N Fijn
Biographic Data
| ID | 32344 |
|---|---|
| NAME | N Fijn |
| GIVEN NAMES | N |
| FAMILY NAME | Fijn |
| SIGNATURE | FIJN N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Australian National University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2474-3365 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 44 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Entangled Plumwoods: Stewardship as Grassroots Conservation Humanities
Hundreds of thousands of hectares of bushland and accompanying biodiversity were lost over a few short weeks during the Black Summer fires of 2019–2020 along the east coast of Australia. On the night of 19 December 2019, fire swept up the escarpment from the coast, slowed down with the thick understory of temperate rainforest and burnt through the lower dry sclerophyll forest on Plumwood Mountain. The aftermath of the bare, burnt landscape meant …
Selcen Küçüküstel, Embracing Landscape: Living with Reindeer and Hunting among Spirits in South Siberia
A mutual ecological approach to health in Mongolia
Herders spend much time and energy seeking pasture and nurturing their herd animals in Mongolia. In turn, herd animals are the primary food source for herders in the form of meat and dairy products, feeding and nurturing the herding family. The overall herding principle strives towards a mutual balance across different scales within the body and the ecological food chain, resulting in reciprocal health and well‐being. The powerful medicinal quali…
Nurturing Alternative Futures: Living with Diversity in a More-than-Human World
Developing upon emerging environmental humanities and multispecies anthropological theories, this book provides a fresh perspective on how we might rethink more-than-human relationality and why it is important to "nurture alternative futures." The diverse chapters examine the life trajectories of people, animals, plants, and microbes, their lived experiences and constituted relationality, offering new ways to reinterpret and reimagine a multi-spe…
Mutualisms: An introduction to this issue
Anthropology of mutualism
What might anthropology offer to our understanding of mutualistic relations? In making sense of these interspecies interactions, which, despite some costs, are ultimately beneficial to each partner species, zoological approaches operate at the level of populations on an adaptive scale. Anthropologists bring focus on individual actors and their subjective experiences within far more condensed temporospatial ethnographic timescales. This guest edit…
Hunted animals as Mongolian medicine: The case of the consumption of marmot
Certain animal species have a special place in Mongolian cosmology, particularly those that are hunted as both food and medicine. The article describes herders’ perceptions towards key hunted wild animals with particular focus on the marmot, revealing how certain body parts and organs assist in an improvement of health and wellbeing. What are the perceptions of health and wellbeing amongst the Mongolian herding community in relation to hunted ani…
The Multiple Faces of the Marmot: Associations with the Plague, Hunting, and Cosmology in Mongolia
Mongolians have long known of the association between marmots and the plague. We examine their understanding of the marmot not only as a biological species that can harbour the plague, but also from a cosmological perspective as a chimerical being with potential punishment on hunters who have transgressed ancient taboos. To do so we deconstruct the multiple image of the chimerical marmot in legends, stories, and beliefs. Many Mongolians believe t…
Donald Thomson: Observations of Animal Connections in Visual Ethnography in Northern Australia
Donald Thomson is a legendary Australian anthropologist particularly noted for his early fieldwork in Northern Australia. He lived for extended periods in remote areas in Cape York then Arnhem Land
A sensory approach for multispecies anthropology
This special issue suggests that the need to examine the entangled lives of species, selves and other beings through a multisensory perspective is crucial and timely. Developing on a sensory analysis, one that emerges through what Anna Tsing refers to as the ‘arts of noticing’ (2015), this introductory paper explores how both nonhuman and human lives are intertwined, and how their close examination can guide anthropologists in their ability to ca…
Human‐horse sensory engagement through horse archery
The Mongol horse stems from ancient stock, similar to the first horses ridden on the Central Asian grassland steppe. Mongol horses subsequently migrated with their human counterparts throughout Eurasia, as far to the east as Japan. During archery festivals in Japan, horses gallop along a narrow runway within a temple complex in the heavily populated city of Kyoto. In Mongolia, with the recent re‐emergence of the ancient practice, horse and rider …
Special Section: Multispecies Co-existence in Inner Asia
This special section, "Multispecies Co-existence in Inner Asia," explores the complex relationships between humans, animals, and plants in Inner Asia, challenging traditional understandings of domestication. The introduction, "Resituating Domestication in Inner Asia," by Thomas White and Natasha Fijn, argues for a broader perspective on domestication that moves beyond a focus on control and ownership to consider the diverse ways in which humans a…
