BIO
BIO
Selcen Küçüküstel was born in Turkey and completed her graduate studies in
social anthropology. She has received her PhD degree at Humboldt University in
Berlin with her study on nomadic reindeer herder/hunter Dukha of northern
Mongolia, that focuses on on human-animal relations and how the Dukha
perceive their environment. At the moment, she is working as a post-doc
researcher in RIVERS project at the university of Carlos III Madrid on indigenous
people in Nepal and how they are affected by hydropower projects and their
perceptions about rivers. Her main academic interests concern ecological
anthropology, shamanism, nomadic people, Siberia and visual anthropology.
Apart from her academic career, Selcen has also been working as a
photojournalist, producing stories for various geography and culture magazines
in Turkey. After completing her graduate studies, she has travelled overland
from Turkey to Mongolia through Central Asia by bike for her personal project
called “ Following the Traces of Kaf Mountain”, where she has collected fairy
tales from all those countries related to the mysterious mountain in some
famous tales and published them as a series of articles in Atlas magazine. Since
then, she has been working as a freelance photojournalist and has been covering
mostly anthropological stories from various corners of the world from Yemen to
Ethiopia. She has also been working as a producer and assistant director in
documentary movies. She likes to combine her academic career with
photojournalism, looking into the stories she covers from an anthropological
perspective.
Selcen Küçüküstel was born in Turkey and completed her graduate studies in
social anthropology. She has received her PhD degree at Humboldt University in
Berlin with her study on nomadic reindeer herder/hunter Dukha of northern
Mongolia, that focuses on on human-animal relations and how the Dukha
perceive their environment. At the moment, she is working as a post-doc
researcher in RIVERS project at the university of Carlos III Madrid on indigenous
people in Nepal and how they are affected by hydropower projects and their
perceptions about rivers. Her main academic interests concern ecological
anthropology, shamanism, nomadic people, Siberia and visual anthropology.
Apart from her academic career, Selcen has also been working as a
photojournalist, producing stories for various geography and culture magazines
in Turkey. After completing her graduate studies, she has travelled overland
from Turkey to Mongolia through Central Asia by bike for her personal project
called “ Following the Traces of Kaf Mountain”, where she has collected fairy
tales from all those countries related to the mysterious mountain in some
famous tales and published them as a series of articles in Atlas magazine. Since
then, she has been working as a freelance photojournalist and has been covering
mostly anthropological stories from various corners of the world from Yemen to
Ethiopia. She has also been working as a producer and assistant director in
documentary movies. She likes to combine her academic career with
photojournalism, looking into the stories she covers from an anthropological
perspective.
Selcen Küçüküstel
Anthropologist (PhD) / Photojournalist
PROJECTS
The BaYaka: Following Hunter-Gatherer Children
The BaYaka are indigenous forest peoples of the Congo basin. Their daily life is closely intertwined with the forest through hunting, gathering, fishing, and an intimate knowledge of plants, animals, and seasonal rhythms. In this project, I visited the BaYaka with Dr. Gül Deniz Salali, who is an evolutionary anthropologist at University College London and has been conducting research with the BaYaka since 2013.
In this visit, Deniz was investigating how BaYaka children learn in the absence of formal education through play, imitation and close social bonds within the community. I accompanied her in her fieldwork in order to make a short documentary together about the BaYaka children.
The ethnographic film "Rising in the Forest" is available at the youtube page of Dr. Gül Deniz Salali.
The BaYaka cosmological world consists of spirits and land owners in the forest. They regularly make rituals to connect with the spirits of the forest.
Photo Gallery
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