Dr. Janelle Baker
Associate Professor
Contact information
E-mail: janelleb@athabascau.ca
janelle-bakerCurrent courses
Dr. Janelle Baker
Dr. Janelle Baker
Associate Professor
Contact information
Email: janelleb@athabascau.ca
I'm an Associate Professor in Anthropology and the MAIS Program and a Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Future Flourishing Fellow. I study ethnobiology and environmental anthropology and am interested in projects that look at wild food sovereignty from a circumboreal perspective. I'm part of an ongoing collaboration with Bigstone Cree Nation on sakâwiyiniwak (Northern Bush Cree) experiences with traditional food contamination in what is now known as northern Alberta (oil sands and forestry use of pesticides). This work involves community based environmental monitoring to protect food sovereignty of plants, water, and wildlife (moose) in Bigstone Cree Nation territory. I’m also part of a team that collaborates with Stoney Nakoda Nations on restorying bull trout in the eastern slopes of the Rockies and supporting women to measure selenium in traditional foods. I coordinate several courses that relate to these topics in anthropology and the MAIS program for students to learn about particular case studies and consider these topics in their own back yards. Students are welcome to e-mail me about related interests and projects.
Learn more about occupations in anthropology
Research interests
Ethnography of contamination, environmental and ecological anthropology, ethnobiology and ethnoecology, post-humanism and the anthropocene, anthropology of food, community-based research methods, political ecology, ethnographic writing
Educational credentials
- Bachelor of Arts, First Class Honours, Anthropology, University of Calgary
- Master of Arts, Anthropology, University of Alberta
- PhD, Anthropology, McGill University
Professional affiliations
- CIFAR Fellow, Future Flourishing Program
- Current Lead Author and task force member on Indigenous Knowledge and Local Knowledge content for the United Nations Environment Programme Global Environment Outlook (GEO)-7
- Adjunct Professor, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Saskatchewan
- International Society of Ethnobiology Vice President Elect
- Co-Editor, Ethnobiology Letters
- Centre for Indigenous Conservation and Development Alternatives, Partner