Dr Marc Brightman

Marc Brightman is Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. His previous posts include: ESRC Post-Doctoral Fellow at ISCA, Oxford University (2009-10), Early Career Fellow in Social Anthropology of Environment, Conservation and Development at Oxford Brookes University (2008-10), and Postdoctoral Laureate at the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris (2007-8). His doctoral research (2002-7) was on Amerindian leadership in the Guiana region of Amazonia, and was based on fieldwork carried out among the Trio, Wayana and Akuriyo of southern Suriname and French Guiana. He has since begun to focus more closely on the political importance of the transformation of the environment, and on indigenous Amazonian forms of property, and he has recently begun to investigate these in the context of the emergence of new forms of property occurring through the evaluation of environmental services, particularly in the context of UN-REDD. He has conducted further research on the indigenous peoples’ movement, and his holistic approach to native Amazonian politics and power has stimulated his interest in the political role of music and ritual, and in the relationship between art objects, social space and group solidarity.

Selected publications

Monographs:

(in preparation) The imbalance of power: leadership and gender in contemporary Amazonia.

(in preparation) Native perspectives on conservation capitalism in Amazonia.

Edited volumes:

(in preparation) (with C. Fausto & V. Grotti, eds) Ownership in Native Amazonia.

(forthcoming, under contract) (with V. Grotti & O. Ulturgasheva, eds). Shamanism in Rainforest and Tundra: Personhood in the Shamanic Ecologies of Contemporary Amazonia and Siberia. New York/ Oxford: Berghahn.

2006/7. (with V. Grotti & O. Ulturgasheva) (eds) Rethinking the “frontier” in Amazonia and Siberia: Extractive economies, indigenous politics and social transformations, special edition of Cambridge Anthropology 26(2).

Journal articles:

(in preparation) “Modes of appropriation: ‘animism’, Protestant evangelism and the commodification of nature”.

(in press) (with Vanessa Grotti) “A Native Category of the Savage: Contact Expeditions, Predation and “Wild” People among the Trio of Southern Suriname”. Etnofoor.

(in press) “Strategic ethnicity on the global stage: perspectives on the indigenous peoples movement from the central Guianas to the United Nations.” Bulletin de la Societe Suisse des Americanistes.

2010. “Creativity and control: property in Guianese Amazonia”. Journal de la Societe des Americanistes de Paris 96(1).

2010. “Personhood and 'frontier' in contemporary Amazonia and Siberia”. (Co-authors V. Grotti and O. Ulturgasheva), in O. Kirtchik (ed.) Laboratorium. Russian Review of Social Research. Thematic issue: "Russia/CIS/Latin America: Comparative Studies in Post-Authoritarian Transformation".

Chapters :

(in preparation) (with V. Grotti) “Gender, nurture and the ritual inversion of hierarchy”, in A. Barcelos-Neto & C. Gordon (eds) In transformation: anthropological perspectives on Amazonian rituals.

(in press) “Archetypal agents of affinity - ‘sacred’ musical instruments in the Guianas?” In J-P. Chaumeil & J. Hill (eds) Burst of Breath: New Research on Indigenous Ritual Flutes in Lowland South America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska.

2008. “Plants, property and trade among the Trio and Wayana of southern Suriname.” In M. Lenaerts & A-M. Spadafora (eds) Pueblos indigenas, plantas y mercados, Amazonia y Gran Chaco. Bucharest: Zeta.

This website uses Cookies

Cookies are used to ensure that you receive the best possible experience on our website. If you continue without changing your preferences, we'll assume that you are happy to enable all cookies on this site.