Dr. Smith's research focuses on landscapes, place and space, the construction and negotiation of cultural identities, and the politics of representation. She explores these concepts primarily in Ireland, in both historic and contemporary time periods. Spatial relations and material culture are central to her research, thus her work bridges many sub-disciplines: cultural anthropology, ethnohistory, and historical archaeology and reaches out to a broader audience that includes geographers and historians.

Her PhD dissertation entitled "Mapping Meanings: Representing Landscapes and Pasts in 19th Century Ireland", focused on the representation of social landscapes and the construction of competing identities on the colonial maps. Her research explores how the landscape and the past have been shaped by and help to shape the social meanings and social relations of power at the local level.

In keeping with these issues of place and identity, Dr. Smith's current research project, funded by the Social Sciences Research Council of Canada (SSHRD), deals with contemporary concerns of changing identity in Ireland within the European Union, and the results of the new urbanization process in Dublin, Ireland. Her interest is in the spatial marginalization of the new influx of refugees and asylum seekers and their experience with racism in Ireland. Specifically, she focuses on how the Irish State spatially engineers the social experiences of asylum seekers in Direct Provision Accommodation Centres, where they are housed for as long as 3-5 years as they await a decision on their refugee status.

Her teaching, like her research, crosses sub-disciplinary boundaries. She has taught widely across all fields of Anthropology: Introductory courses, theory courses and upper level thematic courses, including "Social Inequality", "Feminist Anthropology" and "Landscape, Place and Culture". In all of these she has emphasized the integrated and holistic nature of anthropological material. She is committed to teaching and mentoring both at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Social/Spatial Mapping of Asylum Seeker Centres in Ireland
As part of the larger project "Articulating Place and Identity: Social and Spatial Exclusion/Inclusion of Asylum Seekers in Ireland" this research maps the location of the State controlled asylum seeker Direct Provision Accommodation Centres across Ireland.
For details click here.

For the past four years, Dr. Bouchard has been conducting research and fieldwork in the Komi Republic in the Russian Federation and  was recently awarded a SSHRC grant to study the French-speaking populations of Prince George and the Peace River Region, Alberta.

Dr. Bouchard states that given his range of interests, he would entertain proposals from students interested in conducting various research topics around the world and in Canada. This would include: an examination of Canada's Russian-speaking populations (Old Believers, Dukhobors, recent immigrants); a study of the Russian-speaking population in Israel; research anywhere in Eastern Europe (the Baltic States, Ukraine, Romania, etc.) or any research proposal examining one of North America's French-speaking populations either in B.C., elsewhere in Canada or anywhere in the world.

At the outset, the research he conducted took for granted the recent invention of nations. However, as new lines of inquiry emerge, he has developed a new theoretical framework for understanding nationhood and other forms of community. Rather than accepting the easy premise that states create nations, he is proposing that other institutions are equally (if not more) important than states in the emergence of national communities. Currently, he is examining the role of the Orthodox Church in the rise of the concept of 'narod' or 'people' in Russian. Other highlights of his research include an examination of graves and the ways in which they are a focus for community among Russians, the concept of the Russian soul and the ways in which this metaphor defines not only Russian nationhood but many others and finally the significance of memorials and museums in defining identity.

Prior to joining UNBC in 1994, Richard Lazenby was an NSERC post-docoral fellow at the University of Guelph, School of Human Biology. His NSERC-funded research areas include primate functional skeletal biology, forensic anthropology, and human ecology and adaptability.

Dr. Lazenby has authored a number of articles in journals, including the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the American Journal of Human Biology, the Journal of Theoretical Biology, The Anatomical Record, the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, Current Anthropology, Investigative Radiology and the Journal of Forensic Sciences. Dr. Lazenby's current research program addresses the origins of human handedness through a comparative study of geometric morphometric variation in the hand skeleton of human and non-human primates.

He is past-President of the Canadian Association for Physical Anthropology, and is a consulting forensic anthropologist for the Office of the Regional Coroner for northern British Columbia, and with the RCMP 'E' Division, attached to the Missing Women's Task Force in Vancouver.

"Man is a wolf to man."     Boris Pasternak 'Dr. Zhivago'

Dr. Rahemtulla is an archaeologist with a wide range of research interests. He has been involved in several archaeological projects throughout the coast and interior of British Columbia, and in Eastern Africa. His current geographic foci are the North Pacific Rim, specifically, British Columbia and Siberia. Topical interests include: archaeological theory; lithic and bone technology; zooarchaeology; complex societies; household archaeology; archaeology of human origins; archaeological resource management; Indigenous Peoples and archaeology; and public archaeology.

Current Projects:

• Ancestral First Nations land-use and settlement patterns between 11,000-5,000 years ago on the central coast of British Columbia. Using newly developed techniques and theoretical frameworks, Farid is examining the stone tool technology at the site of Namu, which is located in Heiltsuk Traditional Territory.
• Use of terrestrial mammal bone in coastal archaeological communities. An examination of the way in which land mammal remains in coastal sites are conceptualised by archaeologists.
• Pebble tools and fish processing. Experimental projects to assess the potential of using pebble tool technology to process salmon.The development of early hominid cognition during the Lower Palaeolithic, based on palaeoenvironmental and archaeologic evidence from Eastern Africa.

