Jacobs Research Fund

The Jacobs Research Funds, hosted by the Whatcom Museum in Bellingham, Washington, provides grants for anthropological and linguistic research working with Native American (First Nations) peoples. Grants are given for work on problems in language, social organization, political organization, religion, mythology, music, other arts, psychology and folk science.

Priority is given to research on the Pacific Northwest. However, research on other areas in Canada, the continental United States, Alaska, Mexico, Central America and South America will be funded if possible.

The Jacobs Research Funds (JRF) funds projects involving fieldwork with living peoples that result in publication or other dissemination of information about the fieldwork. Priority is given to research on endangered cultures and languages, and to research on the Pacific Northwest. Projects focusing on archival research are given low priority. Relevance of the project to contemporary theoretical issues in anthropology and linguistics is also a criterion used in evaluating proposals.

Funded projects typically focus on linguistic analysis, social-cultural anthropology, ethnolinguistics, or sociolinguistics. Especially appropriate are field studies that address cultural expressive systems, such as music, language, dance, mythology, world view, folk taxonomy, art, intellectual life, and religion. Also appropriate are projects focusing on cultural and linguistic forms in modern contexts – for example, traditional environmental knowledge or social organization.

Projects in archeology, physical anthropology, applied anthropology, and applied linguistics (for example, grants exclusively for technological improvements, development of pedagogical materials, etc.) are not eligible for support. It is expected that both the subjects of research and society in general will ultimately benefit from the knowledge generated by the funded research.