Mobility, Migration, and Citizenship

Zachary Sheldon

My research draws on semiotic anthropology, world-systems ethnography, and the epistemological principle of Islamic philosophy to ask how ordinary people develop critical insights into opaque socio-technical systems. Currently, I am revising a book manuscript that draws on fieldwork in Jordan’s clandestine workplaces to understand how Iraqi migrants produce and exchange knowledge about regional markets for refugee labor and investment. In my work with dispossessed Iraqis, I ask how everyday dialogues among illicitly employed refugees can illuminate the unspoken rules of sectarian sociality, the covert connections between war and commerce, and even the playful circuits of popular board games. More recently, my interest in the relationship between predictive intelligence and linguistic interaction, which I first explored in my paper “The Malicious Game” [https://journal.culanth.org/index.php/ca/article/view/5439], has led to a new research project studying the deep history of artificial intelligence in the Mediterranean world. This project combines computer programming, data science, and museum anthropology to trace the uncanny genealogy of computational algorithms and algebraic techniques that humans have used to simulate contact with inhuman minds for millennia. For a full list of my publication, award, presentations, and appointments, you can download my C.V.[here]

Degrees and Education

PhD, University of Chicago, 2020

Steven Goldstein

Steven Goldstein (PhD Washington University in Saint Louis, 2017) is an anthropological archaeologist who studies long-term relationships between food systems, mobility, climate change, and technology over the last 12,000 years in eastern and southeastern Africa. After completing his PhD he undertook a 2 year post-doctoral position at the Max Planck Institute for Human History in Jena, Germany followed by a 3 year position as a Research Group Leader at the same institute before coming to Pittsburgh.

He has been directing community-based field projects in Kenya since 2014 and Zambia since 2017 that assess questions related to the spread of mobile pastoralism, origins of agriculture, and hunter-gatherer responses to environmental stress. To address these questions, he applies expertise in lithic technological studies, landscape archaeology, GIS, and geoarchaeological methods. His current field research largely centers on assessing how conditions of food security were impacted by the expansion of African states and beginnings of European colonialism over the last few hundred years. He is also engaged in a book project examining the social and economic transformations in herder lifeways across the last 4000 years in eastern Africa.

Degrees and Education

Washington University in Saint Louis

Research Description

Kakapel Archaeological Project: This collaborative project between the Max Planck Institute and the National Museums of Kenya investigates a 12,000 year record of demographic, economic, and climatic change at Kakapel Rockshelter, western Kenya. Excavations directed by Dr. Goldstein have revealed the largest record of plant food use in the region, including the adoption of diverse crops that arrived during migrations into the Lake Victoria Basin from different parts of the African continent. Coupled with archaeogenetic and paleoclimatic analyses, this project is building a unique perspective on when and how agricultural strategies developed in eastern Africa.

Origins of Agriculture in Zambia: Working with partners at the University of Zambia and Livingstone Museum, this project has involved excavations at several Early and Late Iron Age sites across Central and southern Zambia.  The goals of the project are to establish a high-resolution chronology for the arrival, spread, and intensification of lifeways based on mobile herding and plant agriculture.

Small-scale responses to large-scale climate change at Lothagam-Lokam: This project co-led by Dr. Goldstein, Dr. Elizabeth  Hildebrand (SUNY-Stony Brook), and Dr. Elizabeth Sawchuk (Cleveland Museum of Natural History) investigates how small-scale fisher-hunter-gatherer communities along the Lake Turkana Basin of northern Kenya responded to Climate change between c. 12000-5000 years ago. Paleoclimatic data reveals a complex pattern of regional rainfall change and local environmental shifts impacted the livelihoods of people living in the area. Archaeological analysis suggests people responded to local stresses through changes in the organization of group mobility, and to lasting aridification through technological innovation and intensification. These perspectives are providing new insights into how small-scale communities in the past successfully managed climatic crises.

Prehistoric Eastern African Quarry Survey (PEAQS): The PEAQS project seeks to identify and document patterns of lithic raw material access across eastern Africa. It is particularly focused on the diversity in stone quarrying strategies, core preparation strategies, and lithic reduction techniques applied at quarries and mines. By identifying these central nodes in long-distance regional exchange and interaction networks, we hope to better understand the relationship between stone-tool using peoples, mobility and land-use, trade networks, and economic organization. So far, research has included examination of obsidian quarries on Mt. Eburru and the Lake Naivasha Basin in Central Kenya.  

