2011 AAA News

BUSINESS MEETING

Friday, November 18, 2011: 18:15-19:30

Organizers:

Justin R Shaffner (University of Cambridge) and Tate A LeFevre (New York University)

MIG SPONSORED SESSION

PRIMITIVIST ENCOUNTERS TODAY: NEW ETHNOGRAPHIES OF INDIGENOUS TOURISM

Saturday, November 19, 2011: 16:00-17:45

Organizers:

Rupert Stasch (UCSD)

Chairs:

Anke Tonnaer (Radboud University Nijmegen)

16:00

Wa Grotesque: Headhunting Theme Parks and the Chinese Nostalgia for Primitive Contemporaries

Magnus Fiskesjo (Cornell University)

16:15

Money, Morality, and Mapula (Payment) In Trobriand-Tourist Interactions

Michelle D MacCarthy (University of Auckland)

16:30

Tourists In a Differentiated Social Field: The Kinship, Geography, and Politics of Tourism Involvement In An Egalitarian Society

Rupert Stasch (UCSD)

16:45

In the Middle: Intermediaries' Relations with Tourists and Toured In Indigenous Australia

Anke Tonnaer (Radboud University Nijmegen)

17:00

"Beach-Boy Elders" and "Young Big Men": Age, Temporality, and Samburu Ethno-Erotic Economies In Postcolonial Kenya

George Paul Meiu (University of Chicago)

17:15

Discussant

Janet A Hoskins (University of Southern California)

17:30

Discussant

Francesca C Merlan (ANU)

Doctoral Scholarship in Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews

Doctoral Scholarship in Social Anthropology
Centre for Pacific Studies, University of St Andrews

The St Andrews Centre for Pacific Studies invites applications from candidates with a doctoral research project in any field of Social Anthropology, with a regional focus on the Pacific. This fee waiver doctoral scholarship will start in September 2011 and cover tuition fees at the UK/EU rate (currently £3,732 per annum) for three years.

The Centre for Pacific Studies has a growing body of Faculty, affiliated researchers, postdoctoral researchers and an international cohort of doctoral students. In 2010 we hosted the highly successful ESfO2010 conference 'Exchanging Knowledge in Oceania' which drew 240 delegates from across the world. CPS collaborates with the Bergen Pacific Studies Research Group through exchanges and an annual 'North Sea, South Seas' research workshop. CPS has research expertise across the region, but most particularly in island Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia. Centre member interests include exchange processes; secrecy and knowledge practices; the urban and narratives of nationhood; sociality, kinship and ideas of the person; mining and resource extraction; the analysis of ritual; property rights; the politics of vision; epistemology; gardening; money; institutional culture and cultures of incarceration; spatio-temporality as a dimension of human being; machine thinking; colonial and postcolonial governmentality; genetic engineering; loss and exile; ontogeny as an historical process; climate change.

Further information on the on-going research work and current doctoral student projects being conducted by the Centre for Pacific Studies can be found here: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/anthropology/centres/cps/

How to apply
To discuss proposed doctoral projects please contact either: Dr Tony Crook, Dr Adam Reed or Prof Christina Toren.

To be eligible for this scholarship, prospective students must have been offered a place on the doctoral programme by the closing date. Applications for admission can be submitted online at: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/services/admissions/pgadmissions.html

To be considered for this scholarship, applicants should, in addition, contact Dr Tony Crook to outline their candidacy, and to submit the following: 1. a brief CV, 2. a brief research proposal, and 3. the name and contact details of one suitably qualified referee by the closing date of May 20th 2011.

Last call for panels - March 14

Please submit proposals for panels that MIG could sponsor at the AAA meetings in Montreal to Justin Shaffner (jrshaffner@gmail.com) by March 14.

This year's AAA theme is Traces, Tidemarks and Legacies (see http://www.aaanet.org/meetings/2011-AAA-Annual-Meeting.cfm ). The session should be related to Melanesia in some way.

MRS is back!

Dear all,

The MRS is back! Crack open your new diaries and write this down:

Friday January 21, 2011 3.30pm at the British Museum

Recent Cambridge PhD -- now at the University of Aberdeen -- Katharina Schneider has generously agreed to be our first presenter. Approximately one week before the seminar we will pre-circulate her paper, which will address the following theme:

Who sees what in Pororan marriage exchange?

