Arts & Humanities, Faculty Profile, People today, Analysis
May perhaps 15, 2023
About
Name
Fiona P. McDonald
Role
Assistant Professor
Program
Anthropology
Department:
Local community, Society and Worldwide Experiments
Faculty
Irving K. Barber College of Arts and Social Sciences
Campus
Okanagan (Kelowna, BC)
Training
PhD, Anthropology, University University London
Graduate Diploma, Māori Reports, University of Auckland
Learn of Arts, History of Artwork, Structure, and Visible Tradition, College of Alberta
Bachelor of Arts, College of Alberta
Hometown
Sturgeon County, Alberta
“I model collaboration with the intention of producing a room for junior colleagues and graduate college students to see and, far more importantly, encounter it as frequently as probable.”
THE ITCHY Heat OF A WOOLLEN BLANKET. Birds peeping beside a trickling creek. For Dr. Fiona P. McDonald, these sensory experiences—touch, sight and sound—are important websites for her research in cultural anthropology.
Dr. McDonald, an Assistant Professor in Neighborhood, Society and World Scientific studies at UBC Okanagan, followed woollen blankets on her journey to becoming a visible anthropologist. She initially noticed the Hudson’s Bay Corporation position blanket on a glass negative in the archives. Unfamiliar with these blankets, Dr. McDonald examined archives all around the world and has since used a lot more than a 10 years wanting at the numerous areas further than the archive exactly where the actual physical woollen blankets have been moved from art galleries to museums, from sacred ceremonies to craft markets.
“This is a deeply problematic commodity that has triggered intensive debate and distrust,” claims Dr. McDonald. “The Hudson’s Bay blankets have been initially built by the Weavers of Witney in England, but the blankets turned trade commodities in colonial settler areas.”
https://www.youtube.com/check out?v=HkRmmfI6xmQ
When she traced equivalent woollen blankets to Aotearoa (New Zealand), she uncovered how Māori weavers utilised the red wool from blankets to swap the feathers of the now-endangered kākāpō birds that had been initially made use of for sacred cloaks. When she was in southeast Alaska, collaborating with the Sealaska Heritage Institute, she witnessed how woollen blankets have come to be standard robes in Tlingit regalia.
In her current ebook venture, Dr. McDonald examines how Indigenous artists and makers in Canada, the United States, and New Zealand have reworked woollen blankets into anti-colonial art, craft and clan home.
Dr. McDonald’s fascination in content culture extends outside of textiles to the materiality of audio and other senses. She co-launched the Collaborative + Experimental Ethnography Lab (CE2 Lab) at UBCO, a critical study lab unparalleled in Canada for sensory ethnography. The CE2 Lab is a internet site of collaboration amongst Dr. McDonald, local community companions and other teams on campus.
For instance, one particular lab task will involve sensory storytelling by generating digital tools that use artwork for immersive casual science finding out. In a pilot venture in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Dr. McDonald and her collaborator Dr. Benjamin Working day Smith worked with elementary college students to history seems of drinking water in their daily life. The undertaking taught college students to edit the audio they collected, and with specialized software package that Dr. McDonald and Dr. Smith developed, the college students produced immersive audio environments.
“My precedence is learning via collaboration and producing space for dynamic approaches of pondering with our senses, and not just about them.”
This operate is element of Dr. McDonald’s bigger attempts close to addressing the Anthropocene in her exploration she also co-posted An Anthropocene Primer, a born-electronic, open obtain publication that connects folks to scholarly functions, pursuits and know-how throughout disciplines to how we imagine, stay and have an understanding of local climate justice.
Dr. McDonald is presently performing with UBCO’s Dr. Jeannette Armstrong to develop a new collection for Nsyilxcn language operates. She feels honoured to do the job with know-how keepers by means of her study and editorial work. And this sentiment carries ahead to the regard she has to stay and function on unceded ancestral Syilx territory. Not only is she thrilled to bring her worldwide encounter to UBCO’s various campus, but the Okanagan’s obtain to mother nature is also a large attract, letting Dr. McDonald to snowshoe in the wintertime and swim in the summer. She incorporates nature into her investigation and teaching as very well, frequently bringing her college students to Quail Flume Path in the vicinity of campus for sensory going for walks experiments recognized as anthropocenoscapes.
As an early-occupation researcher, Dr. McDonald’s priority is “learning by means of collaboration and building room for dynamic techniques of wondering with our senses and not just about them.
“I product collaboration with the intention of building a area for junior colleagues and graduate students to see and, far more importantly, practical experience it as often as possible.”