 

Courses

TBA

 

Publications

2022 Goldstein, S.T., Shipton, C., Miller, J., Ndiema, E., Boivin, N., Petraglia, M.  “Technological organization through the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene in eastern Africa’s coastal forests: Implications for understanding human-environment interactions.” Quaternary Science Reviews 280:107390. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107390

2022 Goldstein, S.T., Farr, J., Kayuni, M., Katongo, M., Fernandes, R., Janzen, A., Markham, B., Crowther, A., & Boivin, N. “Excavations at the Iron Age village site of Fibobe II, Central Zambia.” Journal of African Archaeology. https://doi.org/10.1163/21915784-bja10012

2021 Mueller, N.G., Goldstein, S.T., Odeny, D., & Boivin, N. “Variability and preservation biases in the archaeobotanical record of Eleusine coracana (finger millet): Evidence from Iron Age Kenya.” Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-021-00853-y

2021 Goldstein, S.T., Crowther, A., Henry, E.R., Katongo, M., Janzen, A., Farr, J., Picin, A., Le Moyne, C., Boivin, N. “Revisiting Kalundu Mound, Zambia: Implications for the timing of social and subsistence transitions in Iron Age southern Africa.” African Archaeological Review 38(4): 625-655. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-021-09440-y

2021 Storozum, M., Goldstein, S.T., Conterras, D.A., Gidna, A., Mabulla, A., Grillo, K., & Prendergast, M.E. “Legacies of ancient herder settlement: soil development and landscape evolution on the Mbulu Plateau, Tanzania.” Catena 204:105376.

2021 Janzen, A., Richter, K.K., Brown, S., Mwebi, O., Gatwiri, F., Katongo, M., Goldstein, S.T., Douka, K., Bovin, N. “Distinguishing African bovids using Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS).” PLoS1 16 (5), e0251061.

2021 Goldstein, S.T. “Lithic technological organization of the “Elmenteitan” in southern Kenya: Implications for mobility and climatic resilience.” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 61: 101259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2020.101259.

2021 Bleasdale, M., Richter, K., Janzen, A., Brown, S., Scott, A., Zech, J., Wilkin, S., Wang, K., Schiffels, S., Desideri, J., Besse, M., Ndiema, E., Ogola, C., Manthi, F., Zahir, M., Petraglia, M., Trachsel, C., Nanni, P., Grossman, J., Hendy, J., Crowther, A., Roberts, P., Goldstein, S., Boivin, N. “Ancient proteins provide direct evidence of dairy consumption in eastern Africa.” Nature Communications 12(632).  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20682-3.

2020 Scerri, E., Kuhnert, D., Blinkhorn, J., Groucutt, H., Roberts, P., Zerboni, A., Orijemie, A., Barton, H., Candy, I., Goldstein, S., Hawks, J., N’Dah, D., Niang, K., Nicoll, K., Petraglia, M., & Vella, N. “Field based sciences must transform in response to COVID-19.” Nature Ecology & Evolution.

2020 Wang, K.*, Goldstein, S.T.*., Bleasdale, M.,  Clist, B., Bostoen, K.,  Bakwa-Lufu, P., Buck, L. T., Crowther, A.,  Dème, A., McIntosh,  R., Mercador Florin, J., Ogola, C., Power, R., Sawchuk, E., Willmsen, E., Petraglia, M., Ndiema, E., Manthi, F. K.., Krause, J., Roberts, P.,  Boivin, N., Schiffels, S. “Ancient genomes reveal complex patterns of population movement, interaction and integration in sub-Saharan Africa.” Science Advances 6(24). *Co-Corresponding authors

2020 D’errico, F., Shipton, C., Pitarch, A., Le Vraux, E., Goldstein, S., Boivin, N., Ndiema, E., Petraglia, M. “Trajectories of Middle to Later Stone Age cultural innovation in eastern Africa: the case of Panga ya Saidi, Kenya.” Journal of Human Evolution 141: 102737.

2019 Goldstein, S.T. “Lithic technology of the earliest herders at Lake Turkana, northern Kenya.” Antiquity 93 (372): 1495-1514

2019 Stephens, L., Fuller, D., Boivin, N., Rick, T….Goldstein, S (54th of 120)….Ellis, E.C. “Archaeological assessment reveals Earth’s early transformation through land use.” Science 365(6456): 897-902.

2019 Goldstein, S.T. “Infrastructures of pre-colonial food-security in eastern Africa,” In A. Logan & M. Shoeman (Eds) Useable Pasts Forum: Critically Engaging Food Security, African Archaeological Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-019-09347-9

2019 Goldstein, S.T. “The lithic assemblage from Sugenya: A Pastoral Neolithic site of the Elmenteitan    group in southwestern Kenya.”  Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 54: 4-32.

2019 Goldstein, S.T. “Knowledge transmission through the lens of lithic production: A case study from the Pastoral Neolithic of southern Kenya.”  Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 26: 679-713.

