Faculty from the University of Northern British Columbia have successfully attracted federal funding from a national granting council focused on research in the humanities and social sciences. Much of the research focuses on important environmental, social, and cultural issues of the North.

new Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grants

Margaret Anderson (First Nations Studies) is the principal investigator on a three-year project with several other scholars to work on oral history texts that were originally written by William Beynon, a Tsimshian researcher who worked for a number of museums and anthropologists between 1950 and 1954. Lexical and grammatical information from texts selected from Beynon's 10,000 pages of field notes will be incorporated into a 'talking dictionary' database. Audio recordings of the completed texts will be recorded by fluent speakers of the language.

Neil Hanlon (Geography) is looking at the experiences of health care restructuring in northern BC. In particular, he is examining how the territorial re-structuring of the health regions and the creation of the Northern Health Authority is affecting administration, community-based care, and service delivery at local levels. The research will also assess how changes in health care relate to broader economic and social changes underway in various communities throughout the region.

Kevin Hutchings (English) will explore how Romantic-period literature about New World landscapes and cultures (c. 1780-1850) is still informing modern-day views of nature and associated cultural and environmental practices. "By investigating the literary and historical contexts that have helped to produce Western views of nature, we can clarify the continuing relationship between Romanticism and contemporary environmental management," says Dr Hutchings.

Don Munton (International Studies) is conducting a three-year study of "conflict triangles" in the Canada-US relationship, cases where Canada's relations with the United States have been significantly strained by international events. The cases include the current war against Iraq, as well as the Gulf War, the problem of Cuba since the 1960s, and the Korean War. Such "conflict triangles" are recurring phenomena in the post-World War II Canadian-American relations and affect not only bilateral relations but also Canadian security and Canada's role internationally.

Sanjay Nepal (Resource Recreation and Tourism) will examine the effects of national policies on local attitudes and public participation in biodiversity conservation in the Nepalese Himalayas. Research will examine strategies for biodiversity conservation - when, how, and under what conditions these strategies work or fail. Two conservation areas in the mountains and a national park in the subtropical lowlands are included in the study.

Among small universities in Canada, UNBC is one of the most active for research in the social sciences.