Worldviews and Ritual Practice Coastal Koryaks (Nymylans), Lesnaya, Kamchatka

Erich Kasten studied social and cultural anthropology and taught at the Free University of Berlin. He has conducted extensive field research in the Canadian Pacific Northwest and in Kamchatka and has curated international museum exhibitions. As the first coordinator of the Siberian research group at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, he studied transformations in Post-Soviet Siberia. In ensuing projects for UNESCO and the National Science Foundation, he documented and analyzed indigenous knowledge. Since 2010 he has been the director of the Foundation for Siberian Cultures in Fürstenberg/Havel (Germany). More recently he has also applied himself to developing web archives and Internet interfaces with the purpose of enhancing access and sustaining endangered cultural heritage.