It is all too easy for the public to switch off from the threat of climate change. Politicians ca... more It is all too easy for the public to switch off from the threat of climate change. Politicians can engage people by embracing environmentalism as a political issue, and arguing that economic inequality and climate change are connected through the politics of sustainability
The adage that anthropology is comparative if it can be defi ned as anything at all has been test... more The adage that anthropology is comparative if it can be defi ned as anything at all has been tested in recent years to great effect—particularly on the theme of the body (Gregor and Tuzin 2001; Lambek and Strathern 1998)—and with greater confi-1 The authors are grateful to the participants, as well as those who helped organise, host and fund the workshop entitled “The frontier in Amazonia and Siberia: extrac-tive economies, indigenous politics and social transformations, ” held at the Scott
The book was inadvertently published without the funder information. The funder information “This... more The book was inadvertently published without the funder information. The funder information “This book has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 638259 (Project EU Border Care)” has been now included in the copyright page.
Forest conservation has received a new impetus from international climate-change politics, giving... more Forest conservation has received a new impetus from international climate-change politics, giving rise to UN-REDD, which promises to evolve into a giant international 'payment for ecosystem services' scheme. Many scholars and activists are concerned about potential social costs in the absence of forest peoples' land rights (or of respect for such rights). Meanwhile, other sceptics question the creation of forest carbon ownership rights on the grounds that the commodification of nature is merely a further expansion of capitalism. I suggest that native property regimes can help reflect on the dilemma imposed by these two criticisms of REDD. Among the Trio of southern Suriname, the ownership and appropriation of (in)dividuals pervades inter-human relations and kinship. These property relations form the basis for human interactions with the nonhuman actors who constitute the living environment. In this paper I describe the Trio's perspective on their involvement in the c...
Marc Brightman is an ESRC postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropolog... more Marc Brightman is an ESRC postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, and Research Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, 51/53 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PE, United Kingdom. marc.brightman@anthro.ox.ac.uk.Vanessa Elisa Grotti is a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, and Research Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, 51/53 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PE, United Kingdom. vanessa.grotti@anthro.ox.ac.uk.Olga Ulturgasheva is a NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Scott Polar Research Institute, and Research Fellow at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, Herschel Road CB3 9AL, United Kingdom. ou202@cam.ac.uk.
This book takes some of the insights of the anthropology of hospitality to illuminate ethnographi... more This book takes some of the insights of the anthropology of hospitality to illuminate ethnographic accounts of migrant reception in various parts of the Mediterranean. Anthropology has revisited the concept of hospitality in recent years, drawing on the insights of ethnographers of the Mediterranean, who ground the idea and practice of hospitality in concrete ethnographic settings and challenge the ways in which the casual usage of Derridean or Kantian notions of hospitality can blur the boundaries between social scales and between metaphor and practice. Host-guest relations are multiplied through pregnancy and childbirth, and new forms emerge with the need to offer mortuary practices for dead strangers. The volume does not attempt to define a distinctive Mediterranean hospitality, but explores the potential of the concept of hospitality to illuminate the spatial and scalar dimensions of morality and politics in Mediterranean migrant reception.
Amazonia and Siberia, classic regions of shamanism, have long challenged "western" unde... more Amazonia and Siberia, classic regions of shamanism, have long challenged "western" understandings of man's place in the world. By exploring the social relations between humans and non-human entities credited with human-like personhood (not only animals and plants, but also "things" such as artifacts, trade items, or mineral resources) from a comparative perspective, this volume offers valuable insights into the constitutions of humanity and personhood characteristic of the two areas. The contributors conducted their ethnographic fieldwork among peoples undergoing transformative processesof their lived environments, such as the depletion of natural resources and migration to urban centers. They describe here fundamental relational modes that are being tested in the face of change, presenting groundbreaking research on personhood and agency in shamanic societies and contributing to our global understanding of social and cultural change and continuity.
The authors of this paper carried out ethnographic fieldwork in Amazonia and Siberia, and since 2... more The authors of this paper carried out ethnographic fieldwork in Amazonia and Siberia, and since 2006 have been organizing efforts to compare the two regions through conferences and edited volumes. The paper reviews the ways in which conference participants have approached the themes of “frontier” and “personhood” and discusses perspectives for further reflection. Amazonia and Siberia have long been frontier zones in the Western imagination. Both have experienced extractivism, imposed by supralocal actors; both are vast and sparely populated; and both exhibit a “shamanic” relationship between indigenous peoples and the living environment. The frontier is perhaps best thought of in terms of the politicization of space and seen as multifarious, interactive, and perspectivally variable. The paper discusses different types of shamanism, human/non-human relations, and understandings of personhood, helping us understand how processes of historical change on the grand scale may be experienc...
