Research interests:
Richard is involved in several interrelated projects.
First, he is leading the NORDFORSK-funded, Sustainable Multispecies Relations in the Arctic (SPECIES) (NORDFORSK 2025-2028 – NOK 24 million), with partners in Denmark and Finland.
The project explores seven conflicts surrounding iconic Arctic species in three representative countries: 1) Reindeer, King crabs, and Wild ducks in Norway; 2) Lapland cattle and Baltic seals in Finland; and 3) Polar bears and Muskoxen in Greenland. In each case, we bring together several researchers from diverse fields (anthropology, biology, ecology, technology studies, genetics, audio-visual art) and put them in dialogue with local and/or indigenous stakeholders connected to each site.
Together, they will co-research the conflicts and highlight the similarities and differences between their perspectives, connecting this to different environmental and multi-species ontologies. We will create a framework for the co-creation of knowledge through interdisciplinary co-research, to facilitate the mutual understanding of each conflict, share knowledge across perspectival boundaries, and identify common points of agreement to impact sustainability.
Building upon indigenous and decolonial methodologies, we will host a series of participatory workshops to identify common goals. These will be led by our local and indigenous partners highlighting the relevance of their knowledge and practices for sustainable resource management, while the researchers will show the potential of their findings for local solutions. We will facilitate mobility of researchers and local/indigenous partners between sites to facilitate communication and knowledge exchange adding Arctic, Nordic, and Indigenous Value. In the process, we will build alliances between science, art, and local/indigenous stakeholders to better promote sustainability and encourage more culturally sensitive multi-species relations in the Arctic.
Second, he is leading the JPI-funded, “ArcHeritage: Commodification, Identity, and Revitalisation in the Anthropocene” (JPI Cultural Heritage, Society and Ethics 2023-2026 – NOK 3.1 million), with partners at the University of Aberdeen (David Anderson) and University of Groningen (Maarten Loonen). The project explores the commodity chains of three iconic heritage artefacts in the Arctic: reindeer antler, the conical tent, and walrus ivory. We trace the oral histories and new market and social entanglements of these artefacts across several sites in Sápmi, Canada, and Greenland, linking them to historical pastoralist and hunting lifeways and their transformation over time. In recent years, each artefact has taken a new form within the heritage and tourism industries: reindeer antler as Traditional Chinese Medicine, the conical tent as a fixed tourism dwelling, and walrus ivory as souvenir carvings. They thus tell a wider story of Arctic heritage and the relationship between indigenous producers, consumers, and the market.
For this, he is also leading a Network Project "Heritage making in the Arctic", as part of the Thematic Network on Circumpolar Archives, Folklore and Ethnography (CAFE), funded by UArctic: https://www.uarctic.org/activities/thematic-networks/circumpolar-archives-folklore-and-ethnography-cafe/
Third, he is a researcher in the project, "Arctic Silk Road: Imagining Global Infrastructures and Community Boundaries in Sápmi and the Russian North", led by Dr. Natalia Magnani. This is a project funded by the Research Council of Norway, which follows the imagination of global infrastructures across time and space. We focus on experiences of planning and anticipating constructions along the Arctic Silk Road from China across the Circumpolar North—in Sápmi, along the northern Russian coast, and other connected sites. Furthermore, we examine comparative cases of large-scale infrastructural networks historical and emerging.
For this, he is a Visiting Research Associate at the Arctic Studies Centre at Liaocheng University in China (http://en.asclcu.cn/).
Fourth, he is writing up the results of an AHRC-funded project: “Imaging Minority Culture: Photography, Digital Sharing, and Cultural Survival in Northeast China” (2017-2019). This was a project to research a previously unseen and recently digitised photographic archive of two ethnic minorities in northeast China: the Ethel John Lindgren Collection of Evenki and Orochen communities at the Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Cambridge. The project used the photographs as tools during ethnographic fieldwork amongst contemporary Evenki and Orochen communities, identifying locations, landscapes, and material objects to better understand everyday social life during this formative period in pre-communist China. In addition to working with communities and co-curating an exhibition, the project also documented the process of digital repatriation and sharing and explored their uses by community and state actors in the context of surging interest and investment in 'protecting' minority heritage and culture.
Finally, he is completing a book project: “Skill, Social Change and More-Than-Human Relations in Postsocialist Northern Mongolia”, based on my PhD fieldwork and currently under contract with University of Amsterdam Press.
