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26 April 2019 Convenors: Rusaslina Idrus (RI) and Liana Chua (LC) Participants: Poline Bala (PB), Kwanchewan Buadaeng (KB), Kelvin Egay (KE), Prasit Leepreecha (PL), Dave Lumenta (DL), Zanisah Man (ZM), [...]

This paper serves as a preliminary commentary on the future resilience and vulnerability of Southern sites of memory about and for Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC). We discuss interactions between memory and the environment that present opportunities for more just, equitable, and sustainable commemorations as well as interactions that may undermine progress toward that vision. Drawing from hazards and cultural geographies, we describe four principles for resilient remembering: continuity, visibility, adaptability, and legitimacy. Next, we survey four Southern cases where emerging and interrelated threats of closure, cultural tokenism, dispossession, and managed retreat specifically endanger Black sites of memory. In each case, we highlight BIPOC cultural institutions already performing resilient remembering and consider ways in which these efforts may be amplified to confront the rapidly changing conditions ahead. We conclude by calling on geographers to resiliently remember with BIPOC communities and cultural institutions to promote justice and inclusion of BIPOC in the politics of the future South. KEYWORDS: Black geographies, Community resilience, Contested memory, Heritage preservation, Natural hazards, HIGHLIGHTS * Conceptually links disaster resilience with resilience against racial oppression * Profiles emerging vulnerabilities that threaten Southern BIPOC heritage sites * Describes adaptations of primarily Black memory work to [...]

ELIZA CANTY-JONES: Good evening, and thank you, everyone, for joining us for tonight's 'reflection roundtable.' We begin tonight's program as we often do our events, by taking a moment to [...]

The study scrutinizes the virtue and limits of the Gereb aboriginal conflict reconciliation device among Wejerat people of Hintalo-Wejerat, Southeastern Tigray, with particular emphasis on the virtue of Gereb institution. The functions that Tegaru's aboriginal religious institution serve other than the religious purpose have rarely been treated in Ethiopia in general and Tigray literature in particular. Thus, this research aims to fill this gap by examining the virtue of Gereb institutions in conflict reconciliation and the formal institution in the area. To realize the intended objectives, the study employed a qualitative approach. Important data for the study were collected from both primary and secondary sources. The primary data were collected using instruments such as a semi-structured in-depth interview, observation, focus group discussion, and case study. The data collected from both sources were organized thematically and analyzed qualitatively. The findings of the study reveal that economic and social-cultural factors are the major causes of conflict. Land-related conflicts, such as conflict over land 'ownership' rights, claiming tracts of adjacent farmland, grazing land, and inheritance, are the main causes of conflict related to economic interests. In this regard, the Gereb/Abo Gereb aboriginal conflict reconciliation device has been explored as a viable psycho-social method of conflict resolution, justice administration, and peace-building; and its key outcomes in interrelated psycho-social areas have been identified and highlighted. The study demonstrates that diverse cases of civil and criminal matters in the study area are resolved according to the long-lived customary and religious laws., Author(s): Kahsu Abrha Belew [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) Department for Civics and Ethical Studies, College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Raya University, , Maichew, Ethiopia Introduction Background of the Study [...]

The driving theme of this article is the loss of poetics in the language of the Vula'a people of southeastern Papua New Guinea, in particular the relationship between language loss and knowledge loss--the type of knowledge that connects people to ancestors and is central to a group's identity. Drawing on examples from my fieldwork, I argue for the value of an ethnography of poetic language and for rethinking approaches to the study of Indigenous languages beyond instances when endangerment is imminent. My approach is influenced by Martin Heidegger and sits comfortably with recent theoretical perspectives that draw on the work of Edward S Casey (1996) and Tim Ingold (2000). Poetic language is not only prevalent in immediately recognizable genres; it also plays a significant role in many other oral traditions as well as in day-to-day life. Consequently, there is a pressing need to pay attention to disappearing poetic forms if we are to comprehend past and present lifeworlds. To this end, we should not be distracted by models that would reduce language to types of expression or to component parts. After presenting examples from my own research, I explore the work of other Melanesian ethnographers to reveal the relationship between poetic language, place, and Indigenous ways of knowing. KEYWORDS: Melanesia, oral tradition, poetics, ethnography, phenomenology, knowledge, By its novelty, a poetic image sets in motion the entire linguistic mechanism. The poetic image places us at the origin of the speaking being. --Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of [...]

Canadian history has not really considered, with adequate precision, the serious challenges that mercantilism faced in establishing and sustaining a continuity of profitable operations across not only a vast and [...]

