Yancey Orr teaches courses on Indigenous communities, environmental knowledge, technology and communications.

Orr’s research examines how environmental knowledge is produced within different social, technological and cultural contexts. He has conducted academic and applied fieldwork in the Philippines, Indonesia, Western New Guinea, Australia and North America. By developing techniques within cognitive and psychological science, his work aims to better understand how environmental phenomena such as visual or auditory sensations are perceived and categorized. He has held academic appointments in Canada, Australia, France and several institutions in the United States as well as serving as an associate editor of Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

Publications

Journals

“Tricksters and Experimental Deception: Knowledge Creation in American Indian and Scientific Communities” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory Vol. 12, 1 (2022)

“Victory for All, Administration for Some: An Examination of Differences in the Impact of Indigenous Jurisdictional Expansion in Oklahoma” Policy Design and Practice Vol. 4, 2 (2022)

“Compositional Stasis and Flexibility in American Indian Tribes” Ethnohistory Vol. 68, 2 (2021)

“Imagining American Indians and Community in Southeast Asia” International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies, Vol. 12, 1 (2019)

“Interspecies Semiotics and the Specter of Taboo; The Perception and Interpretation of Dogs, Barks and Rabies in Bali, Indonesia”, American Anthropologist. Vol. 118, 1 (2016)

“Environmental Anthropology: Systemic Perspectives” Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 44 (2015)

“Animal Magnetism: Perceiving Environmental Objects as Social Subjects among Balinese looking at Roosters” Visual Anthropology, Vol. 27 (2015)

“Coconuts and the Emergence of Violence in Sulu; Beyond Resource Competition Paradigms” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde / The Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia and Oceania, Vol. 168, 2 (2012)