Anthropologists in Kamchatka

If you are a scholar working in Kamchatka on a topic related to indigenous people, please send me a note (webmaster(AT)koryaks.net). I love to meet new colleagues, and I am looking for future opportunities for collaborative work.

Jonathan Bobaljik at the University of Connecticut is a linguist working on the Itel'men language. Email: bobaljik(AT)alum.mit.edu

Valentina R. Dedyk is a native-speaking Koryak linguist teaching at the Palana Pedagogical School. She is now finishing on her dissertation on Koryak noun formation at Herzen University in St. Petersburg. Phone: 7 (41543) 31-8-79. Email: vochanga(AT)rambler.ru

Tatiana Degai is an Itelmen woman and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Arizona. She is working on methodologies for language revitalization. Email: tatiana.s.degai(AT)gmail.com

Michael Dunn is an Australian linguist, and was at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, Netherlands. His Ph.D. was a grammar of Chukchi and he is currently working on the languages of the Solomon Islands. Email: Michael.Dunn(AT)mpi.nl

Michael Fortescue is Professor of Linguistics, Emeritus, working on the Chukotko-Kamchatkan group. He edited the historical dictionary of Chukotko-Kamchatkan. Email: fortesq(AT)hum.ku.dk.

Andrew Gerkey is a Research Fellow at the University of Washington. He is working on the economics of reindeer herding and salmon fishing by small collectives. (Email: gerkey(AT)u.washington.edu)

Erika Golz is a linguist interested in typology and discourse analysis. She is working mostly on Chavchuven dialects of Koryak. (Email: Erika.Golz(AT)web.de).

Katharina Gernet studies Even culture in Central Kamchatka. She has been working on community development projects in education, reindeer herding, and medical services, and now she is at the Max Plank Siberian Centre. (Email: gernet(AT)prosibiria.de)

Nelson Hancock is Associate Professor at the Pratt Institute. His Ph.D. analyzed the relationship between native peoples and use of natural resources on Kamchatka, as well as Kamchadal people's fight for recognition as a native ethnicity. (Email: nelson_hancock(AT)hotmail.com)

Erich Kasten is an anthropologist and independent consultant. He has an extensive web site devoted to his research, which includes Itel'men people and Native Americans of the northwest coast of America. (Email:kasten(AT)snafu.de)

Alexander King is author of this site and senior lecturer in the Anthropology Department at the University of Aberdeen. My email is in the footer of every page.

David Koester works with the Itel'men of central Kamchatka. He teaches anthropology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. (Email: dckoester(AT)alaska.edu)

Megumi Kurebito is a professor at Toyama University in Japan, working on Koryak language. She has been doing fieldwork on the Chavchuven dialect since 1993, mainly in Severo-Evensk Raion.(Email:Kurebito(AT)hmt.toyama-u.ac.jp)

Highest concentration of Macintoshes on Kamchatka! Photo by Christina Kincaid, July 1995, from left: Viktoria Petrasheva and granddaughter Tanya, David Koester, Jennifer Sidon, Alexander King. We are assembled in the living room of Petrasheva's Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky apartment. David is showing Vika and Tanya how to use the Apple Powerbook he recently brought for their use. Jennifer is working on an oral history project she is recording for David, and I am trying to check my email.

Kazuto Matsumura is a linguist at the University of Tokyo with research interests in languages of Euraisa, especially Siberian and Finno-Ugraic languages. His website includes publications and a great bibliography of Siberian and other languages. (Email: kmatsum(AT)tooyoo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp)

Ol'ga Murashko is a senior researcher at Moscow State University. She works with Itel'men and other indigenous people in southern Kamchatka and is active in fighting for indigenous people's rights. Email: olga(AT)murkre.msk.ru

Yukari Nagayama is a linguist working on the Nymylan-Alutor language. She has done extensive fieldwork throughout Kamchatka. Email: nagayama.yukari(AT)gmail.com] http://www007.upp.so-net.ne.jp/alutor/top.html

Chikako Ono is a linguist working at the University of Tokyo. She is interested in the grammatical description (morpho-syntax) of Itelmen, especially the northern dialect spoken in the village of Sedanka (and also Tigil). Email: chono(AT)tooyoo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Viktoria Petrasheva is an Itel'men philosopher and ethnographer. She works at the Geography Institute of the Pacific in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. She often hosts anthropologists from Moscow and abroad as they pass through Petropavlovsk on their way to various destinations around the peninsula. Especially in the summer, one can find a varied assembledge of international scholars camping in Petrasheva's living room for several days. Viktoria does not do email, but she can be reached through her granddaughter Tatiana Degai, lised above.

Patrick Plattet is Assitant Professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. His general interest falls under the anthropology of religion in Kamchatka. He has studied Koryak traditional ritual and belief as well as Christians. (Email: pplattet(AT)alaska.edu)

Petra Rethmann is a professor at McMaster University. Her book is on Koryak women's lives in Karaginsky District. She has made several field trips along the northeastern coast of the peninsula, but is no longer working on Kamchatkan ethnography currently. Email: rethman(AT)mcmaster.ca

Theodore Schurr is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is working on human population genetics and evolutionary medicine. His research includes Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East, as well as Kamchatka. Email: tgschurr(AT)sas.upenn.edu

Andrew Spencer is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Essex. He is interested in agreement in Chukchi, and has published on that subject. Web page: http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~spena Email: spena(AT)essex.ac.uk

Alevtina Zhukova (left) is a linguist and chair of the Department of Paleoasiatic Languages at Herzen University, St. Petersburg. Her extensive research on Koryak language has resulted in numerous publications, including several books listed in the linguistic bibliography. In December 1995 the Koryak Autonomous Region awarded her the Stebnitsky Prize for lifetime service to Koryak culture.

The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle an der Saale, Germany has a website covering the work of its Siberia Project Group, 2000-2002. Siberian anthropology is continuing at the MPI for Social Anthropology through the activities of the Siberian Centre, which is coordinated by Otto Haebeck.

The Department of Linguistics in the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology has researchers working on Siberian and Alaskan languages, but not on Kamchatkan languages directly.

Page Date: 23 April 2013