Dr. Tripp is a biomedical anthropologist whose primary research area focuses on the demography and health of small scale communities. Using both qualitative and quantitative approaches, her study populations are marginalized colonial settings situated in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Lianne’s research has examined inter and intra-population variation of the disease experience in the Maltese islands and Gibraltar. Working with local historians and medical researchers, she has gained considerable insight into the interplay of social and biological determinants of population health of these Mediterranean communities.

Her areas of interest include infectious diseases and epidemics. As such, her research topics have covered an array of infectious diseases: cholera, influenza, tuberculosis and undulant fever (also known as brucellosis).  While she typically focuses on historical populations that involve archival resources, she has also undertaken contemporary research, conducting interviews on the perception of health and discrimination on various minority groups in Gibraltar.

In 2015 she completed a study, entitled “Colonialism, Culture, and Compliancy: A case study of Undulant Fever,” which addressed the question, why did the undulant fever experiences of Malta and Gibraltar differ drastically despite a known cause? A recent publication (2017) delved into the relationship between economics (the cost of living) and the decline of tuberculosis death rates in 20^th century Malta, along with the exploration of sex, age and urban versus rural differentials in tuberculosis rates.  One concentration of her current research program is an in-depth exploration into commonalities and differences in 1918 influenza pandemic experience across the Maltese islands. Revelations about the role of children as introducers of the virus, and that the gendered role of women as caregivers increase susceptibility to influenza are highlighted. She is also mapping the spread of the virus in Gozo, and exploring the impact of WWI and the 1918 influenza pandemic on birth rates, in particular baby busts and booms.

Building on her previous research on undulant fever on Malta, Lianne is embarking on an in-depth study into the intra-population variation of the disease experience in the Maltese island of Gozo. She is also excited to explore new research avenues on the health of small-scale populations in northern British Columbia.

Dr. Gibson's research explores the cultural aspects of movement - where, why and how people move - while also investigating the material traces of that movement - the roads, paths and places of significance born through that movement. Her ongoing program of research explores the intersection of heritage, identity and movement in two contexts - in British Columbia with the indigenous Stl'atl'imx of the Lower Lillooet River Valley (SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship 2011-2013) and in Cyprus among the people of the Adephi Forest, Cyprus.

Currently a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research fellow (2016-2018) at the University of Glasgow, her community-based participatory research in Cyprus explores the dynamics of heritage formation and its articulation.  To do this she focuses on the heritage of pathways within the Adelphi Forest - what they mean to the local villagers who built, used and maintain(ed) them.  In so doing, she aims to learn more about not only how such attachments are made, but how they might articulate with national and international heritage values.

"Negotiating Space: Routes of Communication in Roman to British Colonial Cyprus"
Read more:  http://theses.gla.ac.uk/271/

Brenda Guernsey is an applied anthropologist who lives and works in northwest British Columbia. After obtaining her MA in Anthropology from the University of Northern BC in 2010, Brenda started a heritage consulting business, Cedarwood Heritage Consulting based in Terrace, BC. Firmly grounded in community based research methods, Brenda employed her anthropological training to work with various communities and community organizations on projects with a culture and heritage aspect. These projects have been diverse, including researching and producing a brochure for tourism, working with local museums to create signage and assist with collections management, working with the Regional District and the City of Terrace to obtain official provincial heritage status for various cultural sites and heritage structures in the region, coordinating projects for local non-profit agencies, one of which included working with the Gila Kyew Nluulk Headstart and Daycare, and Success by Six Northwest to edit and produce seven children’s books based on the heritage of the Kitsumkalum people, with each story adapted from primary archival sources.  These and many other projects over the years demonstrate the wide applicability of anthropological research methods and core concepts.

More recently, Brenda’s applied work has been primarily focussed on heritage research with Kitsumkalum First Nation, a Tsimshian community that she has worked with in a variety of research capacities since 2002. This work has involved overseeing the social history research for the community – research projects that are guided by the community hereditary and Band leadership.  These projects are both grounded in the ethnographic record and in contemporary concerns and community needs.

Brenda is currently pursuing a PhD in Anthropology through the University of Alberta. Building on her MA research which focussed on exploring multiple perceptions of the wilderness landscapes of northern British Columbia through ethnographic research with Kitsumkalum community members, she is researching the societal impacts that result from threats to the security of land and ocean foods that are essential components to the diets and economies of Indigenous people. 

Brenda’s research interests include:  the maintenance of societal structures in times of environmental stress; ‘on the ground’ impacts of institutional policies that alter access to land and ocean foods; changing economic landscapes; disruptions resulting from the industrialization of the land and resources; and contemporary ethnographies and complexities of community based research in a digital world.   Her research has been supported through various grants including a SSHRC grant. Brenda has a number of publications including a chapter in an edited volume and is a co-author on a recent paper published in American Anthropologist.