Under foot, earth turns: practical mastery and the Evenki experience of place

Speaker: Pablo Fernandez Velasco

Registration: https://rin.org.uk/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1638518&group=

The present work explores the link between navigational processes and the experience of place by considering the case of Evenki reindeer herders and hunters. I build on my ethnographic fieldwork as well as on the analysis of previously existing research within anthropology, phenomenology, and psychology. The Evenki, a Tungusic people spread over northern Asia, are renowned for their hunting and navigational skills. Ethnographers have also highlighted the particularities of the Evenki experience of place, which is characterised by a pervading sense of freedom within an alive and responsive environment. The present analysis shows how the idiosyncratic wayfinding methods of the Evenki result in a unique experience of place — a case that elucidates the important question of the impact of navigational processes on environmental experience.

Bio: Pablo Fernández is pursuing his research on the phenomenology of disorientation at Institut Jean Nicod (ENS, EHESS, CNRS), and he is a visitor at the Spatial Cognition Lab of University College London. The focus of his work is on how space structures human experience. He specialises in spatial cognition and in phenomenology. He follows an interdisciplinary approach, actively collaborating with neuroscientists, architects, geographers and anthropologists.