This project investigates Saharan pastoralist rock-art (7500-3000BP), with a particular focus on the engravings of the Messak Plateau in southwest Libya. Taking an anthropological approach, the art is examined within the context of the lives of its creators - transhumant cattle-herders who occupied the plateau seasonally. Drawing from fieldwork in Libya together with data from multiple expeditions in the Sahara, the study addresses a major lacuna in Saharan research by focusing on materially constituted, as-lived dimensions at the micro scale. A fundamental but archaeologically elusive aspect of lived experience is a consideration of 'movement', both physical and esoteric. Its incorporation is central to this project, forming a multi-aspected theoretical framework and a methodological tool. Augmented by input from specialists in geomorphology, pastoralism, stone sculpting and animal behaviour, this movement-driven focus has produced a more developed picture of the Messak herder lives, advancing our understanding of these particular non-text, somatic societies. A singular contribution is the creation of a hypothetical model for small-scale, quotidian pastoralist practices, which expands upon the archaeological evidence, fleshing out details of a well-systematised form of dairy pastoralism involving controlled breeding and the processing of milk products. At the same time it is proposed that the herders' relationship with their cattle was one of partnership rather than ownership, involving trans-species empathy and a valuation of animal personhood. This viewpoint is part of a broader set of animal-human relations reflecting a cosmological order that diverges from modern, Western ontological constructs. Other significant findings include detailed information on the role and identity of the image-maker, revisionist data on the amount of effort and skill expended in carving processes, and an examination of the ways in which rock-art was used to manifest social emotional concerns. These were expressed via animal emotions portrayed in the rock-art, and also through performative, gestural markings associated with the imagery. Such expressions include apotropaic, supplicatory or other interactions involving communication with unseen powers.

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This dissertation ethnographically explores the social concerns related to the global, agro-industrial system's impact on many communities' potential for livelihood and health. At the core of this study is the desire to understand the complex and dynamic ways that communities strive to develop, and make sense of, networks that address these wicked problems and to understand how these strategies might aggregate to promote community resiliency. An investigation of alternative food networks (AFNs) was contextualized in one province in Western Turkey. The AFNs were articulated by an ethnographic design that utilized tools from different fields of study. Integrating actor-network theory, new social movements theory, and the nourishing networks framework allowed for robust triangulation of data. I conclude that AFNs in this province are nascent and remain fragmented. At present, AFNs have not been leveraged for community resiliency efforts. However, they hold the seeds of what may become a food sovereignty social movement. This ethnography reveals that the province has assets, including numerous affinity groups, and a durable connection to heritage with strong reverberations of a nature-culture. I illuminate the broad spectrum of submerged and visible actants and actors that prime the AFNs' development. The wide variance creates diffuse and contradictory cultural implications. Actors report they constantly negotiate cultural aspects related to AFNs. They conceptualize this work as a polymorphous phenomenon of fragmented communities and a culture of dependency; but they show fortitude by negotiating multi-phasic actions and multi-vocal resistance messaging. By way of this study I illustrate that their cultural politics take place where economy and identity interface. Actors seek legitimization. They speak of infusing heritage-based ideals into projects. They are firm that agricultural modernization must come from Turkish values. And, they are formulating and strengthening ideological-based discourses. I further clarify their development strategies by showing how AFNs are experimenting with new governance strategies and focusing on social embedding. Promotion of niche markets has begun. However, public and private resources are limited, which hinders the momentum of AFNs. Additional research is needed to better understand the processes for high functioning AFNs in Turkey. / Ph. D.

For almost two decades, Coastal GasLink, with the support of the State of British Columbia (B.C.), Canada, has sought to build a hydrofracking gas pipeline, which would cross a large part of Wet’suwet’en Nation’s territories. Faced with this, the different clans that make up the Nation, under the governance system of the Hereditary Chiefs, have expressed their disagreement, demonstrating that the environmental assessment and decision-making processes overlooked their deep relationship with the Yintakh (their territory). Drawing on a methodological approach that involved visual ethnography and combined content and narrative analysis, my research aims to analyze the role that emotions play in the territorial-ontological conflict between the State of B.C., Coastal GasLink, and the Wet’suwet’en. The combination of content and narrative analysis helped decipher and understand how people express everyday practices and construct and perform their identity amid the conflict. In facing COVID-19 pandemic limitations, visual ethnography provided an alternative to fieldwork. Using online available audiovisual material, through which I was able to keep a phenomenological approach, I used my senses (visual and auditory) to analyze body movements, tone of voice, and language. The theoretical approach to the conflict was from that of political ontology and emotional political ecologies (EmPEs). To answer my first research question: how is the conflict of interest an ontological conflict? I articulate a framework made up of Ingold’s phenomenology, Blaser’s ontological conflicts, and Escobar's studies of culture as a radical difference. To answer my second research question: what is the role that emotions play in the conflict? I build on the spiderweb, a metaphor developed by Ingold, to expand the scope of González-Hidalgo’s emotional political ecologies. I demonstrate that the processes of political inter-subjectivation sought at the Unist’ot’en Healing Center help understand, on the one hand, the worry, frustration, and stress of the Wet'suwet'ens facing the world-creating practices of Coastal GasLink and the State of B.C. On the other hand, the Healing Center reveals how the affections for the other-than-human and their relational world inform Wet’suwet’en resistance. Lastly, I unveil how Coastal GasLink and the Ministry of Aboriginal Rights and Reconciliation, through discourses and practices of inclusion and gender equality, seek to blur radical cultural differences, delegitimize the Wet’suwet’en pre-colonial governance system, and create affections for the Western-modern world.