Picture of Clinton Westman

Clinton Westman B.A., M.E.S, Ph.D.

Professor and Department Head

Department Head of Anthropology
Faculty Member in Anthropology

Office
Archaeology 221

Research Area(s)

  • Environmental Anthropology
  • Anthropology of Religion
  • Western Canada
  • Northern Canada
  • Conservation and Protected Areas
  • Extractive Industry
  • Critical Heritage Studies
  • Multi-species Ethnography

Publications

Books

2022. C.N. Westman. Cree and Christian: Encounters and Transformations. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496211842/

An "Outstanding Academic Title" for 2022, as recognized by Choice, a publishing unit of the American Library Association.

Shortlisted for Saskatchewan Book Awards 2023.


2020. C.N. Westman, T.L. Joly, and L. Gross (eds). Extracting Home in the Oil Sands: Settler Colonialism and Environmental Change in Subarctic Canada. "Arctic Worlds" Series. New York: Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Extracting-Home-in-the-Oil-Sands-Settler-Colonialism-and-Environmental/Westman-Joly-Gross/p/book/9781032083063


Special Issue/Thematic Section

2020. S. Poirier and C.N. Westman. Living Together with the Land: Reaching and Honouring Treaties with Indigenous Peoples. Anthropologica 62.2.


Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals 

2023. K. Wheatley and C.N. Westman. Wood Buffalo National Park and the Politics of Shame: Indigenous Advocacy at UNESCO's World Heritage Committee. The Extractive Industries and Society 14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2023.101256

https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1h31u,oMyQVRkP.


2022. C.N. Westman, T.L. Joly, H.M. Pospisil, and K. Wheatley. Encountering Moose in a Changing Landscape: Sociality, Intentionality, and Emplaced Relationships. Ethnos 87.5: 932-962. https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/IT3I7HDXFVUIM2EGGRQ4/full?target=10.1080/00141844.2020.1841262


2020. S. Poirier and C.N. Westman. Living Together with the Land: Reaching and Honouring Treaties with Indigenous Peoples. Anthropologica 62.2: 236-247.


2020. L. Siragusa, C.N. Westman, and S.C. Moritz. Shared Breath: Human and Nonhuman Copresence through Ritualized Words and Beyond. Current Anthropology 61.4: 471-494.


2020. J.L. Gerbrandt and C.N. Westman.  When a pipe breaks: Monitoring an emergency spill in the oil sands and documenting its erasure of Indigenous interests in land. The Extractive Industries and Society 7:1301-1308. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2020.07.012


2019. C.N. Westman and T.L. Joly. Oil Sands Extraction in Alberta, Canada: a Review of Impacts and Processes Concerning Indigenous People. Human Ecology 47.2: 233-243.


2019. Aksamit, C.K., J.A. Blakley, J.A.G. Jaeger, B.F. Noble, and C.N. Westman. Sources of Uncertainties in Environmental Assessment: Lessons about Uncertainty Disclosure and Communication from an Oil Sands Extraction Project in Northern Alberta. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 63.2: 317-334.


2018. J.M. Baker and C.N. Westman. Extracting knowledge: Social science, environmental impact assessment, and Indigenous consultation in the oil sands of Alberta, Canada. The Extractive Industries and Society 5.1: 144-153.


2017. C.N. Westman and T.L. Joly. Visions of the Great Mystery: Grounding the Algonquian manitow Concept. Social Compass 64.3: 360-375 


2015. The wihkohtowin: Ritual Feasting among Cree and Métis Peoples in Northern Alberta. Anthropologica 57.2:  299-314. 


2015. C.S. Mantyka-Pringle, C.N. Westman, A.P. Kythreotis, and D.W. Schindler. Honoring Indigenous Treaty Rights in Canada for Climate Justice. Nature Climate Change 5: 798-801.


2014. C.N. Westman & C. Schreyer. Înîhiyawîtwâw ‘They are Speaking Cree’: Cree Language Use and Issues in Northern Alberta, Canada. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 230: 115-140.



Chapters in Books

2020. Social Impact Assessment and the Anthropology of the Future in Canada's Tar Sands. Pp. 241-255 in B. Miller, ed. Sociocultural Anthropology: Critical and Primary Sources. New York: Routledge. 


2020. Westman, C.N.,T.L. Joly, and L. Gross. Introduction: At Home in the Oil Sands. Pp. 1-22 in C.N. Westman, T.L. Joly, and L. Gross, eds. Extracting Home in The Oil Sands: Settler Colonialism and Environmental Change in Subarctic Canada. New York: Routledge.

2020. C.N. Westman and K. Wheatley. Reclaiming Nature? Watery Transformations and Reclamation Landscapes in the Oil Sands Region. Pp. 160-179 in C.N. Westman, T.L. Joly, and L. Gross, eds. Extracting Home in the Oil Sands: Settler Colonialism and Environmental Change in Subarctic Canada. New York: Routledge.


2018. Homesteading in Northern Alberta during the Great Depression: A Life History Approach. Pp. 187-212 in G.P. Marchildon, ed. Drought and Depression. History of the Prairie West, Volume Six. Regina: University of Regina Press. 


2017. Cultural Politics of Land and Animals in Treaty Eight Territory (Northern Alberta, Canada). Pp. 117-139 in S. Poirier and F. Dussart, eds. Entangled Territorialities: Negotiating Indigenous Lands in Australia and Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

 

2016. Aboriginal Subsistence Practices in an “Isolated” Region of Northern Alberta. Pp. 162-194 in D. Bavington, J. Murton, and C. Dokis, eds. Subsistence Under Capitalism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press.

 



Teaching & Supervision

  • Anth 806: Environmental Anthropology
  • Anth 498: Anthropology beyond the Human
  • Anth 329: Environmental Anthropology
  • Anth 321: Myth, Ritual, and Symbol
  • Anth 240: Cultural Landscapes and Environments
  • Anth 202: Anthropological Perspectives on Aboriginal Research in Canada
  • Anth 111: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

I am seeking MA students in Environmental Anthropology. To date, I have supervised students conducting ethnographic field research on energy and politics in northern Canada.

Research

Community-Engaged Research Conservation Environment Ethnography Extractive Industries Heritage Landscapes Human-Animal Relations Indigenous Issues Protected Areas Public Participation Religious Practice

Clint Westman's work among Cree and Métis communities of northern Alberta since 1996 has touched on politics, history, religion, and environment. Westman is the project director for Cultural Politics of Energy in Northern Alberta, an ethnographic, community-based, team research project examining impacts and processes concerning Indigenous people in the oil sands region. He is currently launching a new research program on heritage landscapes in Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Research Grants

2020-2026: Principal Investigator, SSHRC Insight Grant: Cultural Politics of Energy in Northern Alberta

Education & Training

PhD, Socio-Cultural Anthropology, University of Alberta