Marc Pinkoski
Interests
I am interested in the history of the representations of Indigenous peoples in anthropological theory and method; and the relationship of these representations to the conceptualisation and determination of the rights of Indigenous peoples in Canadian and US law. I have particular interest in the relationship between the materialist form of cultural ecology, as espoused and practiced by Julian Steward, and the denial of Indigenous peoples rights to their traditional lands in Canadian and American rights and title cases.
Current Projects
I am currently working on three projects: The first stems from my post-doc with the Indigenous Peoples and Governance SSHRC MCRI and is an analysis of the use, comprehension, and effect of anthropology in the recent, monumental aboriginal title case, Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia. This case is of particular interest to anthropology in its dealing with oral history and oral tradition; its use of anthropologists as expert witnesses at trial; and, its conceptualisation of the rights and title of the Xeni Gwet’in and its ultimate call to decolonise. This is part of a larger project I am undertaking with Dr. Robert Hancock (UWO) to document the history of the representation of Indigenous peoples in North American anthropology and the use of anthropological expert witness testimony in Canadian aboriginal rights and title cases dating from the 1960s to the present.
Secondly, I am continuing a comparison and analysis of the methods of the discipline as espoused by Franz Boas and Julian Steward. I am pursuing a genealogy of anthropological methods through an analysis of our relationship to science, the social sciences, history and law, by examining these disciplines and discourses in relation to the determination of the rights of Indigenous peoples in Canadian policy and law. With others, I am pursuing submerged knowledges from the history of the discipline that may contribute more fully to our understanding of our place in North America and our relationships with Indigenous peoples. In particular, I am tracing the relationships between Franz Boas’ work on the Indigenous peoples of Vancouver Island and the Georgia Strait and its continued force in the discipline as a foundational structure of North American anthropology. I am attempting to build upon and further politicise the historiography of the discipline as has been codified by others, such as George Stocking Jr., in an attempt to reconsider and recast Boas’ anthropology through a sustained project on his work, its influence on North American anthropology, and its relation to colonialism and decolonisation in British Columbia and Canada as a whole.
Finally, I am working on a case study with Professor Michael Asch (Victoria) examining the political relationships established between First Nations and Canada through historical treaties as a possible framework for the resolution of intellectual property (IP) issues between Indigenous groups and others. Based on examinations of published primary and secondary materials related to treaty negotiations in the Prairies and the Northwest Territories in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the study applies historical, oral-historical, and anthropological methods to identify aspects of the historic treaties that have resonance for IP debates around topics such as ownership, jurisdiction and obligations. It is hypothesised that thinking in terms of treaty relationships might offer an innovative approach to the resolution of IP issues; and these findings may offer assistance to the parties now negotiating the so-called Modern Treaties, particularly in British Columbia, as well as in the adjudication of disputes respecting treaties as a matter of social justice. This work is being undertaken in conjunction with IPinCH.
Selected Publications
2009 Comment on “"Pristine Aborigines" or "Victims of Progress"? The Western Shoshone in the Anthropological Imagination,” Richard O. Clemmer. Current Anthropology, December 50(6), pp 872-3.
2008 “Julian Steward, American Anthropology, and Colonialism.” Histories of Anthropology Annuals, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, Volume 4, pp 172-204.
2008 “American Colonialism at the Dawn of the Cold War.” In Anthropology at the Dawn of the Cold War, edited by Dustin Wax, pp 62-88. London: Pluto Press.
2004 (with Michael Asch) “Anthropology and Indigenous Rights in Canada and the United States: Implications in Steward’s Theoretical Project.” In Hunter-Gatherers in History, Archaeology, and Anthropology, edited by Alan Barnard, pp 187-200. Oxford: Berg Publishers.