2019 Capriles, J., Albarracin-Jordan, J., Lombardo, U.,Osorio, D., Maley, B., Goldstein, S.T., Herrera, K.A., Glascock, M.D., Domic, A., Veit, H., & Santoro, C.M. “Adaptation to High Altitude Ecosystems, and the Late Pleistocene Hunter-Gatherers of the Bolivian Andes.” Revista Textos Anthopológicos 20(9) :9-32.

2018  Marshall, F.B., Reid, R.E.B., Goldstein, S.T., Storozum, M., Wreschnig, A., Hu, L., Kiura, P., Shahack-Gross, R., & S.H. Ambrose.  “Ancient herders enriched and restructured African grasslands.” Nature 561: 387-390.

2018 Goldstein, S., Hildebrand, E., Storozum, M., Sawchuk, E., Lewis, J., Ngugi, C. & L. Robbins. “New archaeological investigations at the Lothagam harpoon site at Lake Turkana, Kenya.” Antiquity 91(360).

2018  Hildebrand, E., Grillo, K., E. Sawchuk, E., Pfeiffer, S., Conyers, L., Goldstein, S.,Hill, A.C., Janzen, A., Klehm, C., Helper, M., Kiura, P., Ndiema, E., Ngugi, C., Shea, J.J., and H. Wang.  “A monumental cemetery built by eastern Africa’s earliest herders near Lake Turkana, Kenya.”  Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 115 (36): 8942-8947.

2018 Sawchuk, E., Goldstein, S., Grillo, K., & E. Hildebrand. “Cemetery construction and the spread of pastoralism in eastern Africa.” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 51: 187-205.

2018 Goldstein, S.T. “Picking up the pieces: Reconstructing lithic production strategies at a Late Holocene obsidian quarry in southern Kenya.” Journal of Field Archaeology 43(2): 85-101.

2018 Capriles, J., Albarracin-Jordan, J., Bird, D., Goldstein, S., Jarpa, G., Maldonado, C. & C. Santoro.  “Mobility, subsistence, and technological strategies of early Holocene hunter-gatherers in the Bolivian Altiplano.” Quaternary International 473b: 190-205.

2018 Grillo, K., Prendergast, M., Contreras, D., Fitton, T., Gidna, A., Goldstein, S., Knisley, M., Langley, M. & A. Mabulla. “Pastoral Neolithic Settlement at Luxmanda, Tanzania.”  Journal of Field Archaeology 32(2): 102-120.

2017 Goldstein, S.T. and J.M. Munyiri. The Elmenteitan Obsidian Quarry (GsJj50): “New perspectives on obsidian access and exchange during the Pastoral Neolithic of southern Kenya.” African Archaeological Review 34(1): 43-73.

2017 Frahm, E., Goldstein, S.T., & C.A. Tryon. „Forager-fisher and pastoralist interactions along the Lake Victoria shores, Kenya: Perspectives from portable XRF of obsidian artifacts from Kansyore rock shelters.” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 11: 717-742.

2016 Goldstein, S.T. and C.M. Shaffer. “Experimental and archaeological investigations of geometric microlith function among Mid-to-Late Holocene herders in southwestern Kenya.” Journal of Archaeological and Anthropological Science 9(8): 1767-1788.

2016 Capriles J., Jordan, J., Lombardo, U., Osorio, D., Herrera, K., Maley, B., Goldstein, S.T., Domic, A. I., Glascock, M.D., Veit, H. & C. Santoro. “High-altitude adaptation and late Pleistocene foraging in the Bolivian Andes.” Journal of Archaeological Sciences: Reports 6: 46-474.

2014 Goldstein, S.T. “Quantifying endscraper reduction in the context of obsidian exchange among early pastoralists in southwestern Kenya.” Lithic Technology 39: 3-19.

Emily Wanderer

Emily Wanderer earned her PhD from MIT’s program in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society. She is an anthropologist of science whose research focuses on the intersection of medical and environmental anthropology and addresses how ideas of identity and place in the world are implicated in the practice of life scientists, as well as the ways human and non-human lives intersect and are transformed in scientific practice.

Her research and teaching interests include the anthropology of science and technology, medical anthropology, environmental anthropology, multispecies ethnography, Latin America, and Pittsburgh.

