natasha fijn

College of the Arts and Social Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Australian National University

My work crosses often preconceived boundaries between domestic-wild, human-nonhuman, nature-culture, ethnography-ethology, and written ethnography-visual anthropology. I completed my PhD thesis in June 2008, entitled Living with Herds in Mongolia, within the School of Archaeology & Anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra. The field research for the thesis, and footage for the film that formed an integral part of this research, was obtained over twelve months in 2005, while I lived with two extended herding families in the Khangai mountains of Mongolia. The manuscript from this research has been published as a book by Cambridge University Press. Segments of my video footage and photographs from Mongolia are also linked online to supplement relevant sections of the book. As an integral part of my PhD thesis I made an independent film entitled Khangai Herds (90 mins), an observational film about ‘significant others’.

I have a background in both wildlife and ethnographic filmmaking, including a postgraduate diploma in Natural History Film and Communication. Previously, I have worked for the BBC, Natural History New Zealand and Green Umbrella Productions on documentaries that have been distributed worldwide via National Geographic and Discovery Channels. I completed a Master of Science in ethology at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, focusing on animal cognition, predator-prey interactions and animal communication. I was subsequently employed by the University of Vienna to conduct field research as part of a research team investigating social learning in a mountain parrot, the kea.  This fieldwork was based mainly in the remote Mount Cook National Park in New Zealand. While conducting this research I wrote three natural history books for children on native New Zealand birds: one on the kea and two on the pukeko.  During this time I assisted with the filming of a BBC documentary on the kea, entitled Kea: the smartest parrot? (2003). Because the kea are such curious parrots and insist on engaging with humans I became fascinated by the social interactions between humans and other animals. I realised that my primary research interest is in cross-species, cross-cultural social engagement and communication: how human and non-human socially influence one another. I am passionate about communicating cross-species, cross-cultural ideas, not only in written form but also through other media, using film and photography as an integral part of my research.


Recent Projects

A 60-minute version of Khangai Herds was screened at the prestigious RAI film festival in Manchester in 2007. Sections of Khangai Herds has been viewed by academic audiences within conferences, workshops and seminars at the Australian National University, the University of Queensland, James Cook University, Macquarie University, the University of Tasmania and the University of Auckland.  Excerpts of my footage from Mongolia were shown as part of an exhibition entitled The Horse at the American Museum of Natural History (May 2008-January 2009).  This exhibition is now traveling to other museums around the world.


Publications

  • Fijn, N. (in press) Living with Herds: Human-Animal Coexistence in Mongolia. Cambridge University Press, New York.
  • Fijn, N. (2009) A Kazakh Ethnographically-based Fiction Film:  review of Tulpan. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology.
  • Angie Bexley and I co-edited a special visual anthropology edition of The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology:
    • Bexley, A & Fijn, N. 2007. Introduction: the power of vision and voice. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 8(4): 279-285.
    • Fijn, N. 2007. Filming the Significant Other: human and non-human. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 8(4): 297-307.
  • Fijn, N. 2007. A review of Graham Harvey’s “Animism: Respecting the Living World”. Australian Humanities Review 42.
  • Fijn, N. 2007. A review of Adrian Franklin’s “Animal Nation: the true story of animals in Australia” Australian Humanities Review 42.
  • Fijn, N. 2007. Pukeko: Nature Kids. In: The Reed Treasury of New Zealand Children’s Books (hardback). Reed, Auckland, 205-213.
  • Gajdon, G. K., Fijn, N., Huber, L. 2006.  Limited spread of innovation in a wild parrot, the kea (Nestor notabilis). Animal Cognition, 9: 173-181.
  • Fijn, N. 2005. Pukeko: New Zealand Birds. Raupo Publishing (NZ) Ltd, Auckland.
  • Fijn, N. 2005. Pukeko: Nature Kids. Raupo Publishing (NZ) Ltd, Auckland.
  • Gajdon, G. K., Fijn, N., Huber, L. 2004. Evaluating social learning beyond stimulus enhancement in a population of wild kea, Nestor notabilis. Learning & Behaviour, 32: 62-71.
  • Fijn, N. 2003. Kea: New Zealand Birds. Reed, Auckland.
  • Jackson, R. R., Pollard, S. D., Li, D., Fijn, N. 2002. Interpopulation variation in the risk-related decisions of Portia labiata, an araneophagic jumping spider (Araneae, Salticidae), during predatory sequences with spitting spiders. Animal Cognition, 5: 215-223.
  • Jackson, R. R., Li, D., Fijn, N., Barrion, A. 1998.  Predator-prey interactions between aggressive-mimic jumping spiders (Salticidae) and araneophagic spitting spiders (Scytodidae) from the Philippines. Journal of Insect Behaviour, 11: 319-342.

Documentary

  • Khangai Herds (2008, 90 mins): independently researched, filmed, edited and produced by Natasha Fijn, Australian National University.
  • Kea: the smartest parrot? (2003, 30 mins) BBC, Natural History Unit, Bristol: scientific advisor, additional camera, sound and script editing.
  • Ghosts of Gondwana (2002, 50 mins) Natural History New Zealand, Dunedin: post-production research and assistance.
  • Spiders: the ultimate guide (2001, 30 mins) Green Umbrella Productions, Bristol: scientific advisor.
  • Spiders from Mars (1999, 30 mins) BBC, Natural History Unit, Bristol: scientific advisor.