10/22/18, Edmund Searles, 1
Edmund Searles, PhD
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Academic appointments
2010- Associate Professor of Anthropology, Bucknell University
2003-2010 Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Bucknell University
2002-2003 Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Bucknell University
2002Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Alaska Fairbanks
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Tradition and modernity in Nunavut; Canadian Inuit ethnicity and identity; social, historical and religious dimensions of human-environment relations of Native North Americans; social indicators of community life in indigenous communities in Canada.
AREA SPECIALIZATION
Canada (Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Labrador), Alaska
EDUCATION
Ph.D., Sociocultural Anthropology, University of Washington, 1998
Dissertation: From Town to Outpost Camp: Symbolism and Social Action in the Canadian Eastern Arctic. A study of Inuit ethnicity and symbolic action in Nunavut.
M.A., Anthropology, University of Washington, 1993
Thesis: The Subsistence Uses of Vegetal Resources in Lake Clark National Park and Adjacent Villages. An analysis of the cultural dimensions of subsistence practices of Athapaskan, Yupiit and non-Natives in rural southwest Alaska.
B.A., Anthropology and Environmental Studies, Bowdoin College, 1989
Honor’s Thesis: An Ethnohistorical Account of the Crocker Land Expedition, North Greenland, 1914-1918. An ethnohistorical analysis of Polar Inuit-explorer relations in Northwest Greenland.
PUBLICATIONS
Journal Articles and Book Chapters
“Placing Identity: Town, Land, and Authenticity in Nunavut, Canada.” Acta Borealia 27(2): 151-166, 2010.
“Inuit Identity in the Canadian Arctic.” Ethnology 47(4): 239-255. Fall 2008.
“Prophecy, Sorcery, and Reincarnation: Inuit Spirituality in the Age of Skepticism.” Pp. 158-182 in Extraordinary Anthropology: Transformations in the Field, Jean-Guy Goulet and Bruce Granville Miller, eds. University of Nebraska Press, 2007.
"Anthropology in an Era of Inuit Empowerment." Pp. 89-101. In Critical Inuit Studies in an Era of Globalization, Pam Stern and Lisa Stevenson, eds. University of Nebraska Press. 2006.
“Inuit: Canada and Greenland.” Pp. 279-281 in the Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, Volume 1. Solomon H. Katz, ed. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 2003.
“Noms, Récits, et Mémoire au Nunavut [The Embodiment of Cultural Memory and Meaning in Nunavut]," Anthropologie et Sociétés 26(2-3): 179-191, 2002.
"Food and the Making of Modern Inuit Identities" Food and Foodways 10(1): 55-78, 2002.
" Identity Politics, Research and the Construction of Inuit Identity," in Inuit Identities in the Third Millennium, ed. by Louis-Jacques Dorais. Quebec: L'Association Inuksiutiit Katimajiit. Pp. 95-109, 2001.
“Interpersonal politics, social science research, and the construction of Inuit Identity.” Etudes/Inuit/Studies 25(1-2): 101-119, 2001.
“Fashioning Selves and Tradition: Case Studies on Personhood and Experience in Nunavut.” American Review of Canadian Studies 31 (1-2): 121-136, 2001.
“Why Do You Ask So Many Questions?”: Dialogical Anthropology and Learning How Not to Ask in Canadian Inuit Society. Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement 11(1): 47-64, 2000.
“The Crisis of Youth and the Poetics of Place: Juvenile Justice, Outpost Camps, and Inuit Identity in the Canadian Arctic.” Etudes/Inuit/Studies 22(2): 137-155, 1998.
Co-authored articles (peer-reviewed)
Duhaime, Gerard, Edmund Searles and Peter J. Usher, Heather Myers and Pierre Frechette, “Social Cohesion and Living Conditions in the Canadian Arctic: From Theory to Measurement.” Social Indicators Research 66(3): 295-317 (May 2004).
Usher, Peter J., Gerard Duhaime, and Edmund Searles, ""The Household as an Economic Unit in Arctic Aboriginal Communities and its Measurement by Means of a Mass Survey." Social IndicatorsResearch 61(2): 175-202, 2002.
