Nov 2024: Chapter by Peter Schweitzer in the Anthropos Special Issue “The Seasonal and the Material”

Anthropos, the international journal of anthropology and linguistics, has just released the special issue “The Seasonal and the Material: Anthropology of Seasonal Practices,” co-edited by Sabina Cveček and Barbara Horejs. Among its contributions is a book chapter by Peter Schweitzer, titled “Seasons and Seasonality in the (Alaskan) Arctic: Human and More-than-human Cycles of Engagement.”

In this chapter, Schweitzer provides insights from his fieldwork of the last 30+ years and a literature review (focusing on Alaska) going back to Marcel Mauss’ Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo. The abstract reads:

While one could argue that life is always and everywhere seasonal and characterized by rhythms that change over the course of a year, the Arctic provides a very vivid illustration of that statement. Unlike tropical and moderate zones of the globe, the High North (like uninhabited Antarctica) oscillates between polar day and night, thereby providing extreme living conditions for plants, animals, and humans. Climate change research has added to that narrative by documenting significant shifts in Arctic ecosystem seasonality in recent years. However, the question remains whether human individuals and societies mirror these shifts. In other words, what is the relationship between social and environmental seasonal cycles in the Arctic?

The book chapter is open access and can be read online here. The contributions in this book were originally presented at a session at VANDA: Vienna Anthropology Days 2022, organized by the editors in Vienna.