Event Details

Despite declining stocks worldwide and increasing health risks, artisanal whaling remains a cultural practice tied to nature’s rhythms. 'The Wake of the Whale' presents the art, history, and challenge of whaling in the Caribbean and North Atlantic, based on a decade of award-winning fieldwork.

This seminar discusses the human and environmental implications of artisanal whaling for food in the Faroe Islands and St. Vincent & the Grenadines, as presented in the recently-published ‘The Wake of the Whale: Hunter Societies in the Caribbean and North Atlantic' (Harvard University Press, 2018).

In the Faroe Islands and St. Vincent & the Grenadines, people hunt pilot whales and other dolphins to produce food for human consumption. This presentation describes whaling activities and cultures in both locations, explores the histories of whaling in these places and worldwide, and addresses the idea of “culturally embedded conservation strategies” – the largely unwritten body of customary rules that develops gradually, through processes of cultural adaptation to the local natural environment, and performs regulatory function in the context of natural resource use and conservation. Newly emerged environmental crises, however, threaten to surpass the ability of these conservation strategies and may even lead to the end of these traditional methods of subsistence.

All students, staff and colleagues are encouraged to attend.

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