My research interests have been dominated by two major experiences: 1) a serendipitous childhood encounter with Sámi reindeer herders in the Swedish mountains which launched me into an anthropological career, and 2) an inspirational travel/study year around the world during my BA program at Harvard led by anthropologist and cyberneticist Gregory Bateson. As a result, my scholarly production has grown from a concentration on Sámi culture and livelihoods to embrace comparative aspects of reindeer economies throughout the circumpolar area. This in turn has caused me to immerse myself in studies of indigenous rights, ethnicity and political ecology in general.
I have lived among Sámi reindeer herders for extensive periods of time in Sweden, Norway and the Kola Peninsula of Russia, have studied the determinants of change in reindeer herding practices and also the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, have worked as a reindeer herder in Alaska with the Inuit NANA Regional Corporation herd, and been chairman of the Swedish Minority Rights Group and expert advisor on Sámi affairs to Sweden’s first two ombudsmen against ethnic discrimination. Because of a general systems perspective inspired by Bateson, my work has been devoted to jerking the studies of reindeer herding away from a dominance of descriptive “culturology” of traditional ways with accompanying historical categorizations into analytical forms of study based on the recognition of embedded hierarchies of resource/consumer relationships and property regimes to enable comparative work across time and space.
I have recently retired to become Professor Emeritus, but continue work to complete both my long-term project on the social effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster for the Swedish Saami and the international CLUE project noted above concerning the situation of the small (indigenous) peoples of northern Russia in Post-Soviet times.
As I gradually free myself from academic writing, I hope to return more frequently to my Saami fieldwork home in the Jokkmokk area and write for a more general readership about experiences “up north”—all the while indulging my desires to practice the Eskimo Roll in my kayak, to play the saxophone, and to pursue my new fascination with Taichi.
Contact information: Hugh.Beach@antro.uu.se
Selected publications:
The list below is only a selection. For a complete list of publications, see the attached document.
Monograph
| 2001 (1993) |  | A year in Lapland: guest of the reindeer herders. Seattle: University of Washington Press. With a new afterword by the author. |
Anthology
| 2009 |  | Post-Soviet Transformations: politics of ethnicity and resource use in Russia. Uppsala: Acta Univ. Ups., Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology 46. |
Journal (editor)
| 2009 |  | Humans and Reindeer on the Move, eds. Hugh Beach and Florian Stammler. Special edition of Nomadic Peoples, Volume 10, Issue 2/2006. |
Articles
| 2015 | How might gender matter? (With Rasmussen, R.) In: SLiCA: Arctic living conditions Living conditions and quality of life among Inuit, Saami and indigenous peoples of Chukotka and the Kola Peninsula, ed. Birger Poppel. Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers. Read article |
| 2015 | Survey design and sampling problems (with Lewis, D). In: SLiCA: Arctic living conditions Living conditions and quality of life among Inuit, Saami and indigenous peoples of Chukotka and the Kola Peninsula, ed. Birger Poppel. Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers. Read article |
| 2015 | The Survey of Living Conditions in the Arctic (SLiCA) as deployed in Sweden – initial issues. (with Lewis, D., Rasmussen, R., Roto, J.). In: SLiCA: Arctic living conditions Living conditions and quality of life among Inuit, Saami and indigenous peoples of Chukotka and the Kola Peninsula, ed. Birger Poppel. Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers. Read article |
| 2014 | Nordic reindeer governance in the context of contemporary protected areas and species, in Resource Governance (with Forbes, B., Kofinas, G., et al). In Arctic Human Development Report II: Regional Process, Global Linkages, eds. J.N. Larsen and G. Fondahl. Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers, 269-313. Read article |
| 2013 | Linking Essentialist and Constructivist Ethnicity. In Acta Borealia, Vol. 24, No. 1, 1-25. Read article |