 

Research Description

Professor Wanderer’s first book, The Life of a Pest (2020), is a study of the politics of nature in Mexico, examining why and how different species are variously protected or exterminated to improve life as a whole. Through multispecies ethnographic research in labs, fields, and offices, it analyzes how scientists moved biopolitics and biosecurity beyond the human to include animal, plant, and microbial worlds. In improving life, scientists were called upon to determine what it meant to be a native or invasive species and to address the migration, mobility, and security of a wide array of life forms. They became arbiters who established which life forms were included in or excluded from group membership. In Mexico, where nature has never been conceptualized as pristine or separate from culture and human life, biopolitics and biosecurity have looked different than in Euro-American places. Scientists produced biopolitical apparatuses that incorporated multiple species and sorted bodies according to categories of difference that were informed by Mexican history and culture. Through case studies of infectious disease, invasive species, and agricultural and ecological research, this book considers how better living is a multispecies project, one which moves past anthropocentric conceptions of a good life to incorporate a more biocentric view.

Her current research project examines the convergence of tech and wildlife in the Anthropocene in the science of wildlife tracking and the production of the "datafied animal." Over the past twenty years, scientists have developed an ever expanding "internet of animals," a collection of tools and research practices that include machine learning, AI, cyberinfrastructure, GPS-telemetry, and minaturized tags. These have transformed the way animal life is tracked, quantified, and understood. Through ethnographic fieldwork on the development and use of technology for wildlife research, this project analyzes the ideas, cultural categories, and histories that shape machine learning and AI about wildlife and the consequences they have for wildlife management. 

Professor Wanderer also has research interests in the Pittsburgh environment, particularly air quality, its relationship with health, and the development of related citizen science projects. 

Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).

 

Courses

Anthropology of Science: Global Perspectives

Science and technology are integral to contemporary societies. Understanding how science is produced and how it shapes daily life is a crucial challenge for anthropologists, who have studied the production of scientific knowledge in labs, hospitals, field sites, and elsewhere. While early studies of science as a cultural practice focused primarily on the U.S. and Europe, science and technology are produced and consumed globally. Through analyses of case studies of biotechnology, medicine, genetics, conservation, agriculture, energy, climate science, and computing around the world, this class will investigate the global dynamics of science and technology. Juxtaposing readings on different scientific fields from around the globe, we will look for recurring themes that connect these studies. What happens when science and technology travel, and how do new places emerge as centers of knowledge production? How are culture, identity, technology, and science linked?

Health and the Environment in Pittsburgh

This course examines the relationship between environment and health, with a special focus on the city of Pittsburgh and the surrounding environs as a case study. We will use medical anthropology to systematically investigate the effect of the environment on health and the interplay of natural and human systems. Drawing on research in political ecology, this class will consider the social, political, and economic systems that shaped Pittsburgh and its inhabitants. We will pay particular attention to the way changing industrial and environmental conditions changed incidence of disease, and how exposure to risk and disease are shaped by race, gender, and class. We will examine issues like the histories of air pollution and resource extraction including coal mining, oil and gas drilling and their impacts on the environment and health. The course will examine how knowledge about health is produced and the development of new forms of citizen science that enlist local residents in projects to monitor issues like air quality.

Global Pharmaceuticals

This course examines pharmaceuticals as cultural and social phenomena, following their development, production, marketing, and use around the globe. We will investigate a number of issues, including the growing number of drugs prescribed to Americans each year, the lack of access some populations have to essential medicines, the increasingly global nature of clinical trials, and the role of pharmaceutical companies in the opioid crisis. We will use the study of drugs and medicines to analyze the production of medical knowledge, changing perceptions of health and illness, and the role of the state and the market in the development and distribution of therapeutics. Pharmaceuticals bring together science, clinical practice, marketing, and consumerism, and this course will draw on anthropological research to trace the role they play in global flows of knowledge, capital, commodities, and people.

People and other Animals

What can anthropology tell us about nonhuman life forms? This class examines the interconnections between humans and other life forms, looking at how human cultural, political, and economic activities are shaped by the animal, plant, and microbial forms that surround us and likewise how these life forms are shaped by human activities. Topics addressed will include the interactions of humans and other beings in agriculture, domestication, hunting, scientific research, medicine, pet-keeping, and conservation. We will consider the subjectivity and agency of the nonhuman, our moral and ethical obligations to other life forms, and critically examine divisions between culture and nature.

Medical Anthropology II

This course is a seminar in medical anthropology, focusing on the key theoretical perspectives and methodological problems that have characterized the subfield. We begin with an overview of the emergence of the field of medical anthropology from early studies of rationality and belief, moving on to analyze diverse medical traditions and understandings and experiences of the body, health, and disease. We will discuss contemporary theory in medical anthropology as well as the construction of research problems from different theoretical perspectives in medical anthropology. The course will address approaches within medical anthropology to the social construction of illness and healing, sex, gender, race, markets and bioeconomies, and global health and humanitarianism. The goal of the course is to prepare students to conduct their own research and to engage in contemporary scholarly debates within the subfield of medical anthropology.

