Border Crossings

by Fine-Dare, Kathleen S.; Rubenstein, Steven L.

• ISBN13: 9780803210868
• ISBN10: 0803210868
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

For anthropologists and social scientists working in North and South America, the past few decades have brought considerable change as issues such as repatriation, cultural jurisdiction, and revitalization movements have swept across the hemisphere. Today scholars are rethinking both how and why they study culture as they gain a new appreciation for the impact they have on the people they study. Key to this reassessment of the social sciences is a rethinking of the concept of borders: not only between cultures and nations but between disciplines such as archaeology and cultural anthropology, between past and present, and between anthropologists and indigenous peoples. Border Crossingsis a collection of fourteen essays about the evolving focus and perspective of anthropologists and the anthropology of North and South America over the past two decades. For a growing number of researchers, the realities of working in the Americas have changed the distinctions between being a "Latin," "North," or "Native" Americanist as these researchers turn their interests and expertise simultaneously homeward and out across the globe.

Author Biography

Kathleen S. Fine-Dare is a professor of anthropology and gender/women’s studies and chair of the Department of Anthropology at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. She is the author of Grave Injustice: The American Indian Repatriation Movement and NAGPRA (Nebraska 2002). Steven L. Rubenstein is the director of the Research Institute of Latin American Studies and a reader in Latin American anthropology in the School of Cultures, Languages, and Area Studies at the University of Liverpool. He is the author of Alejandro Tsakimp: A Shuar Healer in the Margins of History (Nebraska 2002). Contributors: Barbara Burton, Les W. Field, Kathleen S. Fine-Dare, Sarah Gammage, Lêda Leitão Martins, Peter McCormick, John M. Norvell, David L. Nugent, Steven L. Rubenstein, Enrique Salmón, Jean N. Scandlyn, Linda J. Seligmann, and James A. Zeidler

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction

A New Compass for Americanist Studies

Racing Across Borders in the Americas: Anthropological Critique and the Challenge of Transnational Racial Identities

The Politics of Knowledge and Identity, and the Poetics of Political Economy: The Truth Value of Dividing Bridges

Reinventing Archaeological Heritage: Critical Science in a North/South Perspective

Transamerican Case StudiesMuseums:

Bodies Unburied, Mummies Displayed: Mourning, Museums, and Identity Politics in the Americas

Crossing Boundaries with Shrunken Heads

Migrations:

Local Conflict, Global Forces: Fighting for Public Education in a New York Suburb

El Envio: Remittances, Rights and Associations among Central American Immigrants in Greater Washington, D.C.

Indigenous Movements:

Global Indigenous Movements: Convergence and Differentiation in the Face of the 21st Century State

What Can Americanists and Anthropology Learn from the Alliances between Indigenous Peoples and Popular Movements in the Amazon?

Americanist Reflections

'That's Your Hopi Uncle': Ethical Borders in the Field

The Dust Bowl Tango: Looking at South America from the Southern Plains

The Lizard's Dream

Afterword: Post-Fordism and Americanist Anthropology

About the Contributors

Index

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