Marc Brightman
Biographic Data
| ID | 75977 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Marc Brightman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Marc |
| FAMILY NAME | Brightman |
| SIGNATURE | BRIGHTMAN M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bologna |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6360-8449 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 95 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The water eaters
Coastal areas are critical zones where multiple dynamic ecological and human processes meet, both concentrating and confounding human efforts to control nature. Rising sea levels have become emblematic of the effects of climate change. But in delta landscapes with extensive land reclamation, the risk of flooding derives from multiple factors whose evolution poses additional challenges. Focusing on the fallout of major floods in Romagna, on Italy'…
Beyond the ‘tyranny of metrics’? Indicator literacy in sustainable finance
Sustainable finance ‘thought leaders’ call for metrics as the key to aligning investment with sustainability objectives and harnessing the market for ‘good’. In this article, we consider how measurement is used in sustainable finance through three case studies of financial instruments described as bonds (green, forest, and impact) and develop Sally Engle Merry's concept of ‘indicator literacy’ as a contribution to critical geographies of sustaina…
Savage Values
The idea of indigenous peoples of Amazonia living in harmony with their environment may be a cliché, with origins in romantic portrayals of native Americans such as those of Hudson, Rousseau or Chateaubriand, but recent studies in anthropology and ecology have confirmed that indigenous Amazonian ways of life are materially ‘sustainable’, given the right circumstances (Shepard et al. 2012), although they are not necessarily maintained on the basis…
Chapter 5 Narratives of the Invisible Autobiography, Kinship, and Alterity in Native Amazonia
Chapter 9 Humanity, Personhood and Transformability in Northern Amazonia
CHAPTER 2 First Contacts, Slavery and Kinship in North-Eastern Amazonia
The first book to address the classic anthropological theme of property through the ethnography of Amazonia, Ownership and Nurture sets new and challenging terms for anthropological debates about the region and about property in general. Property and ownership have special significance and carry specific meanings in Amazonia, which has been portrayed as the antithesis of Western, property-based, civilization. Through carefully constructed studies…
A moral turn in finance
With the use of financial technologies to address social and environmental problems, the global finance industry now has a new proclaimed moral aim. While impact and sustainable and climate finance are promising new frontiers for the management of social and environmental public concerns, a closer scrutiny reveals a more complex picture than the industry’s surface narratives. Here, new forms of finance extraction legitimize the reproduction of ol…
Migrant Hospitalities in the Mediterranean
“This book offers a fresh view on hospitality, inviting us to rethink and rearticulate decades-long debates on migration and hospitality." —Nataša Gregorič Bon, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Re
Migrant Hospitalities in the Mediterranean
Hosting the Dead
In this chapter we consider the afterlife of the remains of unidentified migrants who have died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Albania and North Africa to Italy. Drawing on insights from long-term, multi-sited field research, we outline paths taken by human remains and consider their multiple agencies and distributed personhood through the relational modalities with which they are symbolically and materially engaged at different…
Accueillir les morts
In this article we consider the afterlife of the remains of unidentified migrants who have died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Albania and North Africa to Italy. Drawing on insights from long term, multi-sited field research, we outline paths taken by human remains and consider their multiple agencies and distributed personhood through the relational modalities with which they are symbolically and materially engaged at different…
Introduction
There are many competing definitions of sustainability, but most of them stem from the long Euro-American tradition of managing natural resources. Anthropology can offer an alternative view of sustainability, starting from the recognition that a view of sustainability based on the objectification of nature is grounded in the very same ontology that has allowed the global ecological crisis that crowns the new epoch in which we now live: the Anthro…
Hunter-gatherers in a Changing World
