of Victoria
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PhD (UVic)
Northwest Coast archaeology, ethnoecology, historical ecology, community-based participatory research, heritage conservation of sacred sites and places.
I am an ethnoecologist and archaeologist. I work in collaboration with First Nations communities to understand the deep history of social and ecological relationships between past peoples and their environments.
My research is multi-disciplinary and collaborative, bolstered by indigenous experts in traditional knowledge, other archaeologists, ecologists, geographers, ethnobotanists, and other specialists. It is through these and other methodological and theoretical approaches that I approach how people, plants, animals, and places have interacted with one another in myriad ways through time. My principle areas of research are on the Central and Southern British Columbia Coast. For example, in partnership with the Songhees First Nation and elder Sellemah/Joan Morris, we are working together to understand the deep human and ecological history of Tl’ches (Chatham and Discovery Islands). This complex and robust human and environmental record is a legacy of millennia of sustainable Indigenous inhabitation and management.