David G. Anderson is an anthropologist working with communities across the circumpolar North. He is originally Canadian, and grew up in Northern Alberta. He holds degrees in Politics with Sociology (Carleton U), Sociology (UWisc-Madison), and Social Anthropology (Cambridge).
He started working in the circumpolar North as a technician at the Ft.McPherson Language Centre in the Gwich’in Settlement Area. His reading and fieldwork for the Masters and PhD was with with Evenki people first in Zabaikal’e and later in Taimyr and the Evenki Autonomous Area. Since that time he has also worked with communities in Iamal, and in Northern Norway.
He has been based at the University of Aberdeen since 2000, and was appointed Chair in the Anthropology of the North in 2013. At the University of Aberdeen he was active in getting the University to join the UArctic network and helped to host the Rector Conference in Aberdeen in 2017. He also leads the Thematic Network CAFÉ: Circumpolar Archives, Folklore and Ethnography. He researches and publishes in a wide number of areas: ethnography, ethnohistory, archaeology, Rangifer genetics, and political ecology.
UArctic Chairs are highly qualified academics who serve as academic drivers in a broad area of relevance to the Arctic. They implement and drive collaborative actions in research and education among UArctic members and Thematic Networks and build partnerships with the broader Arctic community.