s for different types of excursions. Might be worth a try?

Anthropology and Museum Studies students (and other volunteers) took a break from their studies last week to help out with the Zoology Museum autumn clean. There is nothing like cleaning a crocodile to take your mind off assessments!

Students taking Anthropology, Museums, and Society have been working on their Artefact Studies over the last couple of weeks, getting into the archives and tracking the stories of items in the University Collections. We are looking forward to hearing what they uncover in the weeks ahead.

We posted back in June on the publication of Tanya Argounova-Low and Alison Brown’s open access book 'Narrative Objects: Museums, the Sakha Summer Festival and Cultural Revival in Siberia'. We’re now delighted to let you know that the book has won the Council for Museum Anthropology’s Book Award for 2025! And well worth quoting the CMA:

The book reveals the opportunities and possibilities that emerge when museum anthropologists, Indigenous anthropologists, artists, and scholars collaborate to examine how objects in museum collections can prompt narratives from local communities engaged in cultural revitalization efforts. The authors skillfully balance their collective authorship with their respective areas of individual expertise as well as with the stories of their interlocutors. The CMA book awards committee celebrates this work as a powerful model of co-authorship and collaboration for future anthropological scholarship. Argounova-Low and Brown's work addresses a region in which there is limited scholarship in English about museum work. Finally, the book reflects the values of the CMA, including meaningful community partnerships and the creative use of curatorial practices to share research beyond museum walls.

Narrative Objects | Museums, the Sakha Summer Festival, and Cultural R Narrative Objects is concerned with the conversations that arise when artists, scholars, and museum practitioners come together with historic objects. Its focus