Agnieszka (Agnes) Pawlowska-Mainville

International Studies | Food Systems | Environment | Community | Forestry | Culture | interdisciplinary: biocultural diversity, critical heritage studies, Indigenous Studies, forestry, languages, ethnology, global and international studies

Dr. hab. Agnieszka Pawłowska-Mainville is an Associate Professor in Global and International Studies (housed in First Nations Studies 2014-2023) at the University of Northern British Columbia, Canada. She holds the UNESCO Chair in Living Heritage and Sustainable Livelihoods (la Chaire UNESCO en patrimoine vivant et les moyens de subsistances viables). She earned her B.A. from McGill University and completed her M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Manitoba; she was a visiting scholar at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland on a European Horizons grant in 2023-2025. Dr. Pawłowska-Mainville’s research, conducted in multilingual contexts, centers on safeguarding, transmitting, promoting, and valuing intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Her work primarily addresses eco-cultural practices, cultural landscapes, languages, craftsmanship, and other cultural expressions closely connected to ecosystems, with an overarching goal of fostering sustainable conditions for cultural heritage and linguistic transmission. Over more than a decade, she has collaborated with the Asatiwisipe Anishinaabeg on cultural and natural resource stewardship, documenting the First Nation-led Pimachiowin Aki UNESCO World Heritage Site nomination. Additionally, she worked with the Makeso Sakahican Inninuwak, leading Elders, resource-users, and academics in presenting evidence at the 2014 Clean Environment Commission hearings against the Keeyask hydro-electric station in Manitoba, Canada. Dr. Pawłowska-Mainville’s Marie Curie-European Horizons project (2023-2025) examined best practices in ICH safeguarding, transmission and linguistic valuation and she collaborated with the Complex of Landscape Parks of the Lower Vistula River (Poland), Intactlitis Research Group, other UNESCO Commissions, and UNESCO Chairs, as well as Parks Canada, the Carrier Linguistic Society, and numerous culture-custodians. The project has created a vibrant platform for ICH documentation, promotion, and community-based safeguarding initiatives, including language transmission. Dr. Pawłowska-Mainville’s select publications include works on integrating Dakelh and academic pedagogies through moose-hide tanning (2020), on the Anishinaabeg boreal forest food system in Canada (2020), a study on ICH custodians in the context of natural resource management in Poland and Canada (2022), as well as on the re-presentation of the Wiindigog in Anishinaabeg and Oji-Cree landscapes (2022). She also has numerous articles in prestigious journals like Nature, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Ecology & Society, Santander: Art & Culture Law Review, and IUCN reports and a report on ICH in Canada with the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. Her books include Stored in the Bones: Safeguarding Indigenous Living Heritages (2023) Living Heritage Landscapes: An Anthropological Approach to Intangible Cultural Heritage and Language Valuation in Canada and Poland (2024), and ‘Kociewian on the Verge of Extinction?’ Reflections on Cultural Heritage and a Language on the Brink of Oblivion (bilingual) is in press.