Dr. Alex Oehler

Oehler, Dr. Alex

he/him

PhD (University of Aberdeen); MA, BA (University of Northern British Columbia)

Adjunct Professor
Anthropology
Cell
306-515-3599
Email
alex.oehler@uregina.ca
Campus
Off Campus
Website

Biography

Alex Oehler is an environmental anthropologist focusing on the ethnography of the Circumpolar North region. He is principal investigator of Sensory Acts, a federally funded research project investigating nonverbal inter-species communication in Arctic communities. His background is in animal domestication and pastoral studies in Siberia, and he is the author of the Beyond Wild and Tame and other similar publications.

Research and expertise

Alex’s current research in Canada is co-led by in the Northwest Territories and Yukon. Together, his team investigate nonverbal interspecies communication in remote northern settings. This includes interactions between people and whales, bears, wolves, caribou, geese, and many other species. His graduate students also work in sled dog kennels and various hunting scenarios. The current project also investigates human-plant relations and intuitive interspecies communication (IIC).

Research fields
  • Anthropology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Culture
  • Environment
  • Ethics
  • Fisheries
  • Forestry
  • Indigenous Peoples
  • Northern Issues
  • Religion
  • Wildlife
Areas of expertise
Sensory ethnography, Circumpolar North ethnography, human-animal relations, domestication studies, posthumanist theory, philosophical ethology, nonverbal communication, distributed cognition.
Currently accepting graduate students
I am able to supervise MA and PhD students in anthropology at the University of Regina, and as adjunct in Anthropology at ÂÜÀòÉäÇø, I am able to co-supervise MA and PhD students through that department at ÂÜÀòÉäÇø with colleagues in any other department at ÂÜÀòÉäÇø (to my knowledge).

Selected publications

Books

Oehler, A. (2020). Beyond Wild and Tame: Soiot Encounters in a Sentient Landscape. New York: Berghahn Press

Articles

Oehler, A. and D. Drescher (2023) Heritage Beyond Words: Acts of Nonverbal Decolonization. Anthropology Now, 14(3), pp.165-174.

Oehler, A. (2022) Crafting Crafty: Dispatches from the Wolf-Human Interface. The Twelfth International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS 12), 1: 516–522. Amsterdam University Press.

Oehler, A. (2021). Humans and Dogs of Mountainous Inner Asia: Sensory Collaboration and Personhood. Hum Ecol 49, 765–778.

Oehler, A. (2020) The Care Work of Balance: Apportioning Life in Soiot Herder-Hunter Households of the Eastern Sayan Mountains. Inner Asia, 22(2): 237–254.

Oehler, A. (2020) Pacing Transhumance: Examples of Rhythm Alignment in the Eastern Sayan Mountains. Inner Asia 22(1): 67–86.

Oehler, A. (2018) Social Memory and Oka-Soiot Reindeer Herders: On the Challenges of Reindeer in Multi Species Mountain Households. J of Ancient Tech Lab 14(3): 112–123.

Edited books

Oehler, A., and A. Varfolomeeva. (2019) Multispecies Households in the Saian Mountains: Ecology at the Russia-Mongolia Border. London: Lexington Books

Chapters

Oehler, A. (2023) Fluctuating Human-Animal Relations: Soiot Herder-Hunters of South-Central Siberia. In Davydov, V., Ferguson, J., and Ziker, J.P. Eds. The Siberian World. London: Routledge.

Oehler, A. (2019) Introduction. In Oehler, A. and Varfolomeeva, A. Eds. Multispecies Households in the Saian Mountains: Ecology at the Russia-Mongolia Border. London: Lexington books.

Oehler, A. and I. Rassadin (2019) On the Role of the Horse in Tofa Households. In Oehler, A. and Varfolomeeva, A. Eds. Multispecies Households in the Saian Mountains: Ecology at the Russia-Mongolia Border. London: Lexington books.

Oehler, A. (2019) Taking Stock: Tofa Reindeer Herding Today. In Oehler, A. and Varfolomeeva, A. Eds. Multispecies Households in the Saian Mountains: Ecology at the Russia-Mongolia Border. London: Lexington books.

Oehler, A. (2019) Falling in and Out of Rhythm. In Oehler, A. and Varfolomeeva, A. Eds. Multispecies Households in the Saian Mountains: Ecology at the Russia-Mongolia Border. London: Lexington books.

Oehler, A. (2018) Hunters in Their Own Right: Perspectival Sharing in Soiot Hunters and Their Dogs. In Wishart, R., Losey, R., Loovers, JPL. Eds. Dogs in the North. London, Routledge. Pp. 40-56

Translations

Klokov, K.B., transl. by A. Oehler (2019) People, Reindeer, and All the Others: The Shared Taiga as Common Tofa Household. In Oehler, A. and Varfolomeeva, A. Eds. Multispecies Households in the Saian Mountains: Ecology at the Russia-Mongolia Border. London: Lexington books

Book reviews

Oehler, A. (2021) Expanded Visions: A New Anthropology of the Moving Image, by Schneider, A., London, Routledge, 2021, 200 pp. Entanglements Journal, 4(2): 79-81.

Oehler, A. (2020) Arctic Crashes: People and Animals in the Changing North: edited by Igor Krupnik and Aron L. Crowell, Washington, Smithsonian Scholarly Press, 2020, 555 pp. The Polar Journal, DOI: 10.1080/2154896X.2020.1847811

Oehler, A. (2018) An Arctic Indigenous Knowledge System of Landscape, Climate, and Human Interactions: Evenki Reindeer Herders and Hunters, by A. Lavrillier & S. Gabyshev. 2017. Fürstenberg/Havel: SEC Publications. Hunter Gatherer Studies 3(2): 353–357

Oehler, A. (2020) Arctic Crashes: People and Animals in the Changing North: edited by Igor Krupnik and Aron L. Crowell, Washington, Smithsonian Scholarly Press, 2020, 555 pp. The Polar Journal, DOI: 10.1080/2154896X.2020.1847811

Oehler, A. (2018) An Arctic Indigenous Knowledge System of Landscape, Climate, and Human Interactions: Evenki Reindeer Herders and Hunters, by A. Lavrillier & S.

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