In this article we consider the afterlife of the remains of unidentified migrants who have died ... more In this article we consider the afterlife of the remains of unidentified migrants who have died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Albania and North Africa to Italy. Drawing on insights from long term, multi-sited field research, we outline paths taken by human remains and consider their multiple agencies and distributed personhood through the relational modalities with which they are symbolically and materially engaged at different scales of significance. The rising number of migrant deaths related to international crossings worldwide, especially in the Mediterranean, has stimulated a large body of scholarship, which generally relies upon a hermeneutics of secular transitional justice and fraternal transnationalism. We explore an alternative approach by focusing on the material and ritual afterlife of unidentified human remains at sea, examining the effects they have on their hosting environment. The treatment of dead strangers (across the double threshold constitute...
Nurture The Trio mastery over the Akuriyo can also be read in terms of feeding and nurture. The i... more Nurture The Trio mastery over the Akuriyo can also be read in terms of feeding and nurture. The image of the prestation of manioc – the quintessential humanizing food, associated with maternal nurture – constantly recurs in the contact ...
REDD+ e um programa ambicioso para uma arquitetura global da governanca da floresta. Os preparati... more REDD+ e um programa ambicioso para uma arquitetura global da governanca da floresta. Os preparativos tecnicos para seu estabelecimento estao em andamento em diversos paises. No Suriname, os riscos e beneficios referentes ao REDD+ diferem de acordo com as perspectivas de distintos atores. A possibilidade do REDD+ trouxe urgencia para uma luta politica corrente sobre os direitos a terra de povos indigenas e tribais. Ainda assim, enquanto as negociacoes sobre direitos territoriais ficam paralisadas, os beneficios referentes aos financiamentos e competencias tecnicas sao capturados pelas elites e ONGs internacionais. Este artigo trata da ecologia politica do REDD+ no Suriname e sugere que os resultados de suas politicas, para o bem ou para o mal, nao serao aqueles referentes as suas intencoes originais.
It is all too easy for the public to switch off from the threat of climate change. Politicians ca... more It is all too easy for the public to switch off from the threat of climate change. Politicians can engage people by embracing environmentalism as a political issue, and arguing that economic inequality and climate change are connected through the politics of sustainability
The adage that anthropology is comparative if it can be defi ned as anything at all has been test... more The adage that anthropology is comparative if it can be defi ned as anything at all has been tested in recent years to great effect—particularly on the theme of the body (Gregor and Tuzin 2001; Lambek and Strathern 1998)—and with greater confi-1 The authors are grateful to the participants, as well as those who helped organise, host and fund the workshop entitled “The frontier in Amazonia and Siberia: extrac-tive economies, indigenous politics and social transformations, ” held at the Scott
The book was inadvertently published without the funder information. The funder information “This... more The book was inadvertently published without the funder information. The funder information “This book has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 638259 (Project EU Border Care)” has been now included in the copyright page.
Forest conservation has received a new impetus from international climate-change politics, giving... more Forest conservation has received a new impetus from international climate-change politics, giving rise to UN-REDD, which promises to evolve into a giant international 'payment for ecosystem services' scheme. Many scholars and activists are concerned about potential social costs in the absence of forest peoples' land rights (or of respect for such rights). Meanwhile, other sceptics question the creation of forest carbon ownership rights on the grounds that the commodification of nature is merely a further expansion of capitalism. I suggest that native property regimes can help reflect on the dilemma imposed by these two criticisms of REDD. Among the Trio of southern Suriname, the ownership and appropriation of (in)dividuals pervades inter-human relations and kinship. These property relations form the basis for human interactions with the nonhuman actors who constitute the living environment. In this paper I describe the Trio's perspective on their involvement in the c...
Marc Brightman is an ESRC postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropolog... more Marc Brightman is an ESRC postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, and Research Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, 51/53 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PE, United Kingdom. marc.brightman@anthro.ox.ac.uk.Vanessa Elisa Grotti is a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, and Research Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, 51/53 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PE, United Kingdom. vanessa.grotti@anthro.ox.ac.uk.Olga Ulturgasheva is a NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Scott Polar Research Institute, and Research Fellow at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, Herschel Road CB3 9AL, United Kingdom. ou202@cam.ac.uk.