Louis-Jacques Dorais and Edmund Searles, "Inuit identities" in Etudes/Inuit/Studies 25(1-2): 17-35, 2001.
Susan A. Kaplan and Edmund Searles. "Donald B. Macmillan and the Polar Eskimos 1913-1917." Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska 25(1): 121-131, 2000.
Book Reviews
The New Media Nation: Indigenous Peoples and Global Communication, by Valerie Alia. Anthropos 116 (1): 200-221 (2011).
Nunavut Generations: Change and Continuity in Canadian Inuit Communities, by Ann McElroy. Etudes/Inuit/Studies 34(2): 196-8 (2010).
Apostle to the Inuit: The Journals and Ethnographic Notes of Edmund James Peck, the Baffin Years, 1894-1905, ed. by Frédéric Laugrand, Jarich Oosten, and François Trudel. Polar Record, 44 (4): 370-371, 2008.
Faith, Food, and Family in a Yupik Whaling Community by Carol Zane Jolles with Elinor Mikaghaq Oozeva, Etudes/Inuit/Studies 30 (2): 225-227, 2006.
Upside Down: Seasons Among the Nunamiut, by Margaret Blackman, Polar Record 42(1): 89-90, 2006.
Arctic Migrants/Arctic Villagers, David Damas, Polar Record 40(3): 276-278, 2004.
Saqiyuq, Stories from the Lives of Three Inuit Women, Nancy Wachowich et al. Etudes/Inuit/Studies, 27(1-2): 549-552, 2003.
Protecting the Arctic: Indigenous Peoples and Cultural Survival, by Mark Nuttall, Etudes/Inuit/Studies, 27(1-2): 540-543, 2003.
Hunting Tradition in a Changing World, by Ann Fienup-Riordan with William Tyson, Paul John, Marie Meade, and John Active, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 3: 3, 2002.
Saqqaq: An Inuit Hunting Community in the Modern World, by Jens Dahl, American Ethnologist 29(2): 432-3, 2002.
Nunavut: Inuit Regain Control of Their Lands and Their Lives, edited by Jens Dahl, Jack Hicks, and Peter Jull, Polar Record38 (205): 175-176, 2002.
Tundra Passages: History and Gender in the Russian Far East, by Petra Rethmann, American Journal of Sociology107: 834-5, 2001.
Inuit Morality Play: The Emotional Education of a Three-Year Old, by Jean Briggs, Etudes/Inuit/Studies 23(1-2): 271-274, 1999.
Inuit, Whaling, and Sustainability, Milton M. R. Freeman et al., Études/Inuit/Studies 23(1-2): 283-286, 1999.
Imaging the Arctic, J.C.H. King and Henrietta Lidchi, eds. in Études/Inuit/Studies, in Etudes/Inuit/Studies, 22(2): 188-90, 1998.
WORKS IN PROGRESS
Ethnicity, Tradition, and Modernity in the Canadian Arctic. Book-length manuscript being prepared for publication.
SCHOLARLY PRESENTATIONS
Invited Presentations
“Of Symbols and Substance: Ethnicity in a Canadian Arctic Town,” Center for the Study of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity Faculty Colloquy, October 30, 2008, Bucknell University.
“Between Inuit and Qallunaat: The Predicaments of Modern Inuit Identity,” public lecture presented at the Institute for Eskimology and Arctic Studies, Copenhagen University, Denmark, February 29, 2008.
“Writing Ethnography: Anthropologists At Work,” Writers At Work Lecture Series, Bucknell University, October 2003.
“Religious Identity among Inuit of the Canadian Arctic.” Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Brown bag series, October, 2003.
"Autonomy and Interdependence: The Predicaments of Being Inuit Today." Department of Anthropology, Anthropology Colloquium Series, Yale University, December, 2002.
"The Embodiment of Cultural Memory and Meaning in Nunavut:Case Studies from Baffin Island.” Conference: Memory and History in the North, November, 2001, Quebec, Canada.
" The Household as an Economic Unit in Arctic Aboriginal Communities and its Measurement by Means of a Mass Survey." (Co-authored with Peter J. Usher and Gérard Duhaime). Conference: Living Conditions Research and the Survey on Living Conditions in the Arctic, Nuuk, Greenland, April, 2001.
