Dr. Leslie Main Johnson
Full Professor
Humanities & Social Sciences
Athabasca University
Canada
Biography
My association with Athabasca University began in 1999 when I wrote a course in ethnobiology (ANTH 491) for distance delivery at AU. I assumed a teaching position in the Anthropology Program in spring of 2000. My undergraduate degree in Anthropology was earned at Stanford University in 1971. I completed my graduate studies in Anthropology at the University of Alberta (M.A. 1993; Ph.D. 1997). After finishing my Ph.D. I was Grant Notley post-doctoral fellow in the Anthropology Department at the University of Alberta from 1997-2000. While at the University of Alberta I initiated a research project on ethnoecology of First Nations in northwestern Canada. Before returning to graduate school in 1991 I lived in northwestern British Columbia where I developed close ties to local First Nations communities. (I also developed an appreciation of the challenges of access to universities and good libraries while living in remote areas). I am fascinated by the kinds of things people know and the connections among these forms of knowledge. I am especially interested in knowledge of the land and how people “fine-tune” their ability to live in local environments. My research interests include ethnobiology (cultural knowledge of living things), ethnoecology, subsistence, and concepts of health and healing among northwestern Canadian First Nations, and material aculture and traditional technologies of northwestern Canadian First Nations. I began my field-work with the Gitksan and Wet'suwet'en of northwestern British Columbia in the mid 1980's. In more recent years I expanded my research to work with the Kaska Dena of the southern Yukon, the Gwich'in of the Mackenzie Delta region of the Northwest Territories and the Sahtu people of Deline on Great Bear Lake. I'm an active member of several professional societies and serve on the editorial board of the journal Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine.
Research Interest
ethnobiology ethnobotany ethnography Indigenous cultures of North America anthropology of gender other cultural anthropology
Publications
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Johnson, Leslie Main. 2013. Revisiting the Origins of Northwest Coast Packstraps. Museum Anthropology 36(2): 131–149.
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Johnson, Leslie Main. 2013. Plants, Places and the Storied Landscape—Looking at First Nations Perspectives on Plants and Land. BC Studies Special Issue. Edited by Nancy Turner and Dana Lepofsky 179:79-100.
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Johnson, Leslie Main and Janelle Marie Baker. 2014. Teaching Ethnobiology On-line at a Canadian Distance Learning University. Chapter 17 in Quave, Cassandra L., Ed. Innovative Strategies for Teaching in the Plant Sciences. New York: Springer Press.