This book takes some of the insights of the anthropology of hospitality to illuminate ethnographi... more This book takes some of the insights of the anthropology of hospitality to illuminate ethnographic accounts of migrant reception in various parts of the Mediterranean. Anthropology has revisited the concept of hospitality in recent years, drawing on the insights of ethnographers of the Mediterranean, who ground the idea and practice of hospitality in concrete ethnographic settings and challenge the ways in which the casual usage of Derridean or Kantian notions of hospitality can blur the boundaries between social scales and between metaphor and practice. Host-guest relations are multiplied through pregnancy and childbirth, and new forms emerge with the need to offer mortuary practices for dead strangers. The volume does not attempt to define a distinctive Mediterranean hospitality, but explores the potential of the concept of hospitality to illuminate the spatial and scalar dimensions of morality and politics in Mediterranean migrant reception.
Amazonia and Siberia, classic regions of shamanism, have long challenged "western" unde... more Amazonia and Siberia, classic regions of shamanism, have long challenged "western" understandings of man's place in the world. By exploring the social relations between humans and non-human entities credited with human-like personhood (not only animals and plants, but also "things" such as artifacts, trade items, or mineral resources) from a comparative perspective, this volume offers valuable insights into the constitutions of humanity and personhood characteristic of the two areas. The contributors conducted their ethnographic fieldwork among peoples undergoing transformative processesof their lived environments, such as the depletion of natural resources and migration to urban centers. They describe here fundamental relational modes that are being tested in the face of change, presenting groundbreaking research on personhood and agency in shamanic societies and contributing to our global understanding of social and cultural change and continuity.
The authors of this paper carried out ethnographic fieldwork in Amazonia and Siberia, and since 2... more The authors of this paper carried out ethnographic fieldwork in Amazonia and Siberia, and since 2006 have been organizing efforts to compare the two regions through conferences and edited volumes. The paper reviews the ways in which conference participants have approached the themes of “frontier” and “personhood” and discusses perspectives for further reflection. Amazonia and Siberia have long been frontier zones in the Western imagination. Both have experienced extractivism, imposed by supralocal actors; both are vast and sparely populated; and both exhibit a “shamanic” relationship between indigenous peoples and the living environment. The frontier is perhaps best thought of in terms of the politicization of space and seen as multifarious, interactive, and perspectivally variable. The paper discusses different types of shamanism, human/non-human relations, and understandings of personhood, helping us understand how processes of historical change on the grand scale may be experienc...
In this article we consider the afterlife of the remains of unidentified migrants who have died ... more In this article we consider the afterlife of the remains of unidentified migrants who have died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Albania and North Africa to Italy. Drawing on insights from long term, multi-sited field research, we outline paths taken by human remains and consider their multiple agencies and distributed personhood through the relational modalities with which they are symbolically and materially engaged at different scales of significance. The rising number of migrant deaths related to international crossings worldwide, especially in the Mediterranean, has stimulated a large body of scholarship, which generally relies upon a hermeneutics of secular transitional justice and fraternal transnationalism. We explore an alternative approach by focusing on the material and ritual afterlife of unidentified human remains at sea, examining the effects they have on their hosting environment. The treatment of dead strangers (across the double threshold constitute...
Nurture The Trio mastery over the Akuriyo can also be read in terms of feeding and nurture. The i... more Nurture The Trio mastery over the Akuriyo can also be read in terms of feeding and nurture. The image of the prestation of manioc – the quintessential humanizing food, associated with maternal nurture – constantly recurs in the contact ...
REDD+ e um programa ambicioso para uma arquitetura global da governanca da floresta. Os preparati... more REDD+ e um programa ambicioso para uma arquitetura global da governanca da floresta. Os preparativos tecnicos para seu estabelecimento estao em andamento em diversos paises. No Suriname, os riscos e beneficios referentes ao REDD+ diferem de acordo com as perspectivas de distintos atores. A possibilidade do REDD+ trouxe urgencia para uma luta politica corrente sobre os direitos a terra de povos indigenas e tribais. Ainda assim, enquanto as negociacoes sobre direitos territoriais ficam paralisadas, os beneficios referentes aos financiamentos e competencias tecnicas sao capturados pelas elites e ONGs internacionais. Este artigo trata da ecologia politica do REDD+ no Suriname e sugere que os resultados de suas politicas, para o bem ou para o mal, nao serao aqueles referentes as suas intencoes originais.
