This award will support a research workshop to be convened at the University of Virginia by Dr. Frederick H. Damon, of the Department of Anthropology, and Dr. Carlos Mondragón of the Centro de Estudios de Asia y Africa, of the Colegio de Mexico (with which the University of Virginia has a collaborative relationship). The workshop will bring together an international set of researchers who do not normally work together: anthropologists working in the areas of anthropology of time, ecology, and indigenous knowledge systems; mathematicians; and ethno-astronomers. The goal is to advance the study of the relationship between environmental behavior, seasonal cycles, and cultural value systems to guide future research on how social systems are organized and made manifest in local temporal constructs in the context of specific climates and ecologies. The substantive geographic areas of focus will be Australasia and the equatorial Americas.
This workshop will make a timely contribution to understanding the relationship between material and cultural environmental systems. Participants will include researchers from universities around the world (including Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Mexico, China, and the United Kingdom, as well as the United States), whose expertise includes mathematical modeling, ethnography, and indigenous knowledge systems. The workshop papers and proceedings will be made publicly available via a website. The workshop will include graduate students to foster a new generation of international intellectual collaborations and contributions to issues of contemporary social and scientific significance.
