Current Research

We are a research group interested in the many complex interactions between the Cryosphere and Climate Change, based in the School of Geosciences at the University of Aberdeen. Our grouping spans diverse aspects of Cryosphere and Climate Change research, including, but not limited to: Cryosphere-Climate Interaction ; Geomorphology and Geochronology ; Palaeoclimate and Palaeoglaciology; Remote Sensing of Cryosphere; and Subglacial Environments .

The Inuksiutit: Food Sovereignty in Nunavut and the co-production of country food knowledge (IFSNu) project sets out to define and implement pathways to food sovereignty applicable to Inuit Nunangat. We are an interdisciplinary team of non-Inuit and Inuit academics, community-based researchers, artists, Inuit Knowledge Holders, Inuit Elders and young people representing different specialisms: country food, Inuit nutrition, public health, epidemiology, social anthropology, Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ), participatory/Indigenous methodologies, curatorial practice, Inuit visual and performing arts.

The project is lead by Dr Nancy Wachowich (University of Aberdeen) and Dr Anna Hudson (York University). Co-investigators include: Rhoda Katsak, Amy Caughey, Laakuluk Williamson-Bathory and Jessica Penney.

The project From the Floe Edge: Visualising Local Sea Ice Change in Kinngait, Nunavut engages with art history, visual studies, scientific analyses, and local knowledge to better understand the relationship between the community and artists in Kinngait with and surrounding sea ice change.

This project is lead by art historian Dr Isabelle Gapp (University of Aberdeen) and hydrologist Dr Sarah Cooley (Duke University), in partnership with the West Baffin Co-operative in Kinngait, Nunavut. From the Floe Edge is funded (2024-26) through a British Academy Knowledge Frontiers International Interdisciplinary Research Project (KF8/230008).

ArcHeritage is the UK component of one of six international projects for the Joint Project Initiative on Cultural Heritage, Society and Ethics. It will run from academic year 2023/24 for three years and aims to explore the commodity chains of three iconic heritage artefacts in the Arctic: reindeer antler, the conical tent, and mammoth and walrus ivory.

The project will 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:

1. reindeer antler as Traditional Chinese Medicine;
2. the conical tent as a fixed tourism dwelling;
3. and ivory as souvenir carvings.

They thus tell a wider story of Arctic heritage and the relationship between indigenous producers, consumers, and the market.

Project Members

• Professor David Anderson, (UK PI) University of Aberdeen
• Maria Nordvall, (UK PhD researcher) University of Aberdeen
• Dr Gro Ween, (UK Associate Project Lead) University of Oslo

• Dr Maarten Loonen, (NL PI) University of Groningen
• Emily Ruiz Puerta, (NL PhD researcher)
• Dr. Cunera Buijs, (NL Associate Project Lead) Wereld Museum Amsterdam

• Dr. Richard Alan Fraser, (NO PI & Project Leader) The Arctic University of Norway (UiT)
• Dr. Tommy Ose, (NO PhD researcher) The Arctic University of Norway (UiT)