The periodic emergence of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation in Amazonia have given... more The periodic emergence of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation in Amazonia have given rise to sensational media reports and heated academic debate. In this chapter we describe briefly the historical and contemporary relations between indigenous peoples in and out of isolation in the Guiana Shield region of Northeastern South America and discuss the role of indigenous missionaries in histories of contact. After considering these facts in relation to some of the general debates about isolated peoples and policy, we assess the ethical dimensions of the question of emergence from isolation.
Amazonia and Siberia, classic regions of shamanism, have long challenged “western” understandings... more Amazonia and Siberia, classic regions of shamanism, have long challenged “western” understandings of man’s place in the world. By exploring the social relations between humans and non-human entities credited with human-like personhood (not only animals and plants, but also “things” such as artifacts, trade items, or mineral resources) from a comparative perspective, this volume offers valuable insights into the constitutions of humanity and personhood characteristic of the two areas. The contributors conducted their ethnographic fieldwork among peoples undergoing transformative processesof their lived environments, such as the depletion of natural resources and migration to urban centers. They describe here fundamental relational modes that are being tested in the face of change, presenting groundbreaking research on personhood and agency in shamanic societies and contributing to our global understanding of social and cultural change and continuity.
Dans cet article, nous examinerons, sous l’angle de l’hospitalité, le traitement post mortem des ... more Dans cet article, nous examinerons, sous l’angle de l’hospitalité, le traitement post mortem des migrants non identifiés qui périssent en tentant de traverser la Méditerranée, depuis l’Albanie et l’Afrique du Nord jusqu’en Italie. Le nombre croissant de décès de migrants dans le monde, en particulier en Méditerranée, a suscité un grand nombre d’études, qui reposent généralement sur une herméneutique de justice transitionnelle laïque et de transnationalisme fraternel. À l’appui d’une recherche de terrain menée sur le long terme dans plusieurs régions du Sud de l’Italie, nous suivrons une approche alternative, en proposant une interprétation tant des opérations de récupération spontanées et planifiées des dépouilles, que des pratiques mortuaires, y compris des procédures d’identification médico-légales et des inhumations individuelles et collectives. L’accueil des étrangers morts se manifeste à différentes échelles : il prend la forme d’une commémoration à forte connotation politique au niveau de l’État et de la communauté locale, où grâce à de initiatives ponctuelles des cimetières leur sont dédiés ; cependant, alors que les pratiques de commémoration des étrangers morts soulignent le statut de ceux-ci en tant que catégorie collective, les technologies médico-légales d’identification sont orientées vers la reconstruction du caractère (in)divisible de la personne. Ces processus rituels et technologiques de mémorialisation et de rattachement réveillent ensemble les fantômes du passé fasciste et colonial de l’Italie.
Au Seuil de la Forêt: Hommage à Philippe Descola l'Anthropologue de la Nature., 2019
In this chapter, we will reflect on Philippe Descola’s contributions to comparative m... more In this chapter, we will reflect on Philippe Descola’s contributions to comparative methodology to experiment with criteria for comparing Amazonian and Mediterranean material from our field research in both regions.
The chapter by Brightman discusses the works of international environmental NGOs that seek to con... more The chapter by Brightman discusses the works of international environmental NGOs that seek to conserve biodiversity among native Amazonian people in Suriname as a nonconventional form of extractivism. Based on his fieldwork in Suriname, he investigates the Carib-speaking Trio people’s understanding of this relatively new economic, political, and ideological scheme promoted through the marketisation of conservation. What emerges is an account of how Trio conceptualisations (in particular, those regarding land ownership) contrast and entangle with the perspectives of technical and governmental agents intervening in their territory. Thanks to this comparative approach, Brightman is able to contribute an ethnographically informed insight into the different sets of distinctions and continuities between carbon and biodiversity accounting and other more conventional forms of extractivism.
Focusing on the region surrounding the Maroni River, which forms the border between Suriname and ... more Focusing on the region surrounding the Maroni River, which forms the border between Suriname and French Guiana, we examine how relations between different state and non-state social groups are articulated in terms of security. The region is characterised by multiple " borders " and frontiers of various kinds, the state boundary having the features of an interface or contact zone. Several key collectivities meet in this border zone: native Amazonians, tribal Maroon peoples, migrant Brazilian gold prospectors, and metropolitan French state functionaries. We explore the relationships between these different sets of actors and describe how their mutual encounters center on discourses of human and state security, thus challenging the commonly held view of the region as a stateless zone and showing that the " human security " of citizens from the perspective of the state may compete with locally salient ideas or experiences of well-being.
