Dr Natasha Fijn
Areas of expertise
- Social And Cultural Anthropology 160104
- Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Environmental Knowledge 050201
- Visual Cultures 190104
- Animal Behaviour 060801
- Studies Of Asian Society 169903
- Agricultural And Veterinary Sciences Not Elsewhere Classified 079999
- History And Philosophy Of Medicine 220205
Research interests
Visual anthropology, visual culture research, observational filmmaking, natural history filmmaking, animal studies, ecological humanities, environmental humanities, animal domestication, Mongolia, Yolngu in Arnhem Land, Indigenous Ecological Knowledge, Ethnomedicine, Mongolian Medicine, multispecies ethnography
Biography
Natasha Fijn is an ethnographic researcher and observational filmmaker based at the ANU Mongolia Institute. Her ongoing interest is in cross-cultural perceptions and attitudes towards other animals; as well as the use of the visual, particularly observational filmmaking, as an integral part of her research. Her ethnographic fieldwork has been based in the Khangai Mountains of Mongolia and Arnhem Land in northern Australia, involving engagement with human-animal relations and concepts of domestication.
She was awarded a Fejos Fellowship in Ethnographic Film, funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation to make a film 'Two Seasons: multispecies medicine in Mongolia' during 2017. She was a research fellow within an international team ‘Domestication in the Era of the Anthropocene’ at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Oslo in 2016. Earlier, she held a College of the Arts and Social Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the ANU (2011-2014). Part of this project 'Encountering Animals' included the making of a film 'Yolngu Homeland' (2015). She has edited a number of themed issues on visual anthropology and observational filmmaking. A monograph, ‘Living with Herds: human-animal coexistence in Mongolia’ was published by Cambridge University Press in 2011 and was recently released in paperback.
Researcher's projects
Mongolian Medicine: the transfer of different modes of multispecies knowledge (2016- )
Mongolian herding communities have developed unique forms of multispecies medical knowledge: taking the human family, the extended family of herd animals and the surrounding ecology as a basis. This knowledge across species is still practiced today and contributes to the health and wellbeing of local nomadic herding communities. Our project aims to investigate Mongolian medical practices in humans and other animals through the lens of One Health, employed within biomedicine and veterinary sciences, in conjunction with a multispecies approach gaining momentum within the social sciences. We are investigating how Mongolian communities have perceived cross-species illness and disease over time and how Mongolian medicinal knowledge supplements biomedical knowledge. Through observations and interviews with herding communities and medical practitioners, in conjunction with text based studies, our interdisciplinary team is exploring how multispecies knowledge is conveyed across generations, how such an approach may have changed over time and the foundations for this knowledge.
We have three key aims for this project:
1) A focus on how knowledge of Mongolian medicine is transmitted within different local settings (herding communities, local clinics, Buddhist monasteries, hospitals).
2) Initiating scholarship on Mongolian medicine, which breaks down species boundaries, across the borders of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, China.
3) Bringing an interdisciplinary team from the social sciences and the biosciences into collaboration with one another to investigate the Mongolian medical perspective relating to the concept of One Health and to contribute toward a comprehensive knowledge of multispecies medicine.
Encountering Animals: connections between Yolngu and significant animals in Arnhem Land (2011-2014)
Over millennia, Aboriginal Australians from Arnhem Land have lived in distinctive ways with animals, developing intertwined histories during an exceptionally long period of engagement. Northeast Arnhem Land is home to Yolngu, who live in remote communities and on country that is remarkably ecologically intact in comparison with other parts of coastal Australia. The 'Encountering Animals' project encompassed observational filmmaking and the use of other visual material as research tools. Natasha investigated social, cultural and ecological relationships between individual Yolngu and significant animals, such as the crocodile, honeybee, dog/dingo and snake. One outcome of the project was a documentary, Yolngu Homeland: living with ancestral beings' (2016, 58 mins). Ultimately the intention was to provide a greater insight into Yolngu world view with regard to animals.
Publications
- Fijn, N 2018, 'Dog Ears and Tails: different relational ways of being in Aboriginal Australia and Mongolia', in Swanson, H; Ween, G. & Lien, M (ed.), Domestication Gone Wild: politics and practices of multispecies relations, Duke University Press, Durham and London, pp. 72-93.
- Fijn, N & Baynes-Rock, M 2018, 'The Social Ecology of Stingless Bees', Human Ecology, vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 207-216.
- Fijn, N 2017. 'Encountering the Horse: Initial reactions of Aboriginal Australians to a domesticated animal', Australian Humanities Review, vol. 62, no. 1, pp. 1-25.
- Fijn, N 2017, Comment: 'Animal autonomy and intermittent coexistences: North Asian modes of herding', Current Anthropology, vol. 58, pp. 73-74.
