January 22nd from
3:00 PM – 5:00 PM EST we will broadcast a live stream of the keynote talk and a roundtable discussion. Originally scheduled to occur in Whitehorse, YT in August of 2020, we’ve moved to a virtual format in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The workshop, hosted by Sean Kheraj and NiCHE, will consist of a keynote talk and a moderated roundtable discussion focusing on the histories of human-animal relations and border-crossings in Northern North America.
Migration, Old Crow, YT. Photo by Jon Luedee.
This workshop explores the complicated and complex histories of human and nonhuman animals in the Northern borderlands. Animals transcend borders, whether it be caribou migration across international and territorial boundaries, migratory birds flying from South America to the Arctic coast, or salmon spawning up streams bifurcated by political borders. Nevertheless, the political jurisdictions through which these animals move are not inconsequential to their lives, or to their relationships with humans, which simultaneously transcends and are circumscribed by borders. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, participants consider the roles borders have played in shaping human-animal relationships in the Northern region of North America both past and present. We believe that the lived experiences of the North contributes a unique perspective to scholarship on borderlands and animal studies, and through the questions posed in this workshop, we can complicate previous scholarly understandings of northern animal histories.