Gabby M. H. Yearwood

Gabby M.H. Yearwood is a Teaching Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Managing Faculty Director for the Center for Civil Rights and Racial Justice in the Law School at the University Pittsburgh. He is a socio-cultural anthropologist earning his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in Anthropology focusing in Black Diaspora Studies and Masculinity. His research interests include the social constructions of race and racism, masculinity, gender, sex, Black Feminist and Black Queer theory, anthropology of sport and Black Diaspora. Dr. Yearwood holds a secondary appointment with the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Program at Pitt.  Dr. Yearwood is also a teaching member of the Pitt Prison Education Project. Dr. Yearwood has served as a consultant and qualitative researcher on projects for the Association of Bone Mineral Research Task Force, SARS-COV2-Prevelance Study, R24 Group for Public Health and Adolescent Medicine, and the Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) Project.

https://www.civilrights.pitt.edu/

https://www.ppep.pitt.edu/

 

 

Research Description

Dr. Yearwood has conducted research with high profile college athletes gaining insight into the ways in which young men create and sustain masculinity and race in relation to their social lives as athletes at institutions of higher education.  He is most interested in examining the structures of race, gender and sexuality as they are informed by institutions of sporting life. 

Courses

Activist Anthropology

Following the work of activist anthropology this course will teach students that “critical engagement brought about by activist research is both necessary and productive. Such research can contribute to transforming the discipline by addressing knowledge production and working to decolonize our research process. Rather than seeking to avoid or resolve the tensions inherent in anthropological research on human rights, activist research draws them to the fore, making them a productive part of the process. Finally, activist research allows us to merge cultural critique with political action to produce knowledge that is empirically grounded, theoretically valuable, and ethically viable.” (Speed 2006). This course will teach students both the importance and value of conducting research that moves outside of the “ivory tower” of academia. “[A]ctivist scholars work in dialogue, collaboration, alliance with people who are struggling to better their lives; activist scholarship embodies a responsibility for results that these “allies” can recognize as their own, value in their own terms, and use as they see fit.” (Hale 2008) This course will explore major conceptual work on the role and ethical responsibility of anthropological research and social justice issues. Students will be required to participate in methodological exercises that will require engagement in the Pittsburgh community.

Anthropology of Race and Science 

This course takes a critical look at the narratives and discourses in and around race and its relationship to scientific thought that both essentializes and naturalizes bodies and their capabilities. We will explore narratives which use the tool and authoritative voice of science, scientific method and genetics. In addition, we will look at some of the historical and contemporary narratives of the biological underpinnings of racist discourse and its incorporation into everyday imaginings of social identities. We will look at blogs, internet posts, media, and academic literature to view and critique the ways in which science logic becomes racialized logic.

Politics of Black Masculinity 

This course explores the role and significance of Black Males and black masculinity in American society. Examining the varied social roles Black males have occupied in both literal and symbolic systems students will gain an understanding of the interrelatedness of race, gender and masculinity in American culture and its impact on social, political and legal institutions in America.

Anthropology of Sport 

Sport captures the minds and money of billions of people everyday, the Olympics, World Cup Soccer, American College Football, and Little League World Series. Yet despite its overwhelming significance in everyday life it goes largely ignored in Anthropological discussions. This course serves to introduce students to the significance and centrality of sport in understanding and interpreting social life. Sport will be critically examined through major anthropological categories of race, class, ethnicity, gender and power.

Human Sexuality in Crosscultural Perspective 

This course will explore the expression of human sexuality across a diversity of cultural and social settings.  It will include discussions of how human groups manage sexuality and human reproduction; theories concerning the development of different marriage, family and household systems as they relate to human sexuality; differences in values and expectations related to sexuality in different cultures; the development of sexual expression across the life span in different cultures; and approaches to understanding heterosexual and homosexual relationships and sexual violence. 

Introduction to Cultural Anthropology 

This course is designed to introduce students to cultural anthropological methods and concepts that are useful for gaining a better understanding of human diversity. We will examine such topics as family systems, economic and political change, religion and ritual in order to encourage students to question commonly held assumptions about what is "normal" and "natural" in human experience.

Andrew J. Strathern

Andrew Strathern received his Ph.D from Cambridge University and is an internationally recognized scholar and social anthropologist with a wide range of interests, including the analysis of political and economic systems, kinship theories, social change, religion and ritual, symbolism, ethnicity, legal anthropology, conflict and violence, the anthropology of the body, and the cross-cultural study of medical systems.

He has carried out long-term fieldwork in the Pacific (especially Papua New Guinea), Asia (especially Taiwan), and Europe (with a focus on Ireland and Scotland) and continues an active research and publication program in these global arenas as well as others. He also conducts research in and teaches on contemporary anthropological theory, linguistic anthropology, and linguistic and social issues in Europe and globally.