- Fijn, N 2016, 'A Shadow Place: Plumwood Mountain', The Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1-8pp..
- Fijn, N 2015 (60 mins, film). Yolngu Homeland: an observational film about connections with other beings and the land, Ronin Films, Canberra.
- Fijn, N 2014, 'Impact on the Kings Highway', Plumwood Mountain: An Australian Journal of Ecopoetry and Ecopoetics, https://plumwoodmountain.com/photo-essay-by-natasha-fijn/
- Fijn, N & MacDougall, D (eds.) 2014, 'Forum: Delhi at Eleven: Four Films by School Children in Delhi - Critical Appreciations', The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. pp.453-479.
- Fijn, N. 2016. Review: ‘The Biggest Estate on Earth: how Aborigines made Australia’ Philosophy, Activism, Nature.11: 105-106.
- Fijn, N 2015, 'The domestic and the wild in the Mongolian horse and the takhi', in Alison M. Behie and Marc F. Oxenham (ed.), Taxonomic Tapestries: The Threads of Evolutionary, Behavioural and Conservation Research, ANU Press, Canberra, Australia, pp. 279-298.
- Fijn, N 2014. 'Sugarbag Dreaming: the significance of bees to Yolngu in Arnhem Land, Australia', Humanimalia, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 41-61. Available at: http://www.depauw.edu/site/humanimalia/issue%2011/fijn.html
- Fijn, N. 2013. ‘Living with crocodiles: an alternative perspective on engagement with a reptilian being’ Animal Studies Journal, vol. 2, no. 2: 1-23. Available at: http://ro.uow.edu.au/asj/vol2/iss2/2/
- Fijn, N. 2013. Review: ‘The Adventure of the Real: Jean Rouch and the craft of ethnographic cinema’ The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 14(4): 385-388.
- Fijn, N. & Nelson, X. 2013. 'The use of visual media as a tool for investigating animal behaviour', Animal Behaviour, vol. 85, no. 3, pp. 525-536.
- Fijn, N & Deveson, P 2012, 'Preface: Perspectives on Ethnographic Film', Humanities Research, vol. Vol XVIII, no. 1, pp. 1-3.
- Fijn, N 2012, 'A Multi-Species Etho-Ethnographic Approach to Filmmaking', Humanities Research, vol. Vol XVIII, no. 1, pp. 71-88.
- Fijn, N, Keen, I, Lloyd, C et al, (eds), 2012, Indigenous Participation in Australian Economies II: historical engagements and current enterprises', ANU E Press, Canberra.
- Fijn, N. 2011. 'Living with Herds: human-animal coexistence in Mongolia', Cambridge University Press, New York.
- Fijn, N. 2009. 'Multimedia review: Tulpan'. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology.
- Bexley, A & Fijn, N. (eds) 2007. 'Special Issue: Visual Anthropology'. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology.
- Bexley, A. & Fijn. N. (Guest Editors) 2007. 'Introduction: The Power of Vision and Voice', Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 279-285.
- Fijn, N. 2007. 'Filming the Significant Other: human and non-human', Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 297-307.
- Fijn, N. 2007. 'A review of Graham Harveys Animism: Respecting the Living World'. Australian Humanities Review 42.
- Fijn, N. 2007. 'Pukeko: Nature Kids'. In: The Reed Treasury of New Zealand Childrens Books (hardback). Reed, Auckland, 205-213.
- Gajdon, G. K., Fijn, N., Huber, L. 2006. 'Limited spread of innovation in a wild parrot, the kea (Nestor notabilis)'. Animal Cognition, 9: 173-181.
- Fijn, N. 2005. 'Pukeko: Nature Kids'. Raupo Publishing (NZ) Ltd, Auckland.
- Fijn, N. 2005. 'Pukeko: New Zealand Birds'. Raupo Publishing (NZ) Ltd, Auckland.
- Gajdon, G. K., Fijn, N., Huber, L. 2004. 'Evaluating social learning beyond stimulus enhancement in a population of wild kea, Nestor notabilis'. Learning & Behaviour, 32: 62-71.
- Fijn, N. 2003. 'Kea: New Zealand Birds'. Reed, Auckland.
- Jackson, R. R., Pollard, S. D., Li, D., Fijn, N. 2002. 'Interpopulation variation in the risk-related decisions of Portia labiata, an araneophagic jumping spider (Araneae, Salticidae), during predatory sequences with spitting spiders'. Animal Cognition, 5: 215-223.
- Jackson, R. R., Li, D., Fijn, N., Barrion, A. 1998. 'Predator-prey interactions between aggressive-mimic jumping spiders (Salticidae) and araneophagic spitting spiders (Scytodidae) from the Philippines'. Journal of Insect Behaviour, 11: 319-342.