Working-with: talking and sorting in personal archives

This paper draws upon experiences of working in a personal archive in a domestic space in order to contribute to recent debates about archival formation, conduct and practice. By exploring the collaborative practices of working-with an archive owner in ordering and cataloguing a collection, we provide methodological insights into how historical geography research is carried out. Although such working-with in archives is, we argue, a common practice amongst researchers, these interactions with others are often absent from published work. This paper provides an explicit discussion of these often hidden collaborations and socialities, highlighting their importance for the conduct of archival research in three specific areas. First, we show how working-with actively (re)shapes and (re)makes archival materials and the stories that emerge from them. Second, we argue that working-with the owners of archives, but doing so without clearly defined research aims and going against the grain of productivist methods of working, can be rewarding both within and beyond academia. Third, in focussing on working-with, the paper extends conceptions of the archive and archival practice. We argue that the domestic setting of archival work produces particular patterns of archival conduct and disrupts the boundaries of collections themselves.     

Context and content in New Orleans: AAA 2002

Conference reviewed:
Mark Allen Peterson, Context and Content in New Orleans AAA Meeting, New Orleans, 20–24 November 2002     

A Supermarket of anthropology: AAA 2002

Conference reviewed:
Mette Louise Berg, A Supermarket of Anthropology AAA Meeting, New Orleans, 20–24 November 2002     

说乔家 道晋商

坐落在晋中平原上的祁县乔家大院是一座具有北方民居风格的古宅,始建于清乾隆二十年(1755),距今已有240多年的历史。 当年的乔家共有四个堂,即:“在中堂”、“保元堂”、“德兴堂”、“宁守堂”,现在我们所看到的宅院     

Dukarr lakarama: Listening to Guwak,talking back to space colonization

Guided by the Yolŋu songspiral of Guwak, in this collaboratively written paper we argue that the extension of earth-based colonization into space disrupts and colonises the plural lifeworlds of many Indigenous people who have ongoing connections with and beyond the sky. Listening to Guwak, we speak back to promoters of space colonization who frame their projects as harmless according to four core understandings. First, they assume that there are no people or other beings Indigenous to what they think of as ‘outer space’, and that none of the Indigenous people or beings who also live on earth have travelled to or inhabited this space. Second, they assume that space is dead or non-sentient in itself, and that it is incapable of fostering life. Third, they understand that space is cleanly separated from earth, meaning that what happens in space has no effect on earth, or vice versa. Fourth, because of these three assumptions, they do not identify any ethical objections to occupying and exploiting space.We follow Guwak as she undermines each of these assumptions, by moving through and as Sky Country. These learnings emphasize the presence and role of Law, order and negotiation in Sky Country; the active, animate, agential presence of beings in Sky Country; the connectivity and co-becoming-ness of earth and sky; and the ethical obligations to attend to and care for and as Sky Country. We contend that the argument applies to many worlds that intimately connect with, extend into (or beyond) what Western sciences call ‘outer space’. Indeed, we hope that in sharing Guwak we encourage broader conversations about Sky Country and its relations with other Indigenous worlds.     

Introducing the first talking watch from IWC:it says everything about its owner

Not needed anymore. Portuguese Regulateur Tourbillon.Ref. 5446:This is one regal timepiece you won’t recognize by its crown but its heart:the tourbillon.The"whirlwind"-as the French word literally translates-at 9 o’clock has a cantilever-mounted escapement,providing an     

江南烟雨里宿眠

Not needed anymore. Portuguese Regulateur Tourbiffon.Ref. 5446:This is one regal timepiece you won’t recognize by its crown but its heart:the tourbillon.Thewhirlwind-as the French word literally translates-at 9 o’clock has a cantilever-mounted escapement,providing an unimpeded view of the mechanism.This com-     

徜徉异域风情

Portuguese Regulateur Tourbilion.Ref. 5446:This is one regal timepiece you won’t recognize by its crown but its heart:the tourbillon.Thewhirlwind- as the French word literally translates - at 9 o’clock has a cantilever-mounted escapement,providing an unimpeded view of the mechanism.This com-     

Introducing the first talking watch from IWC:it says everything about its owner

Not needed anymore. Portuguese Regulateur Tourbillon.Ref. 5446:This is one regal timepiece you won’t recognize by its crown but its heart:the tourbillon.The"whirlwind"- as the French word literally translates - at 9 o’clock has a cantilever-mounted escapement,providing an unimpeded view of the mechanism.This complication has been a particular source of fascin-     

ASA 2003: Communitas enters the academy

Fifth Decennial Conference of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth, University of Manchester, 14-18 July 2003     

Wives,Children … Husbands: Supporting Roles

In 1965, Hugo L. Black asked his wife, Elizabeth, to host a dinner party. The purpose: to help him persuade Carolyn Agger, wife of Washington attorney Abe Fortas, to allow her husband to accept President Lyndon B. Johnson's offer of a seat on the Supreme Court. A tax lawyer at the same firm as Fortas, Agger was displeased that the move would mean a big cut in his salary; she thought he should spend a few more years in his lucrative private practice before becoming a judge. After all, he was only fifty‐five. Elizabeth Black described the tense occasion in a diary entry:     

Introducing the first talking watch from IWC:it says everything about its owner.

Portuguese Regulateur Tourbillon.Ref. 5446:This is one regal timepiece you won't recognize by its crown but its heart:the tourbillon.The"whirlwind"-as the French word literally translates-at 9 o'clock has a     

Introducing the first talking watch from IWC:it says everything about its owner.

Portuguese Regulateur Tourbillon.Ref. 5446:This is one regal timepiece you won’t recognize by its crown but its heart:the tourbillon.The"whirlwind"-as the French word literally translates-at 9 o’clock has a cantilever-mounted escapement,providing an unimpeded view of the mechanism.This com-