| 2013 | Devitalization and Revitalization of Traditional Saami Dwellings in Sweden. In About the Hearth: Perspectives on the Home, Hearth and Household in the Circumpolar North, eds. Robert Wishardt Virginie Vaté and David Anderson. New York: Berghahn books. Read article |
| 2013 | Foreword, to Demant Hatt, E., With the Lapps in the High Mountains: A Woman among the Sami, 1907-1908. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. |
| 2012 | Milk and Antlers: A System of Partitioned Rights and Multiple Holders of Reindeer in Northern China. In Who Owns The Stock? Collective and Multiple Property Rights in Animals, eds. Anatoly M. Khazanov and Günther Schlee. New York: Berghahn Books. Read article |
| 2012 | Nordic Reflections on Northern Social Research. In A Companion to the Anthropology of Europe, eds. Ullrick Kockel, Mairead Nic Craith, and Jonas Frykman. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Read article |
| 2012 | Förord [Foreword], to Walkeapää, L., Lainiovuoma-samernas gamla renflyttningar till Norge: Om sommarbosättningar i Troms Fylke på 1900-talet. Uppsala: Centrum för Biologisk Mångfald (CBM). |
| 2011 | Short Report – The 2011 Swedish Supreme Court Ruling: A Turning Point for Saami Rights (with A. Sasvari). In Nomadic Peoples. vol. 15, issue 2. |
| 2011 | When Push Comes to Shove: The Political and Moral Discourse of Rapid Climatic Change. Remarks made at the IPY meeting in Oslo, June 2010, in Arctic Studies Center Newsletter, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, May. Read article |
| 2011 | Reindeer Management, Resource Rights, and Ethnicity, in Arctic Studies Center Newsletter, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, May. Read article |
| 2008 | Лукьянченко, Х. Бич (H. Beach), А. Ю. Карпухин, (редакторы), Шеффер И. (1673), ЛАПЛАНДИЯ. Перевод с латинского: В.С.Золотилова, А.Ю.Зверева. Published by the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. |
| 2008 | Reindeer Ears: calf marking during the contemporary era of extensive herding in Swedish Saamiland. In Årsbok [Yearbook] 2007. Uppsala: Kungl. Humanistiska Vetenskaps-Samfundet i Uppsala/Annales Societatis Litterarum Humaniorum Regiae Upsaliensis, 91-118. Read article |
| 2007 | Self-determining the Self: Aspects of Saami Identity Management in Sweden. In Acta Borealia, vol. 24, No. 1, 1-25. Read article |
| 2006 | Human-Animal Relations in Pastoralism (with F. Stammler). In Humans and Reindeer on the Move, special edition of Nomadic Peoples, eds. Stammler, F. and Beach, H, vol. 10, Issue 2/2006. Read excerpt |
| 2006 | The Challenges and Dilemmas of Concession Reindeer Management in Sweden (with J-L. Jernsletten). In Reindeer Management in Northernmost Europe: Linking Practical and Scientific Knowledge in Social-Ecological Systems, eds. B. Forbes, M. Bölter, L. Müller-Wille, J. Hukkinen, F. Müller, N. Gunslay, and Y. Konstantinov. Berlin: Springer, Ecological Studies: Analysis and Synthesis, vol. 184. Read article |
| 2004 | The Long Walk VI: An Interview with Robert Paine in Three Acts. In Nomadic Peoples, vol 8, issue 1. Read article |
| 2004 | Political Ecology in Swedish Saamiland. In Cultivating Arctic Landscapes: Knowing and Managing Animals in the Circumpolar North, eds. David Anderson and Mark Nuttall. Oxford: Berghahn Press. Read article |
| 2003 | Chinese Dual-Ownership System – a Hopeful Model. Contribution to A Saga Unfolds: Reindeer Herding in China. In Cultural Survival Quarterly, Spring 2003, vol. 27. issue 1. |
| 2002 | Ecological Man and the Laponia World Heritage Site. in The Roots of Peoples and Languages of Northern Eurasia IV, ed. Kyösti Julku. Oulu: Historica Fenno-Ugrica. |
| 2001 | World Heritage and Indigenous Peoples – the Example of Laponia. In Upholders of Culture Past and Present, ed. Bo Sundin. Stockholm: Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. Read article |
| 2000 | Reindeer-Pastoralism Politics in Sweden: Protecting the Environment and Designing the Herder. In Negotiating Nature, eds. Alf Hornborg and Gísli Pálsson. Lund: Lund University Press. Read article |
| 2000 | Social and economic aspects of climate change in Arctic regions. Keynote address to the Arctic Science Summit Week 5 April, Joint Science Day, IASSA & IASC. Cambridge, UK. Read the keynote adress |
