The Bioarchaeology of Identity in Spanish Colonial Florida: Social and Evolutionary Transformation before, during, and after Demographic Collapse

In this article, I consider the effects of Spanish missionization on indigenous identity and biological interaction patterns. Odontometric data were recorded for 26 skeletal samples dating to three time periods: precontact (C.E. 1200–1400), early mission (C.E. 1600–1650), and late mission (C.E. 1650–1700). Population genetic analyses generated estimates of regional genetic variation (F_ST) and intersample genetic distances. Genetic variation during the precontact period was limited despite documented linguistic and cultural variation. Variation increased during the early mission period, indicating a decline in between-group interaction despite inclusion within a single colonial sociopolitical framework. During the late mission period, variation declined significantly, indicating a dramatic reduction in between-group variability consistent with genetic drift and gene flow between communities. I discuss these results in terms of archaeological and historical models of postcolonial transformation and suggest an emerging polyethnic community was resident in La Florida preceding the subsequent diaspora caused by burgeoning European military conflict in eastern North America.     

Indigenous Media Gone Global: Strengthening Indigenous Identity On- and Offscreen at the First Nations/First Features Film Showcase

For 12 days in May 2005, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), as well as several other screening venues in Washington, D.C., hosted a group of renowned indigenous filmmakers from around the globe for the groundbreaking film showcase, "First Nations/First Features: A Showcase of World Indigenous Film and Media." This film showcase highlighted the innovative ways in which indigenous filmmakers draw on indigenous storytelling practices to create cinematic visions that honor their long-standing indigenous cultural worlds while reaching local and world audiences. In this essay, I highlight the onscreen impact through an analysis of several films featured in First Nations/First Features, as well as the offscreen impact emphasizing how the indigenous directors used this opportunity to strengthen social networks and share experience in this industry, which may develop into future collaborative film projects.     

Intentional cranial deformation in the preColumbian populations of ecuador

Using 151 crania, 8 Preceramic, 86 Formative, 29 Regional Developmental, 28 Integration Period and some isolated skulls from Ecuador I can clarify some origins and diffusion of American cranial deformation. To Imbelloni's classification of Tabular erecta, Tabular obliqua, and Annular I add a new type, Cuneiform, marked by flattening of the entire occiput (not just the upper, membraneous-derived bone) without evidence of counter pressure in front. The Cuneiform type starts in Guayas about 2000 B.C. (perhaps the earliest in America) with diffusion to coastal Peru in Chavin times. Tabular erecta, of coastal origin between Manabi province and the Guyas river basin, about 1,000 B.C. , also spreads to coastal Peru. Tabular obliqua appears in Esmeraldas province probably from Mexico 2000 years ago, and diffuses south into Chile. Annular type starts early in the Southern Andes and appears late in the highlands of Ecuador.     

How Do Real Indians Fish? Neoliberal Multiculturalism and Contested Indigeneities in the Colorado Delta

ABSTRACT   There has been a growing interest in anthropology regarding how certain political conditions set the stage for "articulations" between indigenous movements and environmental actors and discourses. However, relatively little attention has been paid to how these same conditions can suppress demands for indigenous rights. In this article, I argue that the pairing of neoliberalism and multiculturalism in contemporary Mexico has created political fields in which ethnic difference has been foregrounded as a way of denying certain rights to marginalized groups. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in northern Mexico, I analyze how the arguments of a group of Cucapá for fishing rights in the Colorado Delta have been constrained within these political circumstances. I argue that cultural difference has been leveraged by the Mexican federal government and local NGOs to prevent the redistribution of environmental resources among vulnerable groups such as the Cucapá.     

Harmonic Dissonance: Reflections on Dwelling in the Field

Focusing on the idea of dwelling in the field, this paper explores the moral grammar of living with others in field settings, including the texture of membership in one's own family and host families. Through a comparative analysis of two ethnographic research contexts – one on transnational Christian non-governmental organizations in the US and Zimbabwe in 1996 –97, and the other on orphans and philanthropy in India in 2004–05 – I interrogate what it means to inhabit the field. In the world of multi-sited ethnography all research sites are not created equal; both in terms of the kinds of data one can collect and the types of observations one can make. How ethnographers are situated in a web of affliations affects their experience in the field, what they observe, and their research practice. I propose renewed attention to how anthropologists live in the field, including how relationships are interpreted in the field by ethnographers and their informants.     

Everyday forms of racism in contemporary Ecuador: the experiences of middle-class Indians

This article studies anti-Indian forms of racial discrimination in present day Ecuador. Drawing on thirty eight in-depth interviews with middle-class Indians, this exploratory research analyses the different mechanisms of racial discrimination and the responses to it in a context of transition from a paternalistic system of racial domination to a possible democratization of racial and ethnic relations. The following dimensions of discrimination are examined: the site, the range of discriminatory actions and the responses. I also analyse how ethnic categories such as Indian, mestizo and white are constructed in Ecuador. The article concludes with a reflection on the obstacles of racism for democratization.     

