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- Convenor:
-
Olivia Howland
(University of Liverpool, UK)
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Olivia Howland
(University of Liverpool, UK)
- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 27 October, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Can ethnofuturism, the joining of archaic sociocultural norms with ideas and manifestations of the future, lead to sustainable environmental solutions for multiple species? This panel explores the intersection of human, animal and the environment through an ethnofuturist lens of possibilities.
Long Abstract:
The concept of ethnofuturism emerged from Estonia in the late 1980s, from the thinkings of a group of young poets and artists. Ethnofuturism was born out of the Estonian liberation movement and grew to become a concept through which to understand and potentially manifest visions of the future.
Whilst scholars have in recent decades been more critical of the concept of ethnofuturism, in this panel we will address whether the basics of such a concept, namely that indigenous cultural and social norms and prohibitions/proscriptions from the past can be usefully brought together to mold and inform imaginations of sustainable futures for humans, animals and the environment in which they live. Can ethnofuturism be transposed onto different contexts to facilitate collective thinking and greater equity in our ideas of culturally relevant and sustainable environmental futures?
What role does the past have in shaping equitable and sustainable futures? Does ethnofuturism have a physicality of place which is immutable, or is it a geographically immaterial concept, able to be shifted and applied to a multiplicity of contexts? How do archaic cultural proscriptions, now considered to be inequitable or harmful, figure in these imaginings?
What can an ethnographic and/or anthropological perspective bring to discussions of sustainable futures for humans, animals and the environment, and how can looking backwards aid in moving forwards towards equitable future possibilities?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 27 October, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
Urban rivers are a rapidly degrading environment which, through careful co-design utilising traditional indigenous environmental knowledge systems, could become sustainable ecosystems and future-conduits for multiple species.
Paper long abstract:
Urban rivers are one of the most polluted water sources on our planet, yet they are a place where humanity and animals congregate. They are spaces where biodiversity is rapidly being destroyed by trash, industrial pollution, sewage and uncontrolled development. But the rivers weren’t always like this. What has changed in the past 20, 50, 100 years, causing the riparian zones to become a no-go zone for nature? What attitudes or loss of traditional knowledge has altered the way we see and interact with the rivers? Why have the riparian zones in cities become less important? What have we lost by destroying the health of rivers and riparian zones? By engaging local elders, community groups, schools and government officers, we can use ‘the old ways’ to plan for ‘new ways’, and co-create our collective futures.
Paper short abstract:
By developing what I call ‘untraditional ecological knowledge’ a growing movement seeks to rewild themselves. My multispecies ethnography focuses on the techniques, drawn from anthropological knowledge and traditional naturalist skills alike, that those at my field-site use to ‘live in two worlds’.
Paper long abstract:
The movement towards rewilding as a conservation method continues to grow in popularity, in spite of critiques that it recapitulates the nature-culture binary. Concurrently, there is a proliferation of organizations and schools worldwide self-described as being focused upon connecting Modern humans to nature, themselves, and to each other. My multispecies ethnographic study focuses upon how these communities are using anthropological knowledge, traditional naturalist skills, ecological insight, and indigenous models, among others, as a means by which to overcome the ontological distinction between humans and nature, and to rewild themselves. My colleagues at the Wilderness Awareness School in Washington State, USA, use a variety of techniques, including wildlife tracking, botany and plant medicine, experimental archeology of indigenous technologies, bird language, among others as means by which to expand their environmental awareness, to connect with nature, and enmesh themselves in the more-than-human world. By so doing they trouble long held debates within both conservation and anthropology as to the human ecological niche, and the prescriptive possibility of ethnographic knowledge creation. Engaging with fraught questions of coloniality and human nature debates, they seek a means by which they can find the ‘wild within’ by more fully ‘becoming human’ with the multispecies community they are always-already within. The personal transformations that develop among those at my field-site are profound, and their connectedness, I argue, is the result of their developing what might be called ‘untraditional ecological knowledge’.
Paper short abstract:
In the paper the author scrutinizes the role of animalistic symbols in the modern Mari and Komi ethnofuturism. In the system of animalistic images the local authors represent the idea about autochthonicity of the Finno-Ugric peoples as well as their unity.
Paper long abstract:
In the paper the author scrutinizes the role of animalistic symbols in the modern ethnofuturism. Modern Mari and Komi painters, filmmakers and designers widely use the images of ancient jewelry of the Finno-Ugric population. The archaeological concept of the “animal style” has a new embodiment in contemporary art. There are some popular animalistic images in the ethnofuturism: waterfowl, bears, moose, lizards, etc. According to the theory of ethnosymbolism (E. Smith and his followers) and the theory of representation, the symbols of ethnofuturism express the identities of the modern Finno-Ugric peoples. In the system of animalistic images and prints the local authors represent the idea about autochthonicity of the Finno-Ugric peoples of the Volga and Ural regions (the Mari, the Komi, the Udmurts, etc) and the concept of their ‘connection’ with nature. It must be noticed that the modern ethnofuturism represents the concept of kinship of all the Finno-Ugric peoples, their historical and cultural unity (“Finno-Ugric identity”). From this point of view, these peoples have a common origin, and they are closer to nature than the other local inhabitants. The paper is based on the author's field ethnographic data collected in the Volga region, his interviews with representatives of the artistic intelligentsia as well as analysis of visual art (paintings, comics, interiors and filmography), some museum collections and Internet resources.