| 2000 | The Saami. In Endangered Peoples of the Arctic: Struggles to Survive and Thrive, ed. Milton Freeman. London: Greenwood Press, Endangered Peoples of the World series. Read article |
| 1997 | Negotiating Nature in Swedish Lapland: Ecology and Economics of Saami Reindeer Management. In Contested Arctic: Indigenous Peoples, Industrial States, and the Circumpolar Environment, ed. Eric A. Smith. University of Washington Press. Read article |
| 1994 | The Saami of Lapland. In: Polar Peoples: Self-determination and development, ed. by Minority Rights Group, Minority Rights Publications, London. (An expanded update of Minority Rights Group report nr. 55 by the same author, published 1988). Read article |
| 1994 | Saami Life and Handicraft. In: Swedish Folk Art: All Tradition is Change, eds. Barbro Klein and Mats Widbom. New york: Harry N. Abrams. Read article |
| 1994 | Shots Heard Round the World. In: Beslutet om Småviltjakten - En studie i myndighetsutövning, ed. Agneta Arnesson-Westerdahl. Utgiven av Sametinget. Read article |
| 1993 | Samepolitiken i Sverige: Kränkande politik. In: Invandrare och Minoriteter, nr. 5-6, December. Read article |
| 1993 | Straining at Gnats and Swallowing Reindeer: the Politics of Ethnicity and Environmentalism in Northern Sweden. In: Green Arguments and Local Subsistence, ed. G. Dahl. Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology. Read article |
| 1992 | Den Svenska Samepolitiken. In: Invandrare och Minoriteter, ed. D. Schwarz. Nr. 2, April. Read article |
| 1992 | Reindeer Herding on the Kola Peninsula: Report of a Visit with Saami Herders of Sovkhoz Tundra. In: Readings in Saami History, Culture and Language III, ed. R. Kvist. Center for Arctic Cultural Research, Umeå University. Read article |
| 1990 | Perceptions of Risk, Dilemmas of Policy: Nuclear Fallout in Swedish Lapland. In: Social Science & Medicine. Vol. 30, No. 6, pp. 729-738. Read article |
| 1990 | Comparative Systems of Reindeer Herding. In: The World of Pastoralism: Herding Systems in Comparative Perspective, ed. John Galaty and Douglas Johnson. Guilford Publications. Read article |
| 1990 | Coping with the Chernobyl disaster: a comparison of social affects in two reindeer-herding areas. In: Rangifer, Scientific Journal of Reindeer and Reindeer Husbandry. Special Issue No. 3, pp. 25-34. (From a paper presented at the 5th International Reindeer/Caribou Symposium in Arvidsjaur, August 1988.) Read article |
| 1989 | En samisk forårsvandring set fra venstre. In: Jordens Folk. Nr. 1. produced by the Danish Ethnographic Society in cooperation with the Institute for Anthropology, University of Copenhagen. Read article |
| 1986 | The Phase-Out Clause in Minority Rights Legislation: A Comparison of the Swedish and Alaskan Methods. In: Nordisk Tidsskrift for International Ret. Vol. 55, Fasc. 1-2. Copenhagen. Read article |
| 1986 | The Saami in Alaska: Ethnic Relations and Reindeer Herding. In: Contributions to Circumpolar Studies, ed. Hugh Beach. Uppsala Research Reports in Cultural Anthropology. No. 7. Department of Cultural Anthropology, Uppsala Univ., Sweden. Read article |
| 1985 | The Reindeer-Caribou Conflict in the NANA Region of Alaska: A Case Study for Native Minority Rights Issues. In: Nomadic Peoples. no. 17, February, ed. Philip C. Salzman, Commission on Nomadic Peoples. McGill Univ., Canada. Read article |
| 1985 | Moose Poaching or Native Minority Right: a Struggle for Definition in Swedish Saamiland. In: Nord Nytt, Nordisk Tidskrift for Folkelivsforskning. Nr. 26, Kulturer i Norr. Udgivet af NEFA-Norden. Special-Trykkeriet Viborg a-s, Denmark. Read article |
| 1984 | Developing Spirit in Northwest Alaska. In: Ethnos. Vol. 49:III-IV. The Ethnographical Museum, Stockholm. Read article |
| 1983 | A Swedish Dilemma: Saami Rights and the Welfare State. In: Production Pastorale et Société, bulletin de l'équipe écologie et anthropologie des sociétés pastorales. Supplément à MSH Informations, Publié avec le concours du CNRS. No. 12 printemps. Paris. Read article |
| 1982 | The Place of Women in the Modern Saameby: An Issue in Legal Anthropology. In: Antropologisk Forskning, Ymer, årgång 102, ed. Margareta Elg. Svenska Sällskapet för Antropologi och Geographi. Borgströms Tryckeri AB, Motala. Read article |
| 1981 | Reindeer-Herd Management in Transition: The Case of Tuorpon Saameby in Northern Sweden. Acta Univ. Ups., Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology 3. Uppsala. Read monograph |