The Multiple Being: Multispecies Ethnographic Filmmaking in Arnhem Land, Australia
Ethnographic filmmaking can be an effective way of discovering layers of meaning, in this instance the concept of the “multiple animal,” where a significant animal’s multiplicity is revealed through ceremony and everyday encounters. Here \nwe combine more-than-human sociality and multispecies ethnography with observational filmmaking, in relation to my own filmmaking and the earlier work of Ian \nDunlop, and in collaboration with Yolngu communiti…
A Social Ecology of Stingless Bees
Sugarbag Dreaming: The significance of bees to Yolngu in Arnhem Land, Australia
Bees, with their ability to make sweet tasting honey, have been highly valued across many human cultures spanning thousands of years. In relation to western husbandry techniques, honeybees (Apidae) have been domesticated by humans to produce honey in large quantities for human consumption. The focus of this paper is not on the well-known, widespread honeybee but a close family relative of the Apidae, the smaller, stingless bee (Meliponidae). For …
The Adventure of the Real: Jean Rouch and the Craft of Ethnographic Cinema
A Multi-Species Etho-Ethnographic Approach to Filmmaking
Through the filming of herders and herd animals within a multi-species hybrid community - essentially two herding encampments in Mongolia - I provide an example of an alternative methodological approach to both ethnographic filmmaking and multi-species research. This paper is a call for scholars engaging in the exciting and emerging area of multi-species ethnography to adopt a multisensory, etho-ethnographic approach to filmmaking in the field wi…
Living with Herds: Human-Animal Coexistence in Mongolia
Domestic animals have lived with humans for thousands of years and remain essential to the everyday lives of people throughout the world. In this book, Natasha Fijn examines the process of animal domestication in a study that blends biological and social anthropology, ethology and ethnography. She examines the social behavior of humans and animals in a contemporary Mongolian herding society. After living with Mongolian herding families, Dr Fijn h…
Multimedia Reviews
Tulpan Sergei Dvortsevoy (Director) & Karl Baumgartner (Producer) New York, Zeitgeist Films, 2008 100 min, colour, in Kazakh, 35-mm, aspect ratio 1.85: 1, sound: Dolby digital, DVD Z1119, US$22.49 ...
Introduction: The Power of Vision and Voice
The ways in which film and photographic mediums can be incorporated within ethnography is a continuing challenge for anthropologists. The papers within this special focus on visual anthropology provide different examples of the inclusion of visual components in ethnography from current research at the Australian National University. The visual can be used as a process of enquiry during different phases of anthropological research: as a research t…
Filming the Significant Other: Human and Non-Human
The filming of ‘significant others’ (other cultures or other animals) is subject to different filmmaking styles and generally viewed by different audiences. My research encompasses people from another culture, Mongolian herders, and their engagement with non-human animals, horses, cattle, sheep and goats. A documentary that features human interaction with other animals is unusual, as most ethnographic films focus on the social relationships and d…
A sensory approach for multispecies anthropology
This special issue suggests that the need to examine the entangled lives of species, selves and other beings through a multisensory perspective is crucial and timely. Developing on a sensory analysis, one that emerges through what Anna Tsing refers to as the ‘arts of noticing’ (2015), this introductory paper explores how both nonhuman and human lives are intertwined, and how their close examination can guide anthropologists in their ability to ca…
Sugarbag Dreaming: The significance of bees to Yolngu in Arnhem Land, Australia
Bees, with their ability to make sweet tasting honey, have been highly valued across many human cultures spanning thousands of years. In relation to western husbandry techniques, honeybees (Apidae) have been domesticated by humans to produce honey in large quantities for human consumption. The focus of this paper is not on the well-known, widespread honeybee but a close family relative of the Apidae, the smaller, stingless bee (Meliponidae). For …
Special Section: Multispecies Co-existence in Inner Asia
This special section, "Multispecies Co-existence in Inner Asia," explores the complex relationships between humans, animals, and plants in Inner Asia, challenging traditional understandings of domestication. The introduction, "Resituating Domestication in Inner Asia," by Thomas White and Natasha Fijn, argues for a broader perspective on domestication that moves beyond a focus on control and ownership to consider the diverse ways in which humans a…
Filming the Significant Other: Human and Non-Human
The filming of ‘significant others’ (other cultures or other animals) is subject to different filmmaking styles and generally viewed by different audiences. My research encompasses people from another culture, Mongolian herders, and their engagement with non-human animals, horses, cattle, sheep and goats. A documentary that features human interaction with other animals is unusual, as most ethnographic films focus on the social relationships and d…
