An Anthropological Journey
In this retrospective I highlight the main stages in my career as an anthropologist since completing my doctoral studies at Yale University. I first tell how I found in anthropology the profession that would enable me to explore a question that I had as a child: what I might have become had I been born and raised in another environment, among “Others”? I then underscore how from beginning to end my career was enriched from my learning two indigenous languages, first in my fieldwork among the Wayuu of Columbia (September 1975 to December 1976), and then among the Dene Tha’ of northwestern Alberta amongst whom I spent six months a year from 1980 to 1984. Learning the language brought me closer to Dene Tha’ Elders and made possible my participation in their ceremonies which led me to write ethnographically in a way that contributed to the development of experiential anthropology. My numerous presentations and publications explore major themes in the field of indigenous studies: epistemology, ethics, methodology, ethnogenesis, rituals, shamanism, territorial claims, self-government, gender identities, conceptions of life and death, and reincarnation. In this career, I also describe what I learned from the Dene Tha’ that guided me in significant initiatives in my role as Director of the Native Centre at the University of Calgary from 1988 à 1991, and as founding Dean of the Faculty of Human Sciences at Saint Paul University from 1997 to 2005.