Grzegorz Palka winner or the Norm and Sibby Whitten Research Fund 2020

Grzegorz Palka, postgraduate student from the University of St Andrews, was awarded US$500 for his research

Huni Kuin perspectives on ecology and epistemology

The research aims to contribute to current debates about human life in the Anthropocene and the future ecological challenges that all life on earth faces. This research will aim to produce innovative and novel ways to think about what the ‘environment’ is and how we can conceptualise our relationship with it in a way that is sustainable and ethical. The aim is for the researcher, through participant observation, to be apprenticed into the Huni Kuin way of creating knowledge and also relating to and understanding the world. This is in order to reconceptualise the very idea of what the ‘environment’ is, and how we conceptualise our relationship with the non-human entities that inhabit it. It is hoped that this critical rethinking of the environment and relationality will be a fruitful addition to current discussions about life in the Anthropocene.