For many years he has collaborated with Dr. Pamela J.Stewart pamjan@pitt.edu and they have published widely on their findings. They are frequently invited international lecturers, discussing their current theoretical perspectives. Several of Strathern and Stewart’s recently published books are “Peace-Making and the Imagination” (Strathern and Stewart, 2011); “Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion” (Stewart and Strathern, 2014); and “Working in the Field: Anthropological Experiences across the World” (Stewart and Strathern, 2014).  Their research work in the Pacific, Asia, and Europe feeds into their Disaster Anthropology project on global climatic change, natural disasters, and human-produced disasters.  They are experts in Ritual Studies; Peace and Conflict Studies; Healing and the Body; and they have developed the Pitt in the Pacific Program with the University of Pittsburgh’s Study Abroad Office.  They work with Material Culture and conduct museum studies around the world.

Research Description

Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart are a husband and wife research team who have published over 50 books and hundreds of articles on their fieldwork. They have been conducting research (fieldwork and archival work) in Europe for over two decades, focusing on work in Scotland, Ireland, and on the European Union. Their work has included aspects of the study of Scots as a minority language and its Ulster-Scots variant within County Donegal, Republic of Ireland, and in Northern Ireland, and also cross-border relations between the Republic and Northern Ireland as well as issues of devolution within the United Kingdom. They have also been working on Scottish Diaspora Studies, relating to Western Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. A further dimension of their work relates to Heritage Studies in general and the contesting contexts in which the idea of heritage is deployed.  They are the co-editors of the "European Anthropology" Series.  They have also published many books and articles on their fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, Taiwan, Ireland and Scotland.

They are the Co-editors of Journal of Ritual Studies (also see the Journal's Facebook Page!), the Ritual Studies Monograph Series  and the Ethnographic Studies in Medical Anthropology and the European Anthropology Series with Carolina Academic Press. They Co-Edit the Series Anthropology and Cultural History in Asia and the Indo-Pacific for Routledge Publishing and the Series The Palgrave Studies in Disaster Anthropology for Palgrave Publishing. More about Research can be found on our Personal Website

Personhood in Melanesia

Arrow talk (el ik) is a genre of political oratory among the Melpa-speaking people of Mount Hagen in the Western Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. It is practiced at the end of political events to express how history has crystallized into a state of transactional play between participants in the exchanges that constitute the event, including the sense of the event as a transition between other events and any suggestions of contradictions involved in these transactions.

Strathern, Andrew and Pamela J. Stewart
2000 Arrow Talk: Transaction, Transition, and Contradiction in New Guinea Highlands History. Kent State University Press, p.1.

A whole genre of vampire films designed for viewing by people in Europe and America taps into the same concerns as are exhibited in African contexts today. In general, these phenomena force us to recognize the final demise of the myth that modernity is based on the "triumph of rationality" in human affairs. Witchcraft ideas are themselves rational if we view them as logics of explanation. At the same time, they draw their power from fantasies of guilt and desire that arise from sources that could be labeled as "irrational."

Stewart, Pamela J. and Andrew Strathern
2003 Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors and Gossip. Cambridge University Press, pp. 91-2.

Each narrator tends to have an overall way of achieving a presentation of self corresponding to what Caroline Barros (1998) has called the "autobiographical persona." Like personhood, persona is the overall self-characterization that the narrator is attempting to project through the narrative process.

Stewart, Pamela J. and Andrew Strathern
2000 Introduction. In Identity Work: Constructing Pacific Lives,edited by Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern. University of Pittsburgh Press, p. 5.

The min (spirit) comes directly from the ancestors, entering into the body during gestation, while noman (mind) develops after birth through the socializing influences of kin and primarily through the ability to speak. The person is therefore a complex amalgam of substances and influence.

Strathern, Andrew and Pamela J. Stewart
1998 Melpa and Nuer ideas of life and death: the rebirth of a comparison. In Bodies and Persons: Comparative Perspectives from Africa and Melanesia, edited by M. Lambek and A. Strathern, Cambridge University, p. 236.

Pigs lined up and tethered to stakes for a compensation payment, Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea, 1998. The occasion brought people from two different language groups together, since a killing had taken place between the Hagen and the Enga peoples, threatening the peace in the town of Mount Hagen itself, where immigrants from Enga live along with Hageners.

Round sweet potato beds in gardens at high altitude on the south road from Mt. Hagen to Tambul, Papua New Guinea, 1998. The sweet potato has been of prime importance in the social evolution of societies in the Highland region.

Large house built on stilts amid secondary regrowth in Hagu settlement among the Duna speakers of the Aluni Valley, Papua New Guinea, 1999. This house was being built for a young pastor of the Baptist church who is from the settlement, and its design reflects the status accorded to this new category of ritual leader.

