Search results for ""Author Marie Mauzé""
University Press of America Present is Past: Some Uses of Tradition in Native Societies
This book belongs to a long tradition of thought on Native identity. However, in a more or less explicit manner, it intends to break away from other studies in the field. Instead of viewing identity in reference to a phantasmagorical past, it aims at setting up the framework within which identity can express and project itself into the future. The collection of essays shows that this future can evolve equally between the continuity of Natives' identity and their ability to innovate and to invent. In that respect, tradition appears as a technique of adjustment and adaptation to new conditions. The book explores the notion of tradition by both anthropologists and native peoples. The first part consists of three theoretical texts that discuss a number of general issues: the mechanisms of retroactive legitimation of tradition, the cognitive aspects of cultural transmission and the relationships between tradition and history. The second part is composed of case studies dealing for the most part with Native North Americans. One essay adds a comparative dimension being dedicated to the Maoris of New Zealand. Several contributions deal with aspects of expressive culture, native art and ceremonialism. In all these cases, identities that are being constructed have a twofold nature: one that is specific to the cultural groups concerned; the other that distinguishes these groups from the encompassing Euro-American world.
£91.07
University of Nebraska Press Coming to Shore: Northwest Coast Ethnology, Traditions, and Visions
The Northwest Coast of North America was home to dozens of Native peoples at the time of its first contact with Europeans. The rich artistic, ceremonial, and oral traditions of these peoples and their preservation of cultural practices have made this region especially attractive for anthropological study. Coming to Shore provides a historical overview of the ethnology and ethnohistory of this region, with special attention given to contemporary, theoretically informed studies of communities and issues. The first book to explore the role of the Northwest Coast in three distinct national traditions of anthropology— American, Canadian, and French—Coming to Shore gives particular consideration to the importance of Claude Lévi-Strauss and structuralism, as well as more recent social theory in the context of Northwest Coast anthropology. In addition contributors explore the blurring boundaries between theoretical and applied anthropology as well as contemporary issues such as land claims, criminal justice, environmentalism, economic development, and museum display. The contribution of Frederica de Laguna provides a historical background to the enterprise of Northwest Coast anthropology, as do the contributions of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Marie Mauzé.
£26.99