Larsen, who started out as an undergraduate English major, found himself writing about place, a sense of place, and the identities associated with it. Seeking to understand cross-cultural variations in terms of a sense of place led him to the discipline of anthropology, and it was through ethnographic research that Larsen finally reached geography. His past research projects have involved sharecroppers in the Tennessee River Valley, who were relocated by the TVA dams, as well as with the Cheslatta, “a small Indian band in British Columbia, Canada, that had been relocated from its traditional lands in 1952 in order to make way for a hydroelectric project that was being constructed by the aluminum company of Canada.” In each case, Larsen sought to understand traditional land use practices, naming practices, and what places mean to people of different cultures.

“There is a land claims treaty process that is going on in Canada,” Larsen reports, “but generally the native people in the province of British Columbia are very dissatisfied with it because it asks them to do things in terms of Western court procedures as opposed to their own indigenous ways of knowing and establishing these things. The Cheslatta are among two-thirds of the native bands that are withdrawing from the treaty process completely--as a matter of protest and also as a matter of expediency” as they seek to join forces with other groups. As a matter of fact, the lumberyards in Columbia will likely contain Cheslatta forest products that derive from this band of 500 individuals partnering with a multi-national timber firm.