The Trio, Wayana and Akuriyo are Carib-speaking Amerindians of the border regions of Brazil, sout... more The Trio, Wayana and Akuriyo are Carib-speaking Amerindians of the border regions of Brazil, southern Suriname and southern French Guiana. 1 We have carried out fi eld research since 2003 in southern Suriname, in a predominantly Trio village shared with a number of Wayana and most of the surviving Akuriyo. A relationship of asymmetry has evolved between the Trio and Akuriyo since the late 1960s, although arguably from a native point of view these two populations have engaged in a relationship of mutual avoidance as far back as people can remember. Despite, or perhaps because of, the memory of prior encounters between them, the Trio and Akuriyo would probably have maintained their mutual avoidance longer, had it not been for the intervention of evangelical missionaries. These missionaries, and in particular a Baptist pastor named Claude Leavitt, who had established himself and his family among the recently contacted Trio a decade earlier (Conley 2000), organized a series of contact expeditions to the remote area around the headwaters of the Oere-mari River near the border with Brazil in search of an elusive group of Akuriyo hunter-gatherers then known as wajiarikure, a Trio ethnonym used to refer to wild, semihuman beings living in the forest (Forth 2008). Trio people generally consider forest dwellers to be barbaric in everyday practices such as cooking and the treatment of their bodies, but they also fear them for their fi erceness and predatory capacities (these capacities are known as ëire in Trio, a word also used to describe the aggressive, magically strengthened bodily state of a warrior). The Trio feel ambivalent towards wild people, considering them individuals of reduced capacity for socialization who nonetheless enjoy superhuman predatory and transfor-mational aptitudes. This helps to explain the way Trio-Akuriyo relations unfolded after contact, and particularly how this relationship came to be considered mutually benefi cial and construed in terms of ownership and This chapter is open access under a Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY)
Shamanic knowledge is based on an ambiguous commensality with invisible others. As a result, sham... more Shamanic knowledge is based on an ambiguous commensality with invisible others. As a result, shamans oscillate constantly between spheres of intimacy, both visible and invisible. A place of power and transformation, the spirit world is rarely described by native interlocutors in an objective, detached way; rather, they depict it in terms of events and experiences. Instead of examining the formal qualities of accounts of the spirit world through analyses of ritual performance and shamanic quests, we focus on life histories as autobiographical accounts in order to explore what they reveal about the relationship between personal history (and indigenous historicity) and the spirit world. We introduce the term 'double reflexivity' to refer to processes by which narratives about the self are produced through relationships with alterity.
The periodic emergence of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation in Amazonia have given... more The periodic emergence of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation in Amazonia have given rise to sensational media reports and heated academic debate. In this chapter we describe briefly the historical and contemporary relations between indigenous peoples in and out of isolation in the Guiana Shield region of Northeastern South America and discuss the role of indigenous missionaries in histories of contact. After considering these facts in relation to some of the general debates about isolated peoples and policy, we assess the ethical dimensions of the question of emergence from isolation.
Handbook of Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity, 2019
The early history of professional anthropology is characterized by chronic ambivalence between, o... more The early history of professional anthropology is characterized by chronic ambivalence between, on one hand, participation in colonial rule (providing insights into native social and political organization) and in postcolonial economic domination (helping to overcome perceived “cultural barriers to development”) and, on the other hand, the role of culturally informed “conscience” of Western powers (revealing and denouncing social injustices and vulgar misrepresentations of exotic alterity). From the 1970s, anthropology’s critical role gradually became dominant among academic practitioners. A reflexive, critical approach to field research thus emerged from within the discipline years before the institutionalization of research ethics discourses and protocols. As funding bodies and universities came to introduce formal ethics protocols largely derived from regulations developed in relation to medical research in the 1980s, professional anthropologists first responded with irony and resistance. This was not only because the discipline had invested considerable energy over many years in questioning and reevaluating the position of the researcher and the consequences of her actions but also because the generic expectations of ethics protocols were poorly suited to a discipline based on long-term immersive field research. Anthropological departments, careers, and scholarship were built over decades of professional involvement in field research and had developed distinctive but informal protocols based on a long-standing tradition of working across regional, cultural, and social divides. We argue that the best basis for any ethics of the discipline lies in continued reflection on case studies of ethical dilemmas in anthropological research and that special attention should be paid to data ownership and protection, consent, and the treatment of incidental findings.
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