Socio-Ecosystems as Total Social Facts (II): a Theoretical-Empirical Field Trip to Yellowstone National Park (USA)

July 5-18, 2024

Ellen Hertz

Prof. Ellen Hertz, UNINE

Prof. Tobias Haller, UNIBE

Gordon Ambrosino, director of the Cody 'Center for the West'

Prof. Rob Fletcher, Wageningen University

Prof. Ellen Hertz, UNINE

Prof. Tobias Haller, UNIBE

In this Research Module, students will carry out a collective and targeted field inquiry in one of the world's most famous "socio-ecosystems", Yellowstone National Park, reputed to be the oldest national park in the world and a worldwide "role model" for protected areas via fortress conservation. The fieldtrip will be structured around targeted questions, chosen because they involve a variety of stakeholders, issues and approaches, such as the current controversy surrounding buffalo culling carried out by Native American groups at the behest of the park administration, or the reintroduction of the wolf as a predatory species that was expelled at the same time as the First Nations who possessed and inhabited the area as a commons before the establishment of the park.

Over the course of two weeks, students will: participate in information sessions led by Native American experts of the cultural history of Yellowstone territory (in conjunction with the Plains Indian Museum in Cody, Wyoming); choose one aspect of the problem on which they will carry out exploratory fieldwork or interviewing; pool their data and submit it to collective analysis by the group; and discuss the varying methodological, ontological, epistemological and theoretical frameworks involved, with the aim of producing a short jointly authored research report at the end of the field experience. The module is meant to expose doctoral students to the panoply of histories, perspectives and stakes that characterize voluntary efforts to "preserve pure nature", and to confront them with the many practical, methodological, ethical and conceptual issues they raise, especially the issue of other ontological views of territories as cultural landscapes. While the results of this exercise are necessarily limited in terms of "output", the experience of hands-on collective fieldwork in the company of local experts and professors will provide students with the opportunity to strengthen their technical, conceptual and comparative research skills. It is also an intense and pleasurable chance for continued socialization in the discipline, drawing on a long-standing CUSO tradition of fieldtrips around selected issues and regions.

Prerequisites:

Participation in the preparatory workshop that was held in October 27-28, 2023 is a prerequisite for participation in the field trip.

Special conditions: 

Participating students are asked to contribute to the costs of the module by financing their own flight.

Yellowstone National Park, USA

Prerequisites: 

Participation in the preparatory workshop that was held in October 27-28, 2023 is a prerequisite for participation in the field trip.

Special conditions: 

Participating students are asked to contribute to the costs of the module by financing their own flight.

Participation fee: CHF 100 

For students of the CUSO universities (Geneva, Lausanne, Neuchâtel and Fribourg) and from the universities of Bern, Zürich, Luzern, Basel and St. Gallen, accommodation and meals are organised and covered by the CUSO doctoral program in anthropology. 

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