A Multi-Species Etho-Ethnographic Approach to Filmmaking
Through the filming of herders and herd animals within a multi-species hybrid community - essentially two herding encampments in Mongolia - I provide an example of an alternative methodological approach to both ethnographic filmmaking and multi-species research. This paper is a call for scholars engaging in the exciting and emerging area of multi-species ethnography to adopt a multisensory, etho-ethnographic approach to filmmaking in the field wi…
Donald Thomson: Observations of Animal Connections in Visual Ethnography in Northern Australia
Donald Thomson is a legendary Australian anthropologist particularly noted for his early fieldwork in Northern Australia. He lived for extended periods in remote areas in Cape York then Arnhem Land
Human‐horse sensory engagement through horse archery
The Mongol horse stems from ancient stock, similar to the first horses ridden on the Central Asian grassland steppe. Mongol horses subsequently migrated with their human counterparts throughout Eurasia, as far to the east as Japan. During archery festivals in Japan, horses gallop along a narrow runway within a temple complex in the heavily populated city of Kyoto. In Mongolia, with the recent re‐emergence of the ancient practice, horse and rider …
The Multiple Being: Multispecies Ethnographic Filmmaking in Arnhem Land, Australia
Ethnographic filmmaking can be an effective way of discovering layers of meaning, in this instance the concept of the “multiple animal,” where a significant animal’s multiplicity is revealed through ceremony and everyday encounters. Here \nwe combine more-than-human sociality and multispecies ethnography with observational filmmaking, in relation to my own filmmaking and the earlier work of Ian \nDunlop, and in collaboration with Yolngu communiti…
Introduction: The Power of Vision and Voice
The ways in which film and photographic mediums can be incorporated within ethnography is a continuing challenge for anthropologists. The papers within this special focus on visual anthropology provide different examples of the inclusion of visual components in ethnography from current research at the Australian National University. The visual can be used as a process of enquiry during different phases of anthropological research: as a research t…
Filming the Significant Other: Human and Non-Human
The filming of ‘significant others’ (other cultures or other animals) is subject to different filmmaking styles and generally viewed by different audiences. My research encompasses people from another culture, Mongolian herders, and their engagement with non-human animals, horses, cattle, sheep and goats. A documentary that features human interaction with other animals is unusual, as most ethnographic films focus on the social relationships and d…
Multimedia Reviews
Tulpan Sergei Dvortsevoy (Director) & Karl Baumgartner (Producer) New York, Zeitgeist Films, 2008 100 min, colour, in Kazakh, 35-mm, aspect ratio 1.85: 1, sound: Dolby digital, DVD Z1119, US$22.49 ...
Living with Herds: Human-Animal Coexistence in Mongolia
Domestic animals have lived with humans for thousands of years and remain essential to the everyday lives of people throughout the world. In this book, Natasha Fijn examines the process of animal domestication in a study that blends biological and social anthropology, ethology and ethnography. She examines the social behavior of humans and animals in a contemporary Mongolian herding society. After living with Mongolian herding families, Dr Fijn h…
A Multi-Species Etho-Ethnographic Approach to Filmmaking
Through the filming of herders and herd animals within a multi-species hybrid community - essentially two herding encampments in Mongolia - I provide an example of an alternative methodological approach to both ethnographic filmmaking and multi-species research. This paper is a call for scholars engaging in the exciting and emerging area of multi-species ethnography to adopt a multisensory, etho-ethnographic approach to filmmaking in the field wi…
The Adventure of the Real: Jean Rouch and the Craft of Ethnographic Cinema
Sugarbag Dreaming: The significance of bees to Yolngu in Arnhem Land, Australia
Bees, with their ability to make sweet tasting honey, have been highly valued across many human cultures spanning thousands of years. In relation to western husbandry techniques, honeybees (Apidae) have been domesticated by humans to produce honey in large quantities for human consumption. The focus of this paper is not on the well-known, widespread honeybee but a close family relative of the Apidae, the smaller, stingless bee (Meliponidae). For …
A Social Ecology of Stingless Bees
The Multiple Being: Multispecies Ethnographic Filmmaking in Arnhem Land, Australia
Ethnographic filmmaking can be an effective way of discovering layers of meaning, in this instance the concept of the “multiple animal,” where a significant animal’s multiplicity is revealed through ceremony and everyday encounters. Here \nwe combine more-than-human sociality and multispecies ethnography with observational filmmaking, in relation to my own filmmaking and the earlier work of Ian \nDunlop, and in collaboration with Yolngu communiti…