Over time, anthropologists working in Melanesia have provided increasingly nuanced analyses of exchange, and specifically of the transformations of ‘objects’ and ‘images’ that people perceive in the course of particular sequences of events. One aspect of the complexity of exchange in Melanesia appears to have become sidelined, however, by a predominant interest in the temporal transformation of objects and images. This is the multiplicity of objects, images and sequences of their transformation that different participants perceive in the same sequence of events, and the politics (local and transnational) of who sees what in an exchange. The primary aim of this paper is to demonstrate this aspect of exchange ethnographically, and to discuss some of its implications for Pororan Islanders.

Planning ahead, our second presenter will be Eric Hirsch on Friday February 25 at 3.30pm. Further details will follow.

We hope as many of you as possible can make it. Meanwhile, steer clear of snowbanks!

Michael Scott

(on behalf of his fellow committee members: Lissant and Melissa)

Call for Papers

Law and Culture 2011:

The present is the living past

Hosted by the University of the South Pacific School of Law,

Emalus Campus, Port Vila Vanuatu,

29 August - 31 August 2011

The question of how to make law operate effectively whilst remaining culturally appropriate is critical for all Pacific islands. This question arises, in large part, due to the particular colonial histories of Pacific countries. In order to appreciate how law operates in the current post-colonial environment and the current paths of development that we are following, and that shape our laws, we need to understand where our laws and systems have come from.

The issues that this conference theme give rise to are not only legal, or historical. Understanding the place and operation of laws is inherently interdisciplinary, and requires conversations across a range of disciplines. Pacific scholars from other subject areas, including anthropology, development studies, governance and political studies are encouraged to attend this conference.

• Papers and posters that explore how the historical context shapes contemporary Pacific legal systems are invited.

• Papers addressing any aspect of Pacific legal studies or post-colonial legal studies more generally are also welcomed.

The conference organisers are committed to the development of young Pacific scholars and students and early career researchers from a range of disciplines are particularly encouraged to participate.

Abstracts are due by 24 June 2011 and should be submitted via email to jowitt_a@vanuatu.usp.ac.fj .

For further information, including the abstract submission form and presentation and poster guidelines see the conference website http://www.paclii.org/law-and-culture/ .

2010 MIG update

Dear members of the Melanesian Interest Group of AAA!

I'm writing to give an update from the business meeting in New Orleans. I also want to thank those who attended.

I will be the new convenor for this next year. The new convener-elect will be Tate LeFevre.

We are currently looking for a session that the MIG could sponsor at the next AAA meeting in Montreal, preferably a double session. This year's AAA theme is Traces, Tidemarks and Legacies (see http://www.aaanet.org/meetings/2011-AAA-Annual-Meeting.cfm ). The session should be related to Melanesia in some way. Please contact us if you are planning to organize such a session. Do not wait until it is all finalized and in perfect shape – it may be too late by then.

Also, please join our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=26280881106.

All the best,

Justin

MIG Business Meeting

The time and place for this year's business meeting has just been announced, so please, if you plan to attend AAA, mark your calender:

Business Meeting of the Melanesian Interest Group
11/19/2010
6:15:00 PM-8:15:00 PM
Salon 829, Eighth Floor, Sheraton


The MIG has sponsored a AAA session on Vernacular Education:

VERNACULAR EDUCATION IN THE ISLAND PACIFIC AND AMERICA. Papers in Honor of Rex Matang. ORGANIZERS: Christine Schreyer and John Wagner, University of British Columbia – Okanagan.

In this session we explore the cultural meanings of vernacular education programs in Melanesia and comparable settings where local languages are in danger of dying out or becoming moribund. Participants examine the processes through which such programs are created, the impediments to their successful implementation, and the varied meanings, symbolic and material, attached to vernacular language use in these settings. We also examine the relative 'silence' of anthropologists in relation to language endangerment and its long term consequences for cultural identity, local ecological knowledge, cultural and ecological diversity, nation-building and globalization, and how anthropologists may be able to provide a much needed 'voice' on these
topics.


Hoping to see you in New Orleans - especially at the ASAO/MIG party (details will be announced in due time)!

Susanne and Justin