Grayson Highlands Ponies Research Project
Dr. James Beveridge, a cultural and environmental anthropologist, leads an ethnographic and multi-modal research project at Grayson Highlands State Park and Mount Rogers Federal Recreation Area in Virginia. Dr. Beveridge teaches a summer ethnographic field school at Grayson Highlands and invites undergraduate students to participate in his research team year-round.
The research project employs a multispecies studies theoretical framework and a multi-modal methodology to examine more-than-human sociality at the Grayson Highlands of Virginia. It focuses on the social and environmental worlds of and surrounding the feral ponies, who are the Grayson Highlands State Park’s star attraction, bringing to the fore the tangled politics around care, conservation, and value, at the core of protected landscapes.
If you are interested in participating in the Grayson Highlands Ponies Research Project
Reach out to Dr. Beveridge (beveridgej@appstate.edu) if you want to learn more about the summer field school or other research opportunities with the project.
Regarding student research participation outside of the summer field school Dr. Beveridge says "Most research days are Saturdays and Sundays when we travel together to Grayson Highlands State Park. We spend most days hiking around the park, encountering the feral ponies and other wildlife and studying the human visitors to the park. We also set up our interview table at the trailhead inside the park and conduct formal interviews with park visitors. We implement traditional anthropological techniques of participant observation, fieldnote-taking, and interviewing, in addition to multi-species and multi-modal/sensory ethnographic methodologies."