RESEARCH PROJECTS

NOMADS

Living one's life fully on the move is hard to fathom for those who live a settled life. This Northern Nomadland I know seems to thrive thanks to a deep sense of freedom. Based on my experience of staying with Nenets pastoralists throughout all seasons and fulfilling the everyday roles of a reindeer herder I have tried to understand how the nomads' lifeworld differs from that of a sedentary one.

RELIGIOUS CONVERSION

The anthropologist Robert Hefner has said that religious conversion is one of the "most enduring of the great transformations that have given us our world”. As many of my tundra friends have gone through this experience, I have tried to make sense of the major religious shift on our planet, where animist cosmologies have come systematically under attack by authoritarian forms of monotheism.

SILENT COMMUNICATION

More elusive forms of communication are often not documented because they are hard for outsiders to notice. Staying with host families for lengthy periods over the years has allowed me to access the most intimate layers of communication that pass between them, as well as with outsiders such as missionaries, businessmen and state agents.