Suchergebnisse

Introduction : language ideologies, collective identities, and the politics of exclusion -- The paradox of ethnolinguistic identity : essentialisms, state-sponsored violence, and cultural rights -- Political linguistics : expert linguists and modernist epistemologies in the Guatemalan nation -- Traditional histories, local selves, and challenges to linguistic unification -- Modernity and local linguistic ideologies in Chimaltenango -- Traditional Maya women and linguistic reproduction -- Conclusion : vernacular modernities and the objectification of tradition

ABSTRACTHere I offer a reengagement with Conrad Arensberg and Solon Kimball's (Arensberg 1968[1937]; Arensberg and Kimball 1940) canonical ethnographies of rural western Ireland along with a new consideration of data the ethnographers never analyzed in their publications. I argue that epistemological debates and commitments in U.S. anthropology fueled Arensberg and Kimball's structural‐functionalist orientation because of the ways this theory became emblematic of a scientific, value‐free perspective to which these scholars were committed in ways that precluded analysis of state governmentality and violence. The new analysis of Arensberg and Kimball's unpublished ethnographic materials shows how local social life was shaped by the persistence of political violence in the "postconflict" democratic Irish Free State well after the war was officially over. I focus particularly on the nascent district court system to show how the judiciary and its participants were key agents in establishing and contesting the legitimacy of the postwar political system.

This review outlines the conceptual foundations of collective memory research from social scientific and semiotic perspectives. It locates collective memories in publicly circulating signs, merging a semiotic orientation with Nora's (1989) notion of memory sites. It elucidates how collective memories are made, remade, and contested through circulation enabled by semiotic processes of entextualization and erasure that produce cartographies of communicability. It shows how recent analytic work in linguistic anthropology focused on temporality can be mobilized to understand the concrete semiotic and discursive mechanisms by which the past is selectively brought into the present for strategic ends. It concludes by highlighting two promising directions for further inquiry in collective memory research: the role of expert knowledge and the importance of embodied performance. Overall, the review suggests that a semiotic perspective offers an analytically precise way of mapping the processes by which representations of past events are transformed, transmitted, and contested in charged present contexts.

"Anthropological Lives introduces readers to what it is like to be a professional anthropologist. It focuses on the work anthropologists do, the passions they have, the way that being an anthropologist affects the kind of life they lead. The book draws heavily on the experiences of twenty anthropologists interviewed by Virginia R. Dominguez and Brigittine M. French, as well as on the experiences of the two coauthors. Many different kinds of anthropologists are represented, and the book makes a point of discussing their commonalities as well as their differences. Some of the anthropologists included work in the academy, some work outside the academy, and some work in institutions like museums. Included are cultural anthropologists, linguistic anthropologists, medical anthropologists, biological anthropologists, practicing anthropologists, and anthropological archaeologists. A fascinating look behind the curtain, the stories in Anthropological Lives will inform anyone who has ever wondered what you do with a degree in anthropology"--