"Growing Into Your Names: The Dynamics of Identity and Tradition among the Inuit of Nunavut, Canada." University of Massachusetts-Boston's Department of Anthropology Colloquium Series. February 2001.
"Growing Into Your Names: Shaping Tradition and Personhood in Nunavut." Committee on Human Development, University of Chicago, February 2000.
“ Seal Meat and Snickers Bars: Food and the Making of Modern Inuit Identities in Nunavut, Canada”. Canadian Studies Lecture Series, University of California, Berkeley, November 2000.
“Sondage des conditions de la vie dans l’arctique circumpolaire: un bilan.” [Survey of Living Conditions in the Circumpolar Arctic: A Summary]. Inuit and Circumpolar Study Group’s Colloquium Series , Laval University, April, 2000.
“Identity Politics, Research, and the Construction of Inuit Identity,” Conference: Inuit Identity in the Third Millenium, Quebec, Canada, May, 2000.
Conference Presentations
“The Multiple Ends of Anthropology in the Canadian Arctic,” American Anthropological Association annual meeting, 2009, Philadelphia, PA.
“From Student to Teacher, Moderator to Motivator: Applying Anthropology to a Government Funded Statistical Survey,” Society for Applied Anthropology annual meeting, 2009, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“Inummarik or Qallunaaq: Inuit Placemaking in the Canadian Arctic.” American Anthropological Association annual meeting, 2006.
“Shamans, Sacraments, and Name Souls: Rethinking Religion in the Canadian Arctic.” American Anthropological Association annual meeting, 2005.
“Cultural Spaces, Healthy Places: Identity, Wellness and Sense of Place among southern Nunavut Inuit.” Society for Applied Anthropology annual meeting, 2005.
“Emplacement and Identity among Nunavut Inuit.” Central States Anthropological Society Annual Meetings, 2004.
“The Predicament of Self and Other in Nunavut Inuit Society.” American Anthropological Association Meetings, 2003.
“Pure Blood, Mixed Cosmologies: Anti-Creolization in the Canadian Arctic.” American Anthropological Association Meetings 2002.
" On Shifting Ice: Anthropology in an Era of Inuit Empowerment." American Anthropological Association Meetings 2001.
" Social Cohesion and Living Conditions in the Canadian Arctic: New Directions in Partnership-based Research," Association for Canadian Studies in the United States, 2001.
"The Politics and Poetics of Seal Hunting and Seal Meat: Case Studies from South Baffin (Nunavut)." Fourth International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences, 2001.
"Social Cohesion as Measured by a Mass Survey: Concepts and Methods of the APS/SLiCA Questionnaire." Fourth International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences, 2001.
" Igloos and the Internet: Reconfiguring Inuit Identity and Tradition in the Information Age." Annual Meeting of the American Ethnological Society, 2001.
“Seal Meat and Snickers Bars: Food and the Making of Modern Inuit Identities in Nunavut, Canada” American Anthropological Association Meetings, 2000.
“The Social Dynamics of Food and Self-Identity in Canadian Arctic Society.” Association for Canadian Studies in the United States Conference, 1999.
“The Crisis of Youth and the Construction of Place: Juvenile Reform, Outpost Camps, and the Negotiation of Inuit Identity in the Canadian Arctic”. American Ethnological Society Meetings, 1998.
"From Foraging Nomad to Cosmopolitan Canadian: Inuit Symbolic Action in the Urban Context", American Anthropological Association Meetings, 1997.
"Outpost Camps and Iqaluit, Inuit and Qallunaat, and the Tropes of Cultural Difference". Association for Canadian Studies in the United States Conference, 1995.
"Subsistence Uses of Forest Vegetal Resources by Resident Zone Members of Lake Clark National Park and Preserve," Alaska Anthropological Association Meetings, 1993.
“Subsistence Uses, National Parks, and Rural Communities: A New NPS Research Initiative,” by Darryll R. Johnson, Eugene Hunn, Matthew Carrol, Harry Bader, Alan Jubenville, Ciel Sanders, and Ned Searles. The Fourth North American Symposium on Society and Resource Management, University Park, Pennsylvania,1992.