Taiwan, Politics of Ritual

Two statues of the Deity Mazu sit in the midst of worshipers and tables covered with offerings to honor the Deity on the celebration of her birthday. Kuantu temple in Taipei, Taiwan, 2002.

In "the Mazu [Female Daoist Deity] complex in Taiwan...Mazu is seen as having great power over matters such as fertility and rain, and temples to her are ranked in terms of their putative founding dates and their consequent privileges of precedence in relation to one another...This relationship of precedence is marked by troupes of performers carrying statues of Mazu back to temples from which their own temple or its image originated, in order to renew their power and to show the performers' respect to the founding temples.

Worshiper burning incense at the Kuantu temple in Taipei, Taiwan on the celebration of Mazu's birth date.

Strathern, Andrew and Pamela J. Stewart
2003 Divisions of power: rituals in time and space among the Hagen and Duna peoples, Papua New Guinea. Taiwan Journal of Anthropology 1(1)51-76.

Dr. Pamela J. Stewart stands next to a resting dragon puppet that has just completed a dragon dance through the control of a local temple worship performance troupe. The location is the Kuantu temple, Taipei, Taiwan, 2002. The celebration was to mark the birthday of the Deity Mazu.

Prof. Andrew Strathern (A.W. Mellon Professor of Anthropology, U. of Pittsburgh) stands next to a newly constructed, privately funded, temple dedicated to the Earth God. He holds a fruit that a local worshiper shared with him after the worshiper prayed to the Deity at this temple, 2002. This temple is near to the Institute of Ethnology, where Prof. Strathern and Dr. Stewart are affiliated when they work in Taiwan. Through the Institute of Ethnology they are also studying aspects of historical change, cultural revival movements, and conversion to Christianity among the indigenous Austronesian speaking peoples of Taiwan with special reference to the Paiwan area.

Curing and Healing

In the past, after a corpse had been exposed for the requisite number of days on a platform, the remains (bones) of the corpse would be removed and placed in a cave which would serve as the burial vault and permanent repository for them. This site was considered to be the home for the spirit, tini, of the dead person and had to be taken care of by the kin of the deceased.

Strathern, Andrew and Pamela Stewart
2010 (2nd ed.) Curing and Healing: Medical Anthropology in Global Perspective. Carolina Academic Press, p. 50.

Female mourner among the Ndika people near Mount Hagen, early 1970s. Her hair, face, and body are plastered with white mourning clay, and she carries a cordyline switch. Earth paints are used to mark the body in particular ways (for healing, grief, or celebration, for example), and act to produce a kind of second skin on the person that intimately connects the human body to the ground.

Stewart, Pamela J. and Andrew Strathern, with contributions by Ien Courtens and Dianne van Oosterhout.
2001 Humors and Substances. Ideas of the Body in New Guinea. Bergin and Garvey, Westport.

Europe: Ethnicity, Language, and Identity

Violence: Theory and Ethnography explores the meanings and contexts in which violent actions occur. The authors develop further the concept of ‘the triangle of violence’ - the idea that violence is marked by the triangle between performers, victims, and witnesses – and the proposition that violence is also marked by contests regarding its legitimacy as a social act. Adopting an approach which looks at the negotiated and contingent nature of violent behavior, Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern stress the powerful unacknowledged associations between ideas of revenge and concepts of justice. These theoretical perspectives are applied to in-depth case studies from Rwanda-Urundi, Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland. The authors also draw on extensive field experience in Papua New Guinea, using ethnographic detail to address broader issues of considerable global importance.

Stewart, Pamela J. and Andrew Strathern
2002 Violence: Theory and Ethnography. New York and London: Continuum Publishing for Athlone Press.

Scots influence and traditions show clearly in these kilted and bagpipe playing marchers at the Orange Order parade, Rossnowlagh, south-west County Donegal, 5 July 2003. The Rossnowlagh marches are known for being peaceful. Near the center of this group one man holds up a huge Lambeg drum, which he is playing.

Strathern, Andrews, Pamela J. Stewart, and Neil Whitehead (eds.)
2006 Terror and Violence: Imagination and the Unimaginable. London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press.

Minorities and Memories: Survivals and Extinctions in Scotland and Western Europe explores historical expressions of identity in Scotland, based on fieldwork in the Lowlands of Scotland carried out during 1996-2000, mostly in the County of Ayrshire but including materials from all over Scotland. Particular chapters consider Wales and Northern Ireland (where the authors have also conducted research subsequently as well as in County Donegal, Republic of Ireland) in comparison to Scotland. The book continuously weaves together historical narrative with anthropological reflections and analyses, examining the issue of identities through the perspective of both disciplines. The St. Andrew’s flag or Saltire is a mark of the longstanding sense of national identity in Scotland.

