UW Assistant Professor Receives Funding for Hunting in Wyoming Project

Nikolas Sweet, an assistant professor in the University of Wyoming Department of Anthropology, is among four recipients of the inaugural Norman G. Pauling Research Fellowship for Early-Career Scholars, awarded by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

His project is titled “Investigations into Gun Culture and Hunting: Perspectives from Linguistic Anthropology.” It uses anthropological and sociological tools to understand the cultural significance of gun ownership and hunting in the American West, focusing on how these practices intersect with identity, community and politics.

Sweet’s project was selected from nearly 50 applications based on its grounding in the liberal arts and sciences, disciplinary merit, strength of design, thoughtful inclusion of student and/or community participants, and promise in contributing to the public good. He will be awarded $20,000 in support of his work.

“Many of my colleagues in the UW Department of Anthropology study the archaeology of hunter-gathers, and I wanted to contribute to these conversations in new ways,” he says. “This project has some multisited dimensions that connect with existing research in West Africa and Germany; however, the Wyoming part, which the grant funds, is all about exploring something that is significant to the people of the Cowboy State.”

Hunting is often the source of significant cultural misunderstandings and contrasting viewpoints that will be productive to explore, Sweet says.

He plans to include UW students as research assistants in the project and is looking forward to creating a collaborative project that gives anthropology students hands-on, ethnographic research experience.

Sweet’s team plans to explore the cultural and linguistic dimensions of hunting in Wyoming. Specifically, the team will research how guns and hunting offer people tools for understanding who they are, how they mediate interactions between people and how they connect with other aspects of people’s social lives.

“The Pauling Fellowship is a testament to our commitment to early-career scholars whose work underscores the relevance of the liberal arts and sciences in addressing today’s most pressing challenges,” says Frederick Lawrence, secretary and CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. “The groundbreaking research conducted by these Fellows will help to reinforce the vital role of the production of knowledge in shaping a more meaningful, productive and engaged society.”

Sweet is a broadly trained linguistic anthropologist interested in the significance of everyday interactions. His existing work explores questions of mobility and social interaction in Senegal, where he works in the local languages of Pular, Wolof and French.

He is the author of a forthcoming book, titled “The Verbal Art of Mobility in West Africa,” which will be published by Indiana University Press this year. In addition to hunting, Sweet enjoys learning about the anthropology of food and cooking and is developing a multisited research project on the language and sociality of hunting in Germany, Senegal and Wyoming.

“There is a large public interest in these issues, and I hope to leverage this research to foster humanistic discourses that bridge cultural boundaries in Wyoming,” Sweet says. “My hope is that this research can make seemingly intractable political and cultural divisions more intelligible across the U.S.”

Once the project is completed, Sweet will present the outcomes at the December 2025 meeting of the Phi Beta Kappa Senate at the launch event of its 250th anniversary celebration to be held at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.

For more information about Sweet’s research, email nsweet1@uwyo.edu.