Last updated: October 16, 2024
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Meet the Mellon Fellows: Dr. Varpu Lotvonen
Dr. Varpu Lotvonen
University of Alaska, Fairbanks
PhD, Cultural Anthropology
Host Site: Lake Clark National Park and Preserve
Fellowship Title: Dena'ina Traditional Foodways and Their Legacies in Qizhjeh Vena (Lake Clark), Alaska
Project Description: Food and culture are universally interwoven at the center of Dena'ina traditional and modern society. Using traditional stories and narratives, Dr. Lotvonen will examine how landscape, climate, and weather influence traditional foodways at Lake Clark and how recipes and practices transmit that knowledge.
Bio:
Dr. Lotvonen is a cultural anthropologist who recently received her PhD from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. She is a lifelong northerner who grew up in Finnish Lapland but has lived in Alaska for over a decade.
Varpu’s previous research has focused on Northern Sámi nomadic reindeer herding culture in Fennoscandia and more recently, Alaska. In the late 1800s, Northern Sámi individuals from Norway were hired to teach reindeer herding to Alaska Natives. Varpu’s doctoral research on the history and legacies of these Sámi herding instructors explored the interplay of environment and culture, traditional ecological knowledge, transnationality, and contemporary views of the past. Research for her dissertation, "'Ballad of the Laablaaqs:' The Relational Worlds of Sámi Reindeer Herders in Alaska," involved a variety of stakeholders, including Iñupiaq communities in Alaska and Sámi communities in the United States and Norway, and taught her much about relational epistemology, methodology, and the co-production of knowledge.
Varpu received her bachelor's and MA from the University of Helsinki, Finland in Folklore Studies with research about the landscape memories of three Northern Sámi elders. Her other academic activities include prior ethnohistorical research on the cultures of the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve.
Tell us about your research interests!
My research interests are centered on relational epistemology, cultural knowledge, and environmental anthropology. I look forward to expanding my understanding of these themes through the food practices lens. Food-related practices are central to any culture and people’s relations with their environment, making them an exciting topic to study. I was particularly drawn to the Foodways project's holistic emphasis on modern Dena'ina culture, and I look forward to working with community partners. Overall, I am inspired by the notion that culture involves not only resilience and adaptation, but also the purposeful creation of enjoyment and meaning.
How does your research connect to the mission of the National Park Service, which serves both parks and communities?
Alaska's parks were established to preserve some of the astounding areas of the state in perpetuity, and many parks also contain provisions for continued subsistence use of the lands by local residents. My existing knowledge about environmental themes (including various means of subsistence), policy, ethnography, and public scholarship aligns closely with the needs of the Foodways project and promises to contribute to the educational and interpretive goals of the National Park Service.
What are you most excited about as you begin your fellowship?
It is difficult to pick only one thing I am excited about, but I think I am most especially looking forward to getting to know the people I will work with at the Lake Clark communities, the Alaska Regional Office in Anchorage, and my Mellon Fellowship peers. I am also happy to experience a new part of the state. Living in the Interior Alaska has been great, but Alaska is a big and beautiful state, and I am grateful to make another region my home.