Unfolding Maps

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#21: People of the Horse – with Erika Larsen

Over a two-year period, storyteller and National Geographic photographer Erika Larsen travelled to many locations in the western United States to learn about the significance of the horse in Native American tribes - culturally, spiritually, and economically. ⁠

Along her journey she met many Native Americans who shared their profound stories and experiences about the unique bond that exists between the horse and their culture. In this episode we discuss her photographic work documenting this exceptional connection, as well as the insights she was able to gain - insights into how this connection transformed the indigenous relationship to the landscape they live(d) in. Erika also tells us about her own relationship with horses, what she has learned about how to bond with a horse best and what she has taken from this far-reaching project personally.⁠

Furthermore, we talk about the powerful impressions she gained when attending the Dakota Access Pipeline protest in 2016/2017 - which is considered to be one of the largest gatherings of Native Americans in modern times. ⁠


If you want to learn more about Erika’s very inspiring and outstanding stories and her impressive photographs, we also recommend episode 18 of Unfolding Maps to you - it's about Erika’s experiences in the Scandinavian Arctic: "Living with Sami Reindeer Herders"!⁠

More Episodes

6/1/2022

#31: A World in Crisis (and what to do about it) – with Jared Diamond

What can we learn from the tribes in the rainforest of New Guinea? What are the greatest dangers facing humanity and the earth today, and how can they be overcome? These are some of the many questions we address in this conversation with a leading scientist that has been voted one of the world's top ten intellectuals by various British and American magazines and who researches and writes on just about everything that makes up human existence – think "universal genius": Jared Diamond.He studied physiology at Harvard and Cambridge and became a leading expert on the gallbladder. He is also an ornithologist, anthropologist, sociologist, evolutionary biologist, ecologist, and environmental historian with expertise in archaeology, genetics, and human disease epidemiology. He is also a professor of geography in Los Angeles.And then he is also one of the most successful authors of popular science nonfiction. His works have been translated into some forty languages, and for the world bestseller "Guns, Germs, and Steel. The Fates of Human Societies" he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. His other books include "Collapse. How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed", "The World until Yesterday" and his most recent work "Upheaval – How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change".For all that, Jared Diamond is not only a master of lab work and literature research, but he is and has been on the road himself all over the world (over thirty times in New Guinea alone), he is fluent in over a dozen languages ... So: more than enough material for a wide-ranging conversation about a unique scientific career – and about the world we live in.