INTRODUCTION Postcolonial societies around the world still struggle with lingering colonial structures, (1) among them the many official place-names on maps, signs, and in various registers and databases that have [...]

Raymond Firth argued in 'Social Organization and Social Change' that, although structure provides a framework for action, circumstances may lead to 'fresh choices' and 'fresh decisions' with results that 'ripple' throughout a structural framework and, sometimes, beyond it; when this departure from a structure becomes permanent, the result is social change (1954). During our long-term fieldwork among the Chambri people of Papua New Guinea's East Sepik Province, we noted such ripple effects, especially as Chambri realized that they could make fresh choices and decisions in order to create new ripples. Notably, some of these new ripples affected the totemic regulation of the Chambri world. Simply put, the ontology and logic of Chambri totemism--what had been the environment of environmental regulation--became open to capitalist-inflected choices and decisions. Here we consider this emergent capitalism of Chambri cosmology as a historical process of social change, one arising from a conjuncture with the 'cosmologies of capitalism,' to reference Sahlins's significant discussion (1988). Along the way, we appraise the fate of ontological purity at a time when the assumptions and practices of Chambri totemism, those constituting the relationship of humans to nonhumans, have become substantially reformulated. What does it signal for Chambri that the wrong sorts of people may be making for-profit choices and decisions about the actions of the elements while, at the same time, these elements--wind, water, and fish--have become increasingly obstreperous, apparently acting on their own volitions? KEYWORDS: Raymond Firth, social change, totemism, cosmology, capitalism, Papua New Guinea, ontology., Raymond Firth's 1954 presidential address to members of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland was titled 'Social Organization and Social Change.' It concluded with this advice (in [...]

In this article, I describe two exhibitions that were developed and shared in order to recognize and value Indigenous ways of seeing and experiencing the world: Ples Namel, held at the Queensland Art Gallery in 1996, and the award-winning Rituals of Seduction: Birds of Paradise, held at the Australian Museum in 2011. In these art gallery and museum spaces, source communities engaged in conversation and dialogue with the institutions and their collections. In order to enable audiences to experience Pacific environments, the exhibitions' collaborators established the moka pena, or center space, from the Mogei community in Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea. In each event, individual experiences, recollections, and knowledge were brought together in a social encounter in this center space--the ples namel. In the Mogei worldview, this ples namel is at the same time a physical presence and an imaginary one, a duality similarly reflected in Indigenous communities' and audience members' participation in the two exhibitions. The natural environment, the accoutrements adorning the body, and the performing bodies all came together in a volatile, dynamic, and productive political and cultural space of meaning making. There were opportunities for unsettlement and disruption of knowledge. Such negotiations or acceptance of the new in the unsettled and disrupted space of performance may realign and rewrite history--experienced personally and realized socially. KEYWORDS: Mogei worldview, museum spaces, performance, relationships, ples namel, There has long been a need for privileging Indigenous voices and concerns in the context of ethnographic collections and museums, and voices crying out this need have become more audible [...]

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) final report called attention to the damage induced by government policies and practices and outlined a pathway toward reconciliation in which education and child welfare system reforms play a central role. Drawing from 61 interviews with teachers and parents of Indigenous children in Alberta, this paper addresses the question: what do intersections between schooling and child welfare systems contribute to prospects for meaningful reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada? Findings suggest that, despite formal commitments to acknowledge and address colonial legacies of residential schooling, obligations to fulfill state child welfare and educational objectives continue to situate schools, for many Indigenous families, as 'dangerous places.' Le rapport final de la Commission de verite et reconciliation du Canada (CVR) a attire l'attention sur les dommages occasionnes par les politiques et les pratiques gouvemementales et a trace un parcours vers la reconciliation selon lequel les reformes du systeme d'education et de protection de l'enfance jouent un role de premier plan. Tirant parti de 61 entrevues realisees avec des enseignants et des parents d'enfants autochtones en Alberta, cet article aborde la question a savoir : en quoi les interactions entre les systemes scolaires et de protection de l'enfance contribuent a la possibilite d'une reconciliation significative entre les populations autochtones et non autochtones au Canada? Les resultats suggerent que, malgre les engagements formeis en vue de reconnaitre et d'aborder Iheritage colonial des pensionnats indiens, les obligations de remplir les objectifs en matiere de systeme public de protection de l'enfance et d'education continuent, pour de nombreuses families autochtones, a situer les ecoles comme etant des << endroits dangereux >>., EDUCATION AND CHILD WELFARE SYSTEMS that remove Indigenous (1) children from their homes and place them in non-Indigenous institutional and community environments have played significant roles in the systemic destruction [...]