Guest Lectures
“Inuit Modernity and Ecological Relations,” guest lecture in Master’s Level Political Ecology course, Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University, April 27, 2011.
“Ethnicity and Indigenous Identity,” guest lecture in the Master’s Level Theory Course, Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University, September 27, 2010
“Qualitative and Ethnographic Research Methods,” guest lecture in Sociology 208, April 19, 2010
“Learning How Not to Ask in Canadian Inuit Society,” guest lecture in Anthropology 201: Qualitative Research Methods, February 17, 2009.
“Nunavut Inuit Responses to and Perceptions of Globalization and History,” guest lecture in an undergraduate anthropology seminar offered by the Department of Anthropology and Ethnography, Aarhus University, Denmark, February 28, 2008.
"Healing Places and Real Spaces: Notes on Canadian Inuit Place-Making." Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Bucknell University, Lunch Colloquium Series, April 11, 2006.
“Psychological Anthropology,” Senior Seminar in Anthropology, Bucknell University, April 12, 2006.
“Inuit, Naming and Religious Syncretism,” Native American Religions class, Moravian College, February 6, 2004.
“Getting Back to the Land: Ethnographic Encounters in the Canadian Arctic,”: International Brown Bag Series, Moravian College, February 5, 2004
“Notes on Conducting Research in the Frontier North.” Anthropology 284, Yale University, December, 2002.
“The Politics and Pragmatics of Research in Nunavut,” Anthropology 201 (Methodology), Bucknell University, 2002.
“On est parfois ce qu’on mange. Praxis de l’alimentation et modernité chez les Inuit du Nunavut” `[You are What You Eat Sometimes: the Praxis of Food Consumption and Modernity among the Inuit of Nunavut]. Colloques d’Anthropologie, Department of Anthropology, Université Laval, December 1999.
“The Crisis of Youth and the Construction of Place: Juvenile Reform, Outpost Camps, and the Negotiation of Inuit Identity in the Canadian Eastern Arctic,” Brown Bag Series, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, April 1998.
“Les campements de chasse et l'identité contemporain des Inuits du Nunavut,” Guest Lecture in “Seminar on Identity,” Anth 301, Departement d’anthropologie, Université Laval, April 1996.
“The Politics of Subsistence in Alaska,” Guest Lecture, Introduction to Anthropology, University of Washington, February 1993.
FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS AND AWARDS
National Science Foundation
International Research Fellow, 2000-2002
Two year postdoctoral fellowship conducted at Université Laval, Québec, QC
International Council for Canadian Studies
Academic Internship Grant, 2000
Dissertation Scholarship, 1996
Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
International Conference Grant, 2000
Faculté des Sciences Sociales, Université Laval
Postdoctoral Fellowship, 1998-2000
Travel Grant, 1999
Canadian Embassy
Graduate Research Fellowship, 1998-1999
American Ethnological Society
Graduate Student Conference Travel Grant, 1998
The Canada-U.S. Fulbright Program
Pepsi-Cola Fulbright Scholarship, 1994
Conference Travel Grant, 1995
University of Washington
Recruitment Fellowship, 1990-91
Consulting/Applied Experience
Helped to design, pretest and pilot test a quantitative survey of indigenous living conditions administered by Statistics Canada, Ottawa and Quebec City, Canada, 2001.
Helped to design and test a survey of ethobotanical knowledge and subsistence uses of a wilderness area in Alaska, 1992. “Subsistence Uses of Vegetal Resources in and around Lake Clark National Park and Preserve”, by Darryll Johnson, Eugene Hunn, Priscilla Russell, Mark Vande Kamp, and Edmund Searles. Technical Report NPS/CCSOUW/NRTR-98-16.
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Professional Networks
Metropolia Arctica: Modern Urban Issues in the Circumpolar North, member; attended First Network Workshop in Denmark, February 24-26, 2008.
Professional Presentations
“Undergraduate Research in the Social Sciences: Promoting a Pedagogy of Engagement”, Bucknell University’s Faculty Development, April 5, 2005.
Academic Journal Editorial Duties
Invited Co-Editor
“Inuit Identities” Etudes/Inuit/Studies 25(1-2), 2001.
