Description
From a grandmother's inter-generational care to the strategic and slow consensus work of elected tribal leaders, Indigenous community builders perform the daily work of culture and communalism. Indigenous Communalism conveys age-old lessons about culture, communalism, and the universal tension between the individual and the collective. It is also a critical ethnography challenging the moral and cultural assumptions of a hyper-individualist, twenty-first century global society.
Told in vibrant detail, the narrative of the book conveys the importance of communalism as a value system present in all human groups and one at the center of Indigenous survival. Carolyn Smith-Morris draws on her work among the Akimel O'odham and the Wiradjuri to show how communal work and culture help these communities form distinctive Indigenous bonds. The results are not only a rich study of Indigenous relational lifeways, but a serious inquiry to the continuing acculturative atmosphere that Indigenous communities struggle to resist. Recognizing both positive and negative sides to the issue, she asks whether there is a global Indigenous communalism. And if so, what lessons does it teach about healthy communities, the universal human need for belonging, and the potential for the collective to do good?
About the Author
Carolyn Smith-Morris is an associate professor of anthropology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. She is the author of Diabetes among the Pima, editor of Diagnostic Controversy: Cultural Perspectives on Competing Knowledge in Healthcare, and co-editor of Chronic Conditions, Fluid States: Chronicity and the Anthropology of Illness.
Reviews
"Indigenous Communalism can serve as an introduction to those interested in indigenous studies, southern epistemologies, and decolonial thinking, as a resource for moving forward contemporary social theory, and as a complement to global south proposals by showing that it is in the complex realm of hybridity and diversity where struggles for sense making take place."- Cesar Abadia-Barrero, author of I Have AIDS but I am Happy: Children's Subjectivities, AIDS and Social Responses in Brazil
"Inspiring and thought provoking, Indigenous Communalism is both an innovative ethnography of communalism and collectivist life and a conveyor of critical hope for our times. We move with the author along a compelling journey committed to Indigenous rights but also to viewing humanity's future through the lens of Indigeneity, open to the possibility (if not necessity) of transforming the divisive politics that defines our individualist age into a more socially just communalist world."- Mark K. Watson, author of Japan's Ainu Minority in Tokyo: Diasporic Indigeneity and Urban Politics
Book Information
ISBN 9781978805415
Author Carolyn Smith-Morris
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint Rutgers University Press
Publisher Rutgers University Press
Weight(grams) 286g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 13mm
Told in vibrant detail, the narrative of the book conveys the importance of communalism as a value system present in all human groups and one at the center of Indigenous survival. Carolyn Smith-Morris draws on her work among the Akimel O'odham and the Wiradjuri to show how communal work and culture help these communities form distinctive Indigenous bonds. The results are not only a rich study of Indigenous relational lifeways, but a serious inquiry to the continuing acculturative atmosphere that Indigenous communities struggle to resist. Recognizing both positive and negative sides to the issue, she asks whether there is a global Indigenous communalism. And if so, what lessons does it teach about healthy communities, the universal human need for belonging, and the potential for the collective to do good?
About the Author
Carolyn Smith-Morris is an associate professor of anthropology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. She is the author of Diabetes among the Pima, editor of Diagnostic Controversy: Cultural Perspectives on Competing Knowledge in Healthcare, and co-editor of Chronic Conditions, Fluid States: Chronicity and the Anthropology of Illness.
Reviews
"Indigenous Communalism can serve as an introduction to those interested in indigenous studies, southern epistemologies, and decolonial thinking, as a resource for moving forward contemporary social theory, and as a complement to global south proposals by showing that it is in the complex realm of hybridity and diversity where struggles for sense making take place."- Cesar Abadia-Barrero, author of I Have AIDS but I am Happy: Children's Subjectivities, AIDS and Social Responses in Brazil
"Inspiring and thought provoking, Indigenous Communalism is both an innovative ethnography of communalism and collectivist life and a conveyor of critical hope for our times. We move with the author along a compelling journey committed to Indigenous rights but also to viewing humanity's future through the lens of Indigeneity, open to the possibility (if not necessity) of transforming the divisive politics that defines our individualist age into a more socially just communalist world."- Mark K. Watson, author of Japan's Ainu Minority in Tokyo: Diasporic Indigeneity and Urban Politics
Book Information
ISBN 9781978805415
Author Carolyn Smith-Morris
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint Rutgers University Press
Publisher Rutgers University Press
Weight(grams) 286g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 13mm
