Royal Anthropological Institute

ABSTRACT Treating Indigenous Peoples as equal participants in decision making requires that groups be prepared to work together in mutually respectful ways. Here, we draw on interviews with Indigenous and non-Indigenous fisheries professionals working for Indigenous fisheries agencies and organizations around the Laurentian Great Lakes (in Canada and the United States) to hear their perspectives on relevant training and learning opportunities that could be helpful to individuals preparing to work in such roles and contexts. We note that participants, most of whom were trained in Western academic institutions and the majority of which were themselves non-Indigenous, felt largely underprepared coming into their roles. We found that the most useful learning opportunities were acquired through mentorship and lived experience on the job. We share reflections on the importance of readiness and training that emerged from the interviews that are useful for individuals who are employed by, or who work in collaboration with, Indigenous groups, such as Indigenous fisheries agencies and organizations. These reflections include a desire for more training on Indigenous history, issues, and culture, which are useful for future fisheries professionals no matter their employer. However, participants also described how personal behaviors, such as genuine intentions, respect, openness, and honesty, are necessary to translate learning into meaningful action. Collectively, the outcomes from this study have the potential to transform not only formal educational opportunities and professional development, especially for non-Indigenous people wishing to work with and for Indigenous Nations, but also set expectations for individual responsibilities and reframe the way in which Indigenous knowledge systems are bridged with Western science and treated by all fisheries professionals.

The escalating climate crisis increasingly challenges theology to engage with ecological issues through contextual and inclusive approaches. While dominant eco-theological discourse often reflects Western paradigms, local cosmologies that embody ecological wisdom remain underrepresented. The study aimed to examine traditional beliefs as an eco-theological force for sustainability by reinterpreting Mori Keraéng, a Divine figure in Manggarai cosmology, through dialogue with Catholic eco-theology. The research employed a qualitative ethnographic method, using in-depth interviews and participant observation in historically and culturally significant villages in Manggarai and East Manggarai, involving traditional leaders, community heads, and local residents. The findings reveal that traditional practices such as ritual offerings, communal land management, and ecological taboos embody a living ecological ethic that restrains exploitation, fosters balance, and strengthens resilience against environmental degradation. These practices demonstrate that traditional spirituality functions not as a relic of the past, but as an active and transformative resource for sustaining life. The study affirms that local cosmologies, when theologically reinterpreted, can enrich Catholic ecological theology, contribute to global eco-theological discourse, and inspire sustainable practices to rebuild human-nature relations in the Anthropocene era.

The Liangzhu culture, which emerged in the mid-Holocene Yangtze Delta, established one of East Asia's earliest cities. At its core site, Liangzhu, numerous worked human bones were unearthed from canal and moat deposits. These remains date from 5000 to 4550cal BP, with a concentration between 4800 and 4600cal BP. One notable characteristic of the worked human bones is the high proportion of unfinished items. This suggests that the bones selected for working may not have been particularly rare or symbolically privileged materials. In light of this, it is necessary to consider not only the possibility-commonly seen in global cases of worked human remains-that the bones came from ancestors or close kin, but also the possibility that the working was carried out with different intentions, possibly unrelated to ancestor worship. As the practice persisted for over 200 years, it appears to have been culturally embedded. The sudden appearance of such items-absent in earlier Neolithic China-may be closely related to Liangzhu's urban nature. Population growth and increasing social complexity may have altered interpersonal relationships, reshaping social and cultural views of "others" and the dead. These transformations likely formed the background for the emergence of practices involving the use of human bones as raw materials.

This article presents the outcomes of studies on some health practices in the district of Xonin (Governador Valadares - Brazil), having in mind an anthropological report commissioned by the Special Public Health Service (SESP) in 1951. The interdisciplinary theoretical tools of the Critical Biocultural Approach (CBA) and Medical Anthropology were the instruments for the dialogue with Territorial Studies, grounded on the concept of body-territory, having as purpose to understand the physicians-patient interaction. The report revealed, on the part of the “SESP” physicians, a certain lack of understanding of the corporeality centered on the body-territory experienced in Xonin in relation to medical practices. From this perspective, the commissioned report views the care provided by SESP to be a failure, due to the behavior of the patients. Having CBA as approach allowed to get a deep insight into the relevance of an interdisciplinary perspective and understand it in a more comprehensive way, having as start point the concept of body-territory, elements related to the permanence, changes, successes and failures of some health practices.

ABSTRACT In North America, an increasing number of youth city councils have been created since the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was ratified in 1989. These councils facilitate and encourage youth participation within cities. This paper presents the case study of the Commission Jeunesse Gatineau (CJG), the oldest city youth council in the French-speaking province of Québec, whose members are aged 13 to 17. This youth council presents itself as a school of citizenship education. The data show that this initiative recognizes youth’s agency and political citizenship through a diversity of democratic citizenship approaches: (1) liberal, (2) deliberative, (3) participative, and (4) critical. Above all, we demonstrate how youth socialize through contentious politics. The data show that the CJG is an environment for young people to broaden their repertoire of actions and knowledge related to social issues while developing their critical-thinking skills and political actions.

Anthropogenic climate change is rapidly altering high mountain environments, including changing the frequency, dynamic behavior, location, and magnitude of alpine mass movements. In this project, we gathered literture (∼1995 to 2024, 335 studies) that have leveraged observational records from the European Alps and review (a) to what degree changes in the frequency, magnitude, dynamic behavior, or location of alpine mass movements can be detected in observational records, and (b) whether detected changes be attributed to climate change and are clear enough to improve hazard management at regional scales. We focused our analysis on the mass movements that are most common in the European Alps, namely rockfall, rock avalanches, debris flows, ice and snow avalanches. We found that the clearest climate-controlled trends are (i) an increased rockfall frequency in high-alpine areas (due to higher temperatures), (ii) fewer and smaller snow avalanches due to scarcer snow conditions in low- and subalpine areas, and (iii) a shift towards avalanches with more wet snow. There is (iv) a clear increase in debris-flow triggering precipitation, but this increase is only partly reflected in debris-flow activity. The trends for (v) ice avalanches are spatially very variable without a clear direction. Quantifying the impact of climate change on these mass movements remains difficult in part due to the complexities of the natural system, but also because of limitations in the available datasets, confounding effects and the limits of existing statistical processing techniques.