A chemotaxonomic survey of flavonoids and simple phenols in the leaves of Gaultheria L. and related genera (Ericaceae)

MIDDLETON, D. J., 1992. A chemotaxonomic survey of flavonoids and simple phenols in the leaves of Gaultheria L. and related genera (Ericaceae). Species of Gaultheria and Leucothoe have been screened for a number of flavonoids and simple phenols. Many of these, particularly the American species, are surveyed for the first time. Extensive sampling has also been carried out within some of the species of Gaultheria. Together with previously published data the results are discussed in relation to the position of Gaultheria in the Ericaceae and the infrageneric classification of Gaultheria. The infraspecific variation is commented on.     

Being from the Land: Memory,Self and the Power of Place in Indigenous Southern Chile

Connection with ancestral land is a central tenet of indigenous identity claims. In a departure from constructivist approaches to the role ancestral land in identity politics, this article focuses on the discursive and experiential manifestations of Mapuche theories of emplacement, according to which land is actively involved in the making of selves. By drawing upon the notion of tuwün, a term roughly translatable as place of origin, I argue that ancestral land acts as a potentiality of selfhood through the articulation of sameness and otherness within Mapuche society and with canonical others (winka). The ethnographic analysis of the relation between landscape and memory will illustrate how ancestral land works to situate the present between two poles of alterity, namely past dwellers and winka. Such a focus allows us to acknowledge the significance of ancestral land without resorting to genealogical and essentialist interpretations of indigenous subjectivity.     

Beyond reified categories: multidimensional identifications among ‘black’ and ‘Indian’ groups in Columbia and Mexico

Analyses of multicultural state-dictated social categories are often governed by those same categories, even while they deconstruct them. Nonetheless, these categories are often used in public spheres such as national imaginary or ethno-political activism. Taking a different point of departure, that of representations rather than the categories themselves, the aim of our paper is to understand the modes of classification that are relevant among four populations in Colombia and Mexico who would, a priori, be categorized as ‘black’ or ‘Indian’. The daily reality of these groups indicates other possible internal, sometimes even intersecting, kinds of categorizations, which, far from naturalizing the ‘Indian’ and ‘black’ categories, in fact reveal place-based social identifications. These identifications seem closer to the everyday lives and practices of the people in question, and underscore the local conceptions of their presence and agency in a given spot.     

Negotiation of ethnoracial configurations among Puerto Rican Taíno activists

In Puerto Rico, scholarly histories and common knowledge have presumed that the Taíno – the pre-Columbian population of the island – became extinct at some time between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. However, various people on the island challenge this assumption by claiming to be Taíno. The public reemergence of Taíno groups in Puerto Rico is highly disputed by scholars, governmental institutions and non-Taíno populations of the region, often on the basis of Puerto Rico’s long-documented history of creolization and state-sponsored ideology of racial blending. Within this context, the case of Taíno indigenous activism in Puerto Rico offers a critical lens through which to consider interactional challenges involved in claiming belonging to a presumably “extinct” ethnoracial category.     

Collaborating on Establishing an Agro-meteorological Learning Situation among Farmers in Java

Climate change has unintended and unexpected consequences for peoples' livelihoods. Farmers, who depend heavily on weather conditions in cultivation, are finding it increasingly difficult to rely on their memories and existing knowledge to sustain their farming strategies. There is an urgent need to assist farmers to improve their agro-meteorological analyses to enable them to anticipate and cope with changes in climate. In this paper, we present the results of inter-disciplinary and collaborative research undertaken by anthropologists, an agro-meteorologist and local people based on farmers' rainfall measurements and field observations in the provinces of Yogyakarta and West Java, Indonesia. We explore the evolving strategies of the farmers, which have led to the formation of agro-meteorological schemas and adaptive changes in farming practices. We demonstrate the value of linking scientific and local knowledge production, and the need for both continuous reflexivity among participants and longitudinal collaborative work.     

Decolonizing conviviality and ‘becoming ordinary’: cross-cultural face-to-face encounters in Aotearoa New Zealand

This paper explores convivial culture in a settler society. The paper draws on interview data from ethnographic research exploring how Māori and Pākehā worked together on a building project in a rural community. Both Māori and Pākehā participants reported their pleasure in engagements with each other that centred on Māori tikanga (protocols). In these encounters, Māori ‘difference’ was the catalyst for the development of new, convivial relationships. The paper argues that such everyday conviviality contributes to the process of decolonizing Māori–Pākehā relations at the level of everyday life. Through decolonizing conviviality Pakehā ‘become ordinary’ in Māori cultural contexts, and are offered the opportunity to come to understand themselves as embedded in colonial relationalities. Crucial to the development of such conviviality is the opportunity for face-to-face, embodied encounters with Māori in contexts where Māori cultural difference matters.     

Among the Foreign Correspondents: Reflections on Anthropological Styles and Audiences

The interface between anthropology and journalism is drawing increasing attention. Newsmedia foreign correspondents, in particular, are engaged in a pursuit parallel to that of classical anthropology, reporting from one part of the world to another. Yet they work under very different organizational circumstances and relate differently to time and space. Drawing on examples from the work of 'Africa correspondents', the paper discusses the possibilities of personal initative in reporting. It also notes the role of the newsmedia in shaping public engagements with the world, and comments on the part of anthropological writing in influencing public culture.