James Andrew Whitaker - Böcker

Initially founded as a colony of the American Colonization Society in 1822 and declared an independent republic in 1847, the Republic of Liberia has challenged scholars across disciplines for almost as long as it has existed. Despite its territory being the home of Indigenous peoples for centuries, Liberia was imagined as a plan to relocate people of color primarily from the United States to West Africa as settler colonists. It then became a nation dominated by its original African-American founders and their descendants, who became known as Americo-Liberians. This group has shaped the political identity, social structure, and cultural standards of Liberia well into the 20th century, creating a remarkably complex legacy that both sparked and, in some ways, survived nearly two decades of civil conflict from which the nation is still rebuilding.Met by the Love of Liberty is an exploration of this complicated history, from Liberia's transatlantic origins to its complex and conflicted present. This collection of innovative essays emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach, combining African studies, anthropology, archaeology, history, linguistics, and cultural studies to produce a unique dialogue between the history of Liberia's national founding and its diverse contemporary historical memory and create a new, multifaceted understanding of Liberia's development and contemporary moment. Bringing together essays from leading scholars on Liberia's history and culture, Met by the Love of Liberty breaks new ground for discourse on how Liberia and other similar nations and communities can be studied today, telling a story of movement, displacement, national creation, and cultural and political memory and identity.

Initially founded as a colony of the American Colonization Society in 1822 and declared an independent republic in 1847, the Republic of Liberia has challenged scholars across disciplines for almost as long as it has existed. Despite its territory being the home of Indigenous peoples for centuries, Liberia was imagined as a plan to relocate people of color primarily from the United States to West Africa as settler colonists. It then became a nation dominated by its original African-American founders and their descendants, who became known as Americo-Liberians. This group has shaped the political identity, social structure, and cultural standards of Liberia well into the 20th century, creating a remarkably complex legacy that both sparked and, in some ways, survived nearly two decades of civil conflict from which the nation is still rebuilding.Met by the Love of Liberty is an exploration of this complicated history, from Liberia's transatlantic origins to its complex and conflicted present. This collection of innovative essays emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach, combining African studies, anthropology, archaeology, history, linguistics, and cultural studies to produce a unique dialogue between the history of Liberia's national founding and its diverse contemporary historical memory and create a new, multifaceted understanding of Liberia's development and contemporary moment. Bringing together essays from leading scholars on Liberia's history and culture, Met by the Love of Liberty breaks new ground for discourse on how Liberia and other similar nations and communities can be studied today, telling a story of movement, displacement, national creation, and cultural and political memory and identity.

During the colonial and postcolonial eras, local people in lowland South America experienced exploitation from outsiders. But as new kinds of societies emerged from engagements between outside and Indigenous communities, Indigenous Amazonians formed strategic alliances to defend livelihoods, territory, and symbolic values, as well as to curb exploitation, predation, and threats.The contributors in Indigenous Alliance Making bring together historical analyses with anthropological investigations to explore the organizational patterns, goals, and strategies through which Indigenous people have intentionally created various alliances, partnerships, and similar relations with outsiders in lowland South America. Emphasizing class, ethnicity, gender, and race, the chapters bring new dimensions to understanding a vital but understudied region.Through missions, war, and broader conflict, as well as marriage and kinship, local people aimed to maintain control even as personal and collective transformations unfolded. This volume explores the formation of diverse historical relations across regional societies within past and contemporary contexts and contributes to a growing historiographical turn among anthropologists and historians that foregrounds agency in past and present understandings of Indigenous peoples’ engagements with others in lowland South America.ContributorsMarta AmorosoElisa FrÜhauf GarciaMark HarrisKris LaneCamila Loureiro DiasCecilia McCallumGary Van ValenAparecida VilaÇaJames Andrew Whitaker

During the colonial and postcolonial eras, local people in lowland South America experienced exploitation from outsiders. But as new kinds of societies emerged from engagements between outside and Indigenous communities, Indigenous Amazonians formed strategic alliances to defend livelihoods, territory, and symbolic values, as well as to curb exploitation, predation, and threats.The contributors in Indigenous Alliance Making bring together historical analyses with anthropological investigations to explore the organizational patterns, goals, and strategies through which Indigenous people have intentionally created various alliances, partnerships, and similar relations with outsiders in lowland South America. Emphasizing class, ethnicity, gender, and race, the chapters bring new dimensions to understanding a vital but understudied region.Through missions, war, and broader conflict, as well as marriage and kinship, local people aimed to maintain control even as personal and collective transformations unfolded. This volume explores the formation of diverse historical relations across regional societies within past and contemporary contexts and contributes to a growing historiographical turn among anthropologists and historians that foregrounds agency in past and present understandings of Indigenous peoples’ engagements with others in lowland South America. Contributors Marta AmorosoElisa FrÜhauf GarciaMark HarrisKris LaneCamila Loureiro DiasCecilia McCallumGary Van ValenAparecida VilaÇaJames Andrew Whitaker

In the first book in English to focus specifically on the Makushi in Guyana, James Andrew Whitaker examines how shamanism informs Makushi interactions with outsiders in the context of historical missionization and contemporary tourism. The Makushi are an Indigeneous people who speak a Cariban language and live in Guyana, Brazil, and Venezuela. Combining ethnohistory, ethnographic fieldwork, and archival research, this book elucidates a shamanic framework that is seen in Makushi engagements with outsiders in the past and present. It shows how this framework structures interactions between Makushi groups and various visitors in Guyana. Similar to how Makushi shamans draw in spirit allies, Makushi groups seek human outsiders and form strategic partnerships with them to obtain desired resources that are used for local goals and transformative projects. The book advances recent scholarship concerning ontological relations in Amazonia and is positioned at the cusp of debates over Amazonian relations with alterity.

This book offers a comparative analysis of the experiences, responses, and adaptations of people to climate variability and environmental change across the Americas. It foregrounds historical ecology as a structural framework for understanding the climate change crisis throughout the region and throughout time. In recent years, Indigenous and local populations in particular have experienced climate change effects such as altered weather patterns, seasonal irregularities, flooding and drought, and difficulties relating to subsistence practices. Understanding and dealing with these challenges has drawn on peoples’ longstanding experience with climate variability and in some cases includes models of mitigation and responses that are millennia old. With contributions from specialists across the Americas, this volume will be of interest to scholars from fields including anthropology, archaeology, geography, environmental studies, and Indigenous studies.