Marius Warg Næss has a PhD in social anthropology. He did his master thesis on Tibetan nomads in the Northwestern part of the Tibetan Plateau while his PhD Thesis was mainly concerned with the reindeer husbandry in the Northern parts of Norway.

Track Record

Four aspects of my track record demonstrate my competence and experience:

1. My multidisciplinary background within anthropology and ecology.
2. The range of my publications and dissemination, including articles in some of the leading international disciplinary and interdisciplinary journals, numerous scientific and popular lectures, and through my blog.
3. The ability to propose, lead, and productively complete innovative projects.
4. My methodological pluralistic approach mastering both quantitative (e.g., modelling, statistical analyses, social network analyses, experimental economic games) and qualitative (e.g., structured and semi-structured interviews, case-based studies and ethnography) methodological approaches.

Thematically and theoretically, my work has developed from studying pastoral risk management by focusing on herd accumulation and mobility as rational strategies in stochastic environments.

This has led to a focus on how pastoralists organise daily herding through labour allocations and its effect on production and subsequent risk management, which again has led to a focus on evolutionary aspects of pastoral cooperation.

Funding & Grants

Since 2005, I have been instrumental—as project leader, work package leader or major collaborator—in securing funding, both nationally and internationally, with a total value of 68 724 340 NOK.

In 2022 I was awarded an ‘ERC Consolidator Grant’ entitled COMPLEXITY: From small-scale cooperative herding groups to nomadic empires – a cross-cultural approach (grant number 101043382, 1 998 859 EUR). This grant is both a continuation of previous and ongoing work and an innovative take on the evolution of large-scale cooperation and political complexity.

Additionally, I have successfully been awarded three personal grants from the Norwegian Research Council’s Ground-breaking research program:

1. a ‘Young Research Talents grant’ entitled HIERARCHIES: The Erosion of Cooperative Networks and the Evolution of Social Hierarchies: A Comparative Approach (2015-2018, grant number 240280, 6 993 000 NOK),
2. a ‘Personal Postdoctoral Research Fellowship’ entitled ECOPAST: Pastoral herding strategies and governmental management objectives: economic incentives and production in the Saami reindeer husbandry (2011-2014, grant number 204174, 2 810 000 NOK), and
3. a ‘Personal Doctoral Research Fellowship’ entitled Variation in Time Allocation Among Reindeer Herders in West Finnmark, Norway (2005-2009, grant number 165495, 1 900 000 NOK).

I was also instrumental in successfully securing a Nordforsk funded Nordic Centres of Excellence in Arctic Research entitled ReiGN: Reindeer husbandry in a Globalizing North – resilience, adaptations and pathways for actions (2016-2021, grant number 76915, 28 000 000 NOK) where I also led one work package.

In recognition of my interdisciplinary research, I was awarded the FRAM – High North Research Centre for Climate and the Environment’s Science Award in 2018.

My expertise has also been recognised by being an expert reviewer for IPCC: Climate Change 2022 – Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability: Working Group II Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Dissemination

A long-term collaboration with the internationally renowned photojournalist Randall Hyman resulted in the interactive exhibit Sámi Dreams that combines documentary oral histories with life-size large format portraiture.

As a major public outreach component of the ReiGN project, the exhibit featured Sámi individuals from all walks of life recounting their intimate histories via audio recordings played in real time with each photo. In addition to eliciting broad media attention that included coverage by National Public Radio’s “Climate Cast” (minute 44:12 to end) and various newspapers such as the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the exhibit was also featured in a 22-page article in Scandinavian Review.

After debuting at Norway House in Minneapolis, the exhibit traveled the United States for five years, attracting record audiences at prestigious venues such as Maxwell Museum of Anthropology (Albuquerque), Swedish American Museum (Chicago), Nordia House (Portland), the Arizona State Museum (Tucson), and the nationally acclaimed Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Iowa. At its conclusion, the entire exhibit was acquired by the Sámi parliament of Norway for its permanent art collection.

Continuing our collaboration, Hyman has begun expanding his photographic oral history project to include portraiture and audio recordings in Mongolia and Africa under the aegis of my newest grant, COMPLEXITY (funded by the European Research Council), to tell the global story of the impact of climate change on nomadic pastoralists.

My dissemination activities also include collaboration with Viti | Jugendstilsenteret and KUBE in connection with the exhibition The Tragedy of the Commons which was favourably reviewed by the NRK.  

I wrote a specially commissioned essay for this exhibition, describing in detail the social and profoundly human mechanisms that underlie the tragedy of the commons.

Contact Information

If you like to get in touch, send me an e-mail: mwnass@outlook.com

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