Dr. Douglas Deur’s research focuses on the intersection between culture, place, and environment. Much of his work explores in cultural and historical context how deeply-rooted human communities relate to the lands and natural habitats of their home places. Working closely with Native American knowledge holders and multidisciplinary research teams, he seeks to illuminate misunderstood environmental traditions, such as tribes’ ecological knowledge and management of particular plants, animals, and habitats. Dr. Deur’s writings are frequently coauthored with Native American scholars and elders; an even larger proportion has limited distribution due to its sensitive content. He has received several awards for his academic writing and research, while his popular foraging guidebook has appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list. Adopted Kwakwaka’wakw, he also holds advanced degrees in both geography and anthropology. He serves as an advisor to nonprofits, and is currently serving his first term as a governor-appointed Commissioner to the department overseeing Oregon’s parks, beaches, scenic waterways, and cultural heritage.
Selected Works:
- Douglas Deur, Kim Recalma-Clutesi, and Chief Kwaxsistalla Adam Dick 2021. Balance on Every Ledger: Kwakwaka’wakw Resource Values and Traditional Ecological Management. In Handbook of Indigenous Environmental Knowledge: Global Themes and Practice, Thomas Fox Thornton and Shonil A. Bhagwat, eds. New York: Routledge.
- Douglas Deur, Karen Evanoff and Jamie Hebert 2020. “Their Markers as they Go”: Modified Trees as Waypoints in the Dena’ina Cultural Landscape, Alaska. Human Ecology, 48(3), 317-333.
- Douglas Deur and Justine James, Jr. 2020 - Cultivating the Imagined Wilderness: Native Peoples, Plants, and United States National Parks. In Plants, People and Places: The Roles of Ethnobotany and Ethnoecology in Indigenous Peoples’ Land Rights in Canada and Beyond. N. Turner and P. Spaulding, eds. Pp. 220-37. Montreal: McGill-Queens U. Press.
- Douglas Deur, Chief Kwaxsistalla Adam Dick, Kim Recalma-Clutesi, and Nancy Turner 2015. Kwakwaka’wakw ‘Clam Gardens’: Motive and Agency in Northwest Coast Mariculture. Human Ecology. 43(2): 201-12.
- Douglas Deur 2009. “A Caretaker Responsibility”: Revisiting Klamath and Modoc Traditions of Plant Community Management. Journal of Ethnobiology. 29(2): 296–322.
- Douglas E. Deur and Nancy J. Turner, eds. 2005. Keeping it Living: Traditions of Plant Use and Cultivation on the Northwest Coast. Seattle/Vancouver: University of Washington Press/University of British Columbia Press.