School for Advanced Research Press

For more than 150 years, theories of social evolution, development, and modernity have been unanimous in their assumption that kinship organizes simpler, “traditional,” pre-state societies but not complex, “modern,” state societies. And these theories have been unanimous in their presupposition that within modern state-based societies kinship has been relegated to the domestic domain, has lost its economic and political functions, has retained no organizing force in modern political and economic structures and processes, and has become secularized and rationalized. Vital Relations challenges these notions.

Images play a significant part in projects of “poetic world-making” and political transformation. They participate in the production of commensuration or of incommensurability, enact moments of prophecy or exposure, and attract or repel spectators’ attention. But any examination of images in motion must also recognize the blockages and breakdowns that prevent their movement, as well as the enframings or “stickinesses” that trap them in particular places and prevent them from reaching others.

Reassembling the Collection presents innovative approaches to the study of historical and contemporary engagements between museums and the various individuals and communities who were (and are) involved in their production and consumption.

In this probing study, Severin Fowles undertakes a sustained critique of religion as an analytical category in archaeological research.

The contributors consider something archaeologists seldom think about: the intersection of micro-scale human experience with large-scale and long-term histories.

No Deal! encompasses a diverse group of artists, curators, art historians, and anthropologists from Australia and North America in order to investigate social relations of possession through the artifacts and motifs of Indigenous expressive culture. The contributors speak from the standpoints of Indigenous systems of knowledge as well as from western epistemologies and their institutions, interrogating what it means to “own culture.” The case studies in this volume contribute to notions of “ownership” and “possession” through the lens of art and its associated rights to production, circulation, performance, and representation.

Included in this book are discussions of global collapse, what to consider in returning to a land-based existence, demilitarization for imperial purposes and re-militarization for Indigenous purposes, survival strategies for tribal prisoners, moving beyond the nation-state model, a land-based educational model, personal decolonization, decolonization strategies for youth in custody, and decolonizing gender roles.

Ownership of “the past”—a concept invoking age-old struggles to possess and control ancient objects—is an essential theme in understanding our global cultural heritage. Beyond ownership, however, lies the need for stewardship: the responsibility of owners, possessors, and others interested in ancient objects to serve as custodians for the benefit of present and future generations.

The histories and futures of Indigenous peoples and salmon are inextricably bound across the vast ocean expanse and rugged coastlines of the North Pacific. Keystone Nations addresses this enmeshment and the marriage of the biological and social sciences that have led to the research discussed in this book.

Surging middle-class aspirations and anxieties throughout the world have recently compelled anthropologists to pay serious attention to middle classes and middle-class spaces, sentiments, lifestyles, labors, and civic engagements.