Date

Multiple Meeting Announcements

  1. REMINDER: Call for Abstracts
    27th Lowell Wakefield International Fisheries Symposium
    14-17 September 2011
    Anchorage, Alaska

  2. Abstract Deadline Extended
    Data Management and Local Knowledge: Building a Network to Support
    Community-Based Research and Monitoring
    15-17 November 2011
    Boulder, Colorado

  3. Session Announcement and Call for Abstracts
    Inuit Memories and Archaeological Reconstructions: Contemporary
    Reifications of the Inuit Past
    110th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting
    16-20 November 2011
    Montreal, Canada

  1. REMINDER: Call for Abstracts
    27th Lowell Wakefield International Fisheries Symposium
    14-17 September 2011
    Anchorage, Alaska

Abstracts for the 27th Lowell Wakefield International Fisheries
Symposium, entitled "Fishing People of the North: Cultures, Economies,
and Management Responding to Change," are due Monday, 4 April 2011. The
symposium will be held 14-17 September 2011 in Anchorage, Alaska.

This international symposium will provide a forum for scholars, fishery
managers, fishing families, and others to explore the human dimensions
of fishery systems and the growing need to include social science
research in policy processes.

The themes for the symposium are as follows:

- Human/Environment Relationships
- Fishing Communities in Transition
- Indigenous and Rural Knowledge and Communities
- Governance and Management Issues in the North
- Celebrating the Lives of Fishing Peoples

Detailed descriptions for each theme are available online, at:
http://seagrant.uaf.edu/conferences/2011/wakefield-people/call.php.
Relevant abstracts (250 words max) can be submitted via an online form:
http://seagrant.uaf.edu/conferences/2011/wakefield-people/abstract.php.

Submission deadline: Monday, 4 April 2011.

For more information on invited speakers, panels, steering committee members,
and online registration, please go to:
http://seagrant.uaf.edu/conferences/2011/wakefield-people/index.php.

  1. Abstract Deadline Extended
    Data Management and Local Knowledge: Building a Network to Support
    Community-Based Research and Monitoring
    15-17 November 2011
    Boulder, Colorado

Organizers of the Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the
Arctic (ELOKA) three-day workshop, entitled "Data Management and Local
Knowledge: Building a Network to Support Community-Based Research and
Monitoring," announce that the abstract submission deadline has been
extended to Friday, 15 April 2011. The workshop will be held 15-17
November 2011 in Boulder, Colorado.

The purpose of the workshop is to bring together researchers, community
members, organizations, and projects working on issues surrounding data
management for both Local and Traditional Knowledge (LTK) and
information from community-based research and monitoring. The workshop
will include:

- Presentations from a diverse group of projects working on
community-based research and monitoring, with emphasis on data
management (challenges, issues, questions, systems, etc.);
- Group discussions of key topics on the theme of data management,
local knowledge, and community-based research; and
- Discussions on continued development of an international network
on data management and local knowledge through collaboration and
partnership.

ELOKA is accepting abstracts from individuals, organizations, projects,
and communities to present at the workshop. Organizers are interested in
projects and initiatives that work with LTK and are addressing data
management issues in some way--from asking questions about how to
archive data and information for future generations, to fully
operational data management systems. ELOKA is focused on the Arctic, but
also interested in receiving abstracts from any region in order to
exchange experiences and information.

All travel costs will be covered for a limited number of selected
abstracts. All participants will be expected to give a 15-20 minute
presentation on their work and be part of group discussion. If you are
interested in attending the workshop, please send an abstract (no more
than 500 words) about the relevant interest and/or work on data
management for LTK or community-based research to Heidi McCann
(heidi.mccann [at] nsidc.org).

Extended submission deadline: Friday, 15 April 2011.

For the complete call for abstracts, please go to:
http://www.eloka-arctic.org/.

For questions, please contact:
Heidi McCann
Phone: 303-492-6069
Email: heidi.mccann [at] nsidc.org

  1. Session Announcement and Call for Abstracts
    Inuit Memories and Archaeological Reconstructions: Contemporary
    Reifications of the Inuit Past
    110th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting
    16-20 November 2011
    Montreal, Canada

Organizers of a session entitled "Inuit Memories and Archaeological
Reconstructions: Contemporary Reifications of the Inuit Past" announce a
call for abstracts. The session will be convened at the American
Anthropological Association's 110th Annual Meeting, scheduled for 16-20
November 2011 in Montreal, Canada.

The theme of this year's annual meeting focuses on traces, tidemarks,
and legacies. These ideas are particularly applicable to the Arctic
where both anthropology and archaeology are being used to address
contemporary issues, for example related to Inuit social and political
self determination, and prehistory which reconstructs and traces Inuit
occupation back to their original tenure of northern Canada. Inuit oral
tradition, ethnohistorical accounts, and archaeological research have
demonstrated a strong degree of biological and cultural continuity
between contemporary Inuit and their Thule predecessors, who first
entered Arctic Canada around AD 1200. Social scientists working in the
Arctic have drawn upon this continuity to improve their knowledge of
Inuit prehistory. Furthermore, Inuit today are actively engaging with
and consolidating their knowledge and understanding of their past by
documenting and disseminating personal memories and shared traditional
knowledge. This rich history is often invoked by Inuit to define and
reinforce their own identities, improve socioeconomic well-being in
arctic communities, and establish political autonomy.

In a variety of ways, Inuit, anthropologists, and archaeologists
participate in the reconstruction and reification of the arctic past;
artifacts are not merely 'things', but value-laden components of a way
of life that still has meaning and value for Inuit today. This
reconstructed cultural heritage becomes part of the collective Inuit
cultural identity, which to some degree is shared among all North
American arctic peoples. It is not so much about prehistory as it is
about current lives, ideologies, and practices. It is built, remembered,
and recreated in the present, according to current politics,
methodologies, socio-economic and cultural needs, and it is oriented
toward future goals. For Inuit, as well as for arctic scholars, the past
and the present are intertwined through philosophies, practices,
material vestiges, and narratives. It is a contemporary past.

The purpose of this session is to explore the relationships between
Inuit past, present, and future, as well as their material and oral
components. How is the Inuit past commonly defined among both Inuit and
archaeological/anthropological communities? What are the traces and
legacies left by the Inuit past? How can we make sense of them? Whether
they are concrete or abstract, excavated, remembered, collected,
narrated, written, acted, re-created or invented, they are essentially
products of the present, projected on a future. They transcend time.
These reconstructions and reminiscences of the Inuit past also transcend
places: they occur in archaeological sites, Inuit communities,
government offices, northern and southern museums, and universities.
Ultimately, session organizers hope to shed light on the connections
between these academic reconstructions, individual and collective
memories of Inuit, their value, and their role in the contemporary
world.

Organizers request that anyone interested in participating in the
session please contact Marie-Pierre Gadoua
(marie-pierre.gadoua2 [at] mail.mcgill.ca) by Friday, 8 April 2011. After
receiving the email, organizers will send an invitation through the AAA
registration site. Abstracts are limited to 250 words. This date is
prior to the actual abstract deadline, in order to allow sufficient time
for the registration process to be completed.

Abstract deadline: Friday, 15 April 2011.

For further information on the conference, please go to:
http://www.aaanet.org/meetings/index.cfm.

For further information on this session, please contact:
Marie-Pierre Gadoua
Email: marie-pierre.gadoua2 [at] mail.mcgill.ca