A sensory approach for multispecies anthropology
This special issue suggests that the need to examine the entangled lives of species, selves and other beings through a multisensory perspective is crucial and timely. Developing on a sensory analysis, one that emerges through what Anna Tsing refers to as the ‘arts of noticing’ (2015), this introductory paper explores how both nonhuman and human lives are intertwined, and how their close examination can guide anthropologists in their ability to ca…
Human‐horse sensory engagement through horse archery
The Mongol horse stems from ancient stock, similar to the first horses ridden on the Central Asian grassland steppe. Mongol horses subsequently migrated with their human counterparts throughout Eurasia, as far to the east as Japan. During archery festivals in Japan, horses gallop along a narrow runway within a temple complex in the heavily populated city of Kyoto. In Mongolia, with the recent re‐emergence of the ancient practice, horse and rider …
Special Section: Multispecies Co-existence in Inner Asia
This special section, "Multispecies Co-existence in Inner Asia," explores the complex relationships between humans, animals, and plants in Inner Asia, challenging traditional understandings of domestication. The introduction, "Resituating Domestication in Inner Asia," by Thomas White and Natasha Fijn, argues for a broader perspective on domestication that moves beyond a focus on control and ownership to consider the diverse ways in which humans a…
The Multiple Faces of the Marmot: Associations with the Plague, Hunting, and Cosmology in Mongolia
Mongolians have long known of the association between marmots and the plague. We examine their understanding of the marmot not only as a biological species that can harbour the plague, but also from a cosmological perspective as a chimerical being with potential punishment on hunters who have transgressed ancient taboos. To do so we deconstruct the multiple image of the chimerical marmot in legends, stories, and beliefs. Many Mongolians believe t…
Donald Thomson: Observations of Animal Connections in Visual Ethnography in Northern Australia
Donald Thomson is a legendary Australian anthropologist particularly noted for his early fieldwork in Northern Australia. He lived for extended periods in remote areas in Cape York then Arnhem Land
Hunted animals as Mongolian medicine: The case of the consumption of marmot
Certain animal species have a special place in Mongolian cosmology, particularly those that are hunted as both food and medicine. The article describes herders’ perceptions towards key hunted wild animals with particular focus on the marmot, revealing how certain body parts and organs assist in an improvement of health and wellbeing. What are the perceptions of health and wellbeing amongst the Mongolian herding community in relation to hunted ani…
Selcen Küçüküstel, Embracing Landscape: Living with Reindeer and Hunting among Spirits in South Siberia
A mutual ecological approach to health in Mongolia
Herders spend much time and energy seeking pasture and nurturing their herd animals in Mongolia. In turn, herd animals are the primary food source for herders in the form of meat and dairy products, feeding and nurturing the herding family. The overall herding principle strives towards a mutual balance across different scales within the body and the ecological food chain, resulting in reciprocal health and well‐being. The powerful medicinal quali…
Nurturing Alternative Futures: Living with Diversity in a More-than-Human World
Developing upon emerging environmental humanities and multispecies anthropological theories, this book provides a fresh perspective on how we might rethink more-than-human relationality and why it is important to "nurture alternative futures." The diverse chapters examine the life trajectories of people, animals, plants, and microbes, their lived experiences and constituted relationality, offering new ways to reinterpret and reimagine a multi-spe…
Mutualisms: An introduction to this issue
Anthropology of mutualism
What might anthropology offer to our understanding of mutualistic relations? In making sense of these interspecies interactions, which, despite some costs, are ultimately beneficial to each partner species, zoological approaches operate at the level of populations on an adaptive scale. Anthropologists bring focus on individual actors and their subjective experiences within far more condensed temporospatial ethnographic timescales. This guest edit…
Entangled Plumwoods: Stewardship as Grassroots Conservation Humanities
Hundreds of thousands of hectares of bushland and accompanying biodiversity were lost over a few short weeks during the Black Summer fires of 2019–2020 along the east coast of Australia. On the night of 19 December 2019, fire swept up the escarpment from the coast, slowed down with the thick understory of temperate rainforest and burnt through the lower dry sclerophyll forest on Plumwood Mountain. The aftermath of the bare, burnt landscape meant …
Sociology (13 works) · Geography (11 works) · Biology (9 works) · Geographies of human-animal interactions (9 works) · Anthropology (8 works) · Ethnography (8 works) · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology (8 works) · Archaeology (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Ecology (6 works)