Manuscript and Proposal Review
Reviewed manuscripts for the following journals: American Ethnologist, Anthropologica, Anthropologie et Société, Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska, Arctic, Arctic Anthropology, Etudes/Inuit/Studies, Food and Foodways, and The Political and Legal Anthropology Review.
Reviewed book length manuscripts for McGill-Queen’s University Press, New York University Press, the University of Toronto Press
Reviewed proposals for the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) of the United Kingdom.
Professional Association Duties
Section Chair for International Academic Conference
Reviewed and selected panels and papers for the “Aboriginal Peoples” section of the Association for Canadian Studies Conference 2001.
Session/Panel Organizer for Academic Conference
“Good Missionary, Bad Missionary: Rethinking the Missionary Position in the Americas.” American Anthropological Association Meetings 2005 (Accepted by the Society for the Anthropology of Religion.”)
“Food in Anthropological Perspective: Public Faces of Production, Exchange and Consumption”. American Anthropological Association Meetings, 2000. (Accepted by the American Ethnological Society)
“Rethinking Community and Change in the Canadian Arctic." Association for Canadian Studies in the United States Conference,1998.
Session Discussant for Academic Conference
"Understanding Aboriginal Politics/Comprendre la politique autochtone," 73rd Annual Conference of the Canadian Political Science Association, May, 2001, Quebec, Canada.
Faculty Development Workshops Attended
“Teaching Writing Across the Curriculum, August,” Bucknell University, August 2002.
“Common Learning Agenda, Senior Capstone Workshop,” Bucknell University, May 2003.
“Common Learning Agenda: Foundation Seminar Workshop,” Bucknell University, May 2004.
PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
American Anthropological Association (AAA)
American Ethnological Association (AES)
International Arctic Social Sciences Association (IASSA)
TEACHING AND OTHER PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
COURSES TAUGHT AT BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY
Hairdos, Piercings and Tattoos: Body and Identity (Foundation Seminar 095), Fall 04, 06, 07, and 09
Designed and taught this interdisciplinary and cross-cultural seminar on the social, cultural and psychological dimensions of bodily awareness and body modification around the globe.
Nature and Human Choice (Foundation Seminar 093), Fall 02
Co-designed and team taught this course, an introduction to environmental policy, focusing on case studies from the United States, Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The Environment in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Cross-listed as Anth 410 and as a Senior Capstone) Spring 03, Spring 04, Fall 04, 05, and Spring 08
Designed and taught this senior-only capstone focusing on how individuals and groups attach meaning to place. Using sources from various disciplines, including anthropology, history, culture studies, literature, philosophy, religious studies, and sociology, I asked students to reflect, describe and analyze their own sense of place as well as the experience of displacement. Students designed and conducted their own personal ethnography of place.
Anthropological Perspectives on Human-Environment Relations (Anthropology 260), Spring 03, Fall 03, Spring 05, Fall 06, 07, 08, 09
Designed and taught this lower-division introduction to environmental anthropology course. In addition to learning key concepts in cultural ecology, the new ecological anthropology, and interpetive models of the environment (i.e. nature vs. society, gender and nature, etc.) students conducted cultural ecological studies of local townships and neighborhoods, presenting results in an informal class symposium.
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (Anthropology 109) Every semester (Fall 02-Spring 08); Fall 09, Spring 10
Designed and taught this course introducing key concepts and debates in cultural anthropology, including anthropology’s identity as a science; the goals and origins of interpretive anthropology; social and cultural change; ethnography and the politics of representation; and, gender, religion, and the analysis of key symbols.
Advanced Seminar in Anthropology (Anthropology 330) Spring 05, 09, 10
Revised this core course for junior and senior anthropology majors only. Using recently published and/or award winning ethnographies, we examined the state of contemporary ethnographic literature.
COURSES TAUGHT AT OTHER UNIVERSITIES
Person, Self and Society: Introduction to Anthropology (Anthropology 100x)
University of Alaska Fairbanks, Spring 02
Designed and taught lower division course that served as both an introduction to cultural anthropology and psychological anthropology. Covered main concepts in cultural anthropology and explored the symbolic and political dimensions of freedom, autonomy and belonging in various cultural settings.