Eric Hirsch
I initially trained as an engineer but later found that anthropology was what really interested me. LSE allowed me to do an MSc and I then carried on there, pursuing doctoral research in Papua New Guinea (PNG) while working under the supervision of the late Alfred Gell. My initial research in the Papua highlands, among the Fuyuge, examined the significant connections between landscape, myth, power and ritual. I later came to supplement this work with historical research on colonial government and mission influences on the Fuyuge. My PNG research also brought me into close contact with Marilyn Strathern and the combined research she had conducted in Britain and PNG. I subsequently conducted research in the Greater London area on two projects. The first, based at Brunel, examined the relations between the domestic sphere and information and communication technologies (working with Roger Silverstone and Dave Morely). The second project considered the emerging connections between kinship and the new reproductive technologies. This second project was also the start of a more long-standing research collaboration with Marilyn Strathern: between 1999-2002, together with several other Melanesianists, we worked together on a project called ‘Property, transactions and creations: new economic relations in the Pacific’. The research investigated the ways resource extraction and property relations over the last two decades have come to profoundly influence PNG and other Pacific societies. Through this long-standing interest in the ethnography and history of PNG, my current research focuses on issues of historicity, landscape, power and property relations. My research in Britain has led to my interest in the connections between new kinds of technologies and new social forms. This diverse ethnographic research has also led me to appreciate the ways in which ethnography is linked to specific knowledge conventions and the implications this has for the understandings we produce as anthropologists. Recent Publications: Books: 2004 Transactions and creations: Property debates and the stimulus of Melanesia. Oxford: Berghahn Books (edited with M. Strathern). 2001 Inside organizations: Anthropologists at work. Oxford: Berg (edited with D. Gellner). 1999. The art of anthropology: Essay and diagrams, by Alfred Gell. London: Athlone (edited by E. Hirsch). 1999 Technologies of procreation: kinship in the age of assisted reproduction, 2nd Edition. London: Routledge (with J. Edwards, S. Franklin, F. Price and M. Strathern). Articles and Book Chapters: Forthcoming ‘Epochs of scale-making in Papua’, In: M. Lien and M. Melhuus (eds.) Holding worlds together. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Forthcoming ‘Looking like a culture’, Anthropological Forum [Special Issue “Interrogating individuals in PNG”, edited by K. Sykes]. Forthcoming ‘Betelnut “bisnis” and cosmology: A view from Papua New Guinea’, In: J. Goodman and P. Lovejoy (eds.) Consuming habits: Drugs in history and anthropology. London: Routledge (2nd edition). 2006 ‘Landscape, myth and time’, Journal of Material Culture, 11: 151-165. 2006 ‘Afterword: Embodied historicities’, In: S. Bamford (ed.) Embodying modernity and postmodernity: Ritual, praxis and social change in Melanesia. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. 2005 'Ethnographies of historicity' [Special Issue] History and Anthropology, 16 (edited with C. Stewart and with joint ‘Introduction, pp. 261-274). 2005 ‘Creativity or temporality?’ [Special Issue] Cambridge Anthropology, 25 (edited with S. Macdonald and with joint ‘Introduction’, pp. 1-4). 2004 'Techniques of vision: photography, disco and renderings of present perceptions in highland Papua', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 10: 19-39. 2004 'Environment and economy: mutual perspectives and diverse perspectives', Anthropological Theory, 4: 435-454. 2003 'A landscape of powers in highland Papua, c. 1988-1918', History and Anthropology, 14: 3-22. 2001 'New boundaries of influence in highland Papua: ‘"Culture, mining and ritual conversions', Oceania 71: 298-312. 2001 'Mining boundaries and local land narratives (tidibe) in the Udabe Valley, Central Province', In: L. Kalinoe and J. Leach (eds.) Rationales of Ownership: Ethnographic Studies of Transactions and Claims to Ownership in Contemporary Papua New Guinea, London: UBSPD Publishers 2001 'Making up people in Papua', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 7: 241-256. 2001 'When was modernity in Melanesia?' Social Anthropology, 9: 131-146. 2001 ‘Incomplete knowledge: ethnography and the crisis of context in studies of media, science and technology’ (with M. Schlecker) History of the Human Sciences, 14: 69-87. |
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