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| Born on October 16, 1942, in
Great Britain, Ian grew up in Corby, a tough steel town populated
by Scots in the heartland of England’s countryside. Cultural interface
was an early and continuing influence. Ian was an outstanding athlete and
scholar at school, graduating with distinctions in all subjects. He did
not stay to collect graduating honors, as at seventeen years old he traveled
to Sarawak, Borneo, with Voluntary Service Overseas (1960 - 62) - Britain’s
Peace Corps. He loved the immersion in the myriad cultures of Sarawak and
was greatly amused by the British colonial mentality, which he did not
share. He worked in a variety of youth programs as a community development
officer, and also explored the headwaters of Sarawak’s major rivers, with
expeditions into Indonesian Borneo. He was acutely embarrassed to be written
up in the home press as “Boy Explorer Discovers Central Borneo!” He knew
he had not discovered anything; that Kayan tribesmen had kept him safe.
He had an acute sensitivity and respect for other cultures and traditions,
and knew he was privileged to be with skilled guides. |
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| He was later adopted as a tribesman
by Kayans in Northern Sarawak. Part of the initiation was the right to
have an extensive tattoo on his left forearm, commemorating his journeys.
Ian politely declined this honor, stating it was not his custom. As a teen,
he had a clear idea of who he was, though that clarity was frequently challenged,
and occasionally lost, later in life.
Returning to Great Britain after Sarawak
was an uneasy transition. He did, however, manage to get through an undergraduate
degree in anthropology at University College, London (1962 - 65), before
continuing with graduate studies at Balliol College, Oxford (1965 - 67).
At Oxford, academics took a back seat to the judo dojo, rugby field, bridge
table, and the founding of irreverent societies at Balliol. Yet by the
time he pursued doctoral studies at the University of British Columbia
(1967 - 70), his brain had switched on. He renewed his passion for other
cultures, placing his research on North West Coast fishing communities
within a mathematical, experimental domain that the discipline of anthropology
was not quite ready for. Being at the edge of new endeavors was natural
to him, and continues to be so. |
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| He has been a Professor of Anthropology
and Religion at Carleton University since 1970. Fieldwork amongst North
West Coast aboriginal populations and North Atlantic fishing communities
was an early focus. Over the past thirty years an interest in native land
claims has lead to ongoing fieldwork in Indian and Inuit communities, with
an emphasis on training native leaders to conduct their own research process.
He has worked with diverse groups all over the world and has a passion
for doing anthropology. “It’s better than having a real job,” he says “everything
changes, and the only limits are your imagination and self discipline.”
His career trajectory has curved through mathematical
models, development studies, hermeneutics, poetics and symbolic anthropology,
to new science and consciousness studies. The intent was always to expand,
then cross, existing boundaries, to renew the freshness of the anthropological
endeavor, and make the discipline relevant to the individuals and cultures
it touches. His highly acclaimed television course on
“Culture and Symbols”
draws on his novel perspectives, and Ian is exploring the possibilities
of delivering the twelve videotapes of the course through an Internet homepage,
which will be a prototype for the Electronic University of the Future -
no boundaries. |
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