Research Statement

Subadult lion, near Ishasha, Uganda

Pamela’s early field research was into effects of captivity on animal behaviour through a comparative ethological study of lions in the Serengeti, Tanzania, and lions in a safari park in Ontario. After completing her doctorate on the subject of anthropomorphism and ethology, she carried out three years’ fieldwork in Japan researching Japanese scientists’ methods and assumptions underlying primatology. During her career at the university her research focused on the anthropology of science, anthropomorphism, Japanese views of nature,

Japanese macaque, Arashiyama, Kyoto

Korean and Japanese views of ‘soul’ in animals and objects, and reasons for marginalization of scientific scholarship in certain countries. After meeting Kinji Imanishi, founder of Japanese primatology, her further research included the translation into English of Imanishi’s seminal work, Seibutsu no Sekai [The World of Living Things] with Japanese colleagues. By 2011, this work also will be available in Spanish, French and German translations. She was given access to Imanishi’s personal notes and

Writing brush memorial ceremony (Fude kuyou), Japan

fieldwork diaries, dating from 1919-1980, by his family and with her research team at the University of Alberta created a digital archive of this collection. She has participated in research on Japanese whaling and on bovine spongiform encephalophy (BSE) impacts on Japanese trade with Alberta [Alberta Prion Research Institute]. She is currently writing a memoir of 25 years’ fieldwork in Japan, in which both creative writing and academic research combine to reach beyond a small core of fellow specialists.