Headhunters and Body-Snatchers

Urry, James

doi:10.2307/3032960

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Tasmanian Aboriginal materials, including human remains, were collected and housed in national and international cultural institutions (Plomley 1961; Urry 1989). Such collection was largely motivated by the presumed ephemerality of the knowledge (and, in the case of skeletal remains, the people) they represented.…”

Section: Colonial Tools Of Articulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tasmanian Aboriginal Material Culture, Compensation, Belonging

Berk

2021

Museum Anthropology

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The Tasmanian Aboriginal people have historically been defined by their visible lack of stereotypical "Aboriginal" characteristics and their supposed nonexistence. This article examines how Tasmanian Aboriginal individuals are bridging such gaps through material cultural production. In thinking about how communities mobilize the past to produce themselves in the present, I argue that canoes, kelp water carriers, and shell necklaces are vehicles through which alterity and distinction are rendered concrete. As such, these processes are best understood in relation to Bell and Geismar's "materialization" and Ingold's "meshworks." Despite internal debates amongst practitioners over proper methodologies and styles, revitalized culture can be productively imagined as compensation for outward shortcomings and deficiencies. Efforts at revitalizing culture are willed connections to a deep ancestral past and represent the discursive enactment of a continuity that is often otherwise conspicuous by its absence. [material culture, cultural revitalization, Indigeneity, Tasmania, Australia]This article examines the resurgence of Tasmanian Aboriginal material culture and demonstrates how such practices compensate for cultural and racial elements that are viewed as irretrievable. I focus on the complex ways cohesion, difference, and belonging are produced alongside material things. My argument is informed by close to two years of ethnographic research in Tasmania, Australia, between 2007 and 2011, focusing on the rearticulation of Tasmanian Aboriginal ancestral culture following their perceived 1876 extinction.In engaging with how communities mobilize the past to produce themselves in the present, I am interested in how material things are the vehicles through which alterity and distinction are rendered concrete. Furthermore, I show how such things as baskets, canoes, and kelp water carriers signify broader connections into the deep past that are often conspicuous by their absence. As such, these processes are best understood in relation to Bell and Geismar's "materialization" (2009) and Ingold's "meshworks" (2012), both of which elucidate the co-formation of people and things. 1 An ethnographic vignette clarifies the sociopolitical context in which such revitalization takes place. On November 3, 2010, I attended a performance of Mathinna. Mathinna was an interpretive dance production by the Bangarra Dance Theatre, arguably Australia's preeminent Indigenous performing arts company. This production depicted the tragic tale of its namesake, a Tasmanian Aboriginal woman, and its first performance in Tasmania's capital of Hobart was both a homecoming and a cultural event for the Tasmanian Aboriginal community. Forever immortalized in Thomas Bock's 1842 portrait as the little girl in the red dress, Mathinna's life epitomizes the (often tragic and frequently forced) movement between cultures during the colonial period. 2 She was born in 1835 to her mother, Wongerneep, and father, Towterer, at the Wybalenna Aboriginal settlement on Flind...

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Section: Colonial Tools Of Articulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tasmanian Aboriginal Material Culture, Compensation, Belonging

Berk

2021

Museum Anthropology

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“…Although outside scientific circles it was popularly believed that some degree of personhood remained in the corpse after death, this belief was denied by 19th-century anatomists, whose very practice seemed to disprove the possibility (see e.g. Urry 1989, 11). Yet, as Michael Sappol has explored in a North American context, medical men accrued much of their authority and status from the demonstration of their powerful ability to violate the corpse without repercussions (2002, 96; see also Lawrence 1996).…”

Section: Autopsymentioning

confidence: 99%

Acts of estrangement. The post-mortem making of self and other

Crossland¹

2009

Arch. Dial.

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Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1380203809002827 How to cite this article: Zoe Crossland (2009). Acts of estrangement. The post-mortem making of self and other. AbstractThe histories of post-mortem intervention in 18th-and 19th-century Britain illustrate how the relationships within which the dead were located affected their postmortem treatment and were reproduced through it. This paper explores how traditions of marking social distinctions among the dead have been incorporated into archaeological practice, tracing some of the ways in which relationships between the dead and the living define the nature and tone of post-mortem interventions. This history suggests that the conditions within which people are produced as dead bodies through archaeological practice are at present poorly understood, and, as such, I contribute some notes towards a relational understanding of this production.

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“…In this text, Thomas Hobbes argued that his European ancestors forged a social contract in which the majority ceded power to the best and brightest among them, creating the institution of kingship and, along with it, a superior society that was justified in conquering the world. Subsequent scientists-including our own founding figure Franz Boas-disinterred and dismembered Indigenous bodies, looted Indigenous tombs and temples, and exploited Indigenous knowledge in the name of objectivity, truth, and the advancement of knowledge [10,11] (pp. 181).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Addressing Problems beyond Heritage, Patrimony, and Representation: Reflections on Twenty Years of Community Archaeology in the Southwestern Maya Lowlands

Woodfill

Rivas

2020

Heritage

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Collaborative or community archaeology as a methodological approach has a long history and is becoming increasingly common in the Maya world. This article draws from the authors’ experiences on three distinct archaeological projects to discuss the benefits and obstacles we confronted while conducting collaborative research with contemporary Maya communities as well as lessons we learned that can increase the odds of a mutually beneficial partnership. After summarizing the history of the research projects and the expectations for and contributions of the scientific and community stakeholders, we propose several characteristics that were particularly helpful. These include the need for all parties to engage in sincere and sustained dialogue, to be flexible, and to take others in account when making any plans that affect them. Most importantly, we urge archaeologists to collaborate with community endeavors beyond those that are directly related to their research, offering a few examples of how archaeological skills, equipment, and social capital can be used to address a wide range of local concerns beyond patrimony and heritage.

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Headhunters and Body-Snatchers

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Tasmanian Aboriginal Material Culture, Compensation, Belonging

Tasmanian Aboriginal Material Culture, Compensation, Belonging

Acts of estrangement. The post-mortem making of self and other

Addressing Problems beyond Heritage, Patrimony, and Representation: Reflections on Twenty Years of Community Archaeology in the Southwestern Maya Lowlands

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