Strathern, Andrew and Pamela J. Stewart
2001 Minorities and Memories: Survivals and Extinctions in Scotland and Western Europe. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press.

Courses

Ritual: Theories and Cases

This course will examine the broad range of theories on the topic of ritual, an arena of discussion which has long been central to anthropological analysis and has acquired further significance through its overlaps with psychology, history, cognitive studies, and religious studies. The course will utilize selections from the extensive literature on the topic, both historical and contemporary, and will be enhanced by use of audio-visual materials for discussion. Students will be encouraged to bring forward their own themes for discussion throughout the course. The course will be open to students from Anthropology, Religious Studies, Cultural Studies, and related disciplines. This course will be offered on a regular basis in Spring Term.

Contemporary Anthropological Theory

In the last twenty five years, significant theoretical shifts have occurred within cultural anthropology, leading to and beyond the so-called post-modernist approaches. There was first a decline of encompassing "grand theories," followed by a stress on local forms of knowledge and practice as the object of our investigations. Later there have been a series of attempts at reconstructive theorizing either generally or in specific arenas, for example, in political anthropology and in historical anthropology. This course will explore medical anthropology, cognition and culture, the anthropology of religion, gender and modernity, ecology and development studies, globalization, political economy, and practice theory, including theories of violence and assist students critically to evaluate some of these trends. Attention will be paid to current issues of globalization and the creation or assertion of new forms of identity, local and transnational, in geopolitical contexts; as well as to reconstructive theories in general, for example in the sphere of religion and ritual, and studies of “development” and NGOs, environmental issues and disaster studies, and theories in the area of economic anthropology and neo-liberalism, as well as classic exchange theory and ecology. Prerequisites: This course is for 2nd or 3rd year Anthropology graduate students and others interested.

Linguistics Core Course

Language, evolution, and prehistory, world languages. Survey of phonology and phonemics, morphemics, syntax, writing systems and spelling, ethnosemantics, and sociolinguistics. Language and culture, language and power, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, ethnoscience, ethnography of communication, and linguistic pragmatics and meta-pragmatic approaches. Oral history and Oral genres, including poetry and song in Papua New Guinea and elsewhere. Language and movements for indigeneity and nationalism. Language studies and Cultural Anthropology including structuralism, the significance of literacy, cognition and culture, kinship studies, Pidgins and Creoles, Lallans and Ulster-Scots, the politics of minority languages.

Medical Anthropology 2

This course offers a survey of selected topics in contemporary medical anthropology. Topics to be covered may include cross-cultural and biocultural approaches to the study of sickness and healing, critical approaches to the study of biomedicine, interpretive approaches to ethnomedical systems, meaning-centered approaches to understanding the experience of suffering and pain, and the social construction of illness and healing. Special topics investigated include the anthropology of the body and sexuality, and physician-patient communication. Other topics can be added in accordance with student interests.

Human Ecology

This course examines human ecological relations within the environment, paying special attention to the vital contemporary issues surrounding global climate change and its specific manifestations in local ethnographic cases, the vulnerability and precarity that is implicated by it, and in particular how environmental disasters are increasingly being generated and test the resilience and creativity of the populations that experience them, including all life-forms and the landscapes they create and depend on for their life processes.

Kinship and the Family

Kinship in all its historical and contemporary manifestations is a central and enduring topic in the social sciences, ranging from the formal studies of different kinship systems to the intersection of changing gender relations and the construction of ideas of personhood and identity in the post-industrial world. Kinship ties run through all arenas of human life, including politics, economics, and religion, and are vital to the processes of cultural transmission and radical changes in cultural adaptations.

Myth, Symbol and Ritual

Mythology and its symbolism and ritual enactments are vital parts of the lives of many peoples and enter into the struggles of indigenous populations around the world as they seek to recreate the relationship with the environment. Myth remains an important part of religious practices. In addition, myth appears in changing guises in the creation of national and transnational identities in contemporary global society, and mythical sensibilities rest on the human capacity to create and deploy symbols. This course covers and provides insights into the aesthetics and the generative capacity of symbols and how they emerge into mythological and ritual syndromes.

Pacific Cultures

Pacific cultures present us with a fascinating picture of variability and adaptive variation in different parts of the vast area of Oceania. Taking into account long-term patterns of change from archaeological records and the work of comparative linguists, and utilizing a rich range of materials from media sources, this course provides a unique conspectus of insights, drawing on long-term field research, and aims to portray also the charm of these vibrant cultures and their contemporary struggles with problems of modernization and ecological challenges.