This book compiles a collection of case studies analysing drivers of and responses to change amongst contemporary hunter-gatherers. Contemporary hunter-gatherers? livelihoods are examined from perspectives ranging from historical legacy to environmental change, and from changes in national economic, political and legal systems to more broad-scale and universal notions of globalization and acculturation. Far from the commonly held romantic view th…
The Anthropology of Sustainability
The Anthropology of Sustainability
This book compiles research from leading experts in the social, behavioral, and cultural dimensions of sustainability, as well as local and global understandings of the concept, and on lived practices around the world. It contains studies focusing on ways of living, acting, and thinking which claim to favor the local and global ecological systems of which we are a part, and on which we depend for survival. The concept of sustainability as a produ…
First Contacts, Slavery and Kinship in North-Eastern Amazonia
The Trio, Wayana and Akuriyo are Carib-speaking Amerindians of the border regions of Brazil, southern Suriname and southern French Guiana. 1 We have carried out fi eld research since 2003 in southern Suriname, in a predominantly Trio village shared with a number of Wayana and most of the surviving Akuriyo.A relationship of asymmetry has evolved between the Trio and Akuriyo since the late 1960s, although arguably from a native point of view these …
Ownership and Nurture
The first book to address the classic anthropological theme of property through the ethnography of Amazonia, Ownership and Nurture sets new and challenging terms for anthropological debates about the region and about property in general. Property and ownership have special significance and carry specific meanings in Amazonia, which has been portrayed as the antithesis of Western, property-based, civilization. Through carefully constructed studies…
Narratives of the Invisible
Shamanic knowledge is based on an ambiguous commensality with invisible others. As a result, shamans oscillate constantly between spheres of intimacy, both visible and invisible. A place of power and transformation, the spirit world is rarely described by native interlocutors in an objective, detached way; rather, they depict it in terms of events and experiences. Instead of examining the formal qualities of accounts of the spirit world through a…
The imbalance of power
Amerindian societies have an iconic status in classical political thought. For Montaigne, Hobbes, Locke, Hume and Rousseau, the native American 'state of nature' operates as a foil for the European polity. Challenging this tradition, The Imbalance of Power demonstrates ethnographically that the Carib speaking indigenous societies of the Guiana region of Amazonia do not fit conventional characterizations of 'simple' political units with 'egalitari…
Esperança e compatibilidade equívoca na governança da floresta
REDD+ é um programa ambicioso para uma arquitetura global da governança da floresta. Os preparativos técnicos para seu estabelecimento estão em andamento em diversos países. No Suriname, os riscos e benefícios referentes ao REDD+ diferem de acordo com as perspectivas de distintos atores. A possibilidade do REDD+ trouxe urgência para uma luta política corrente sobre os direitos a terra de povos indígenas e tribais. Ainda assim, enquanto as negocia…
The Imbalance of Power
Challenging conventional portrayals of Amerindian societies as simple, egalitarian, and harmonious, Marc Brightman's "The Imbalance of Power: Leadership, Masculinity, and Wealth in Guiana" offers a nuanced ethnographic study of Carib-speaking indigenous groups in the Guiana region of Amazonia. Based on fieldwork conducted in partnership with Vanessa Grotti, Brightman argues that these societies, far from being balanced and egalitarian, are charac…
Animism in rainforest and tundra
Amazonia and Siberia, classic regions of shamanism, have long challenged 'western' understandings of man's place in the world. By exploring the social relations between humans and non-human entities credited with human-like personhood (not only animals and plants, but also 'things' such as artifacts, trade items, or mineral resources) from a comparative perspective, this volume offers valuable insights into the constitutions of humanity and perso…
Securitization, alterity, and the state
Focusing on the region surrounding the Maroni River, which forms the border between Suriname and French Guiana, we examine how relations between different state and non-state social groups are articulated in terms of security. The region is characterised by multiple "borders" and frontiers of various kinds, the state boundary having the features of an interface or contact zone. Several key collectivities meet in this border zone: native Amazonian…
Maps and clocks in Amazonia
Engaging with the recent interest in materiality in the anthropology of Amazonia, this article focuses on objects which might seem to present a challenge to indigenous systems of thought. Maps and clocks separate and abstract space and time from each other, and from the phenomena of experience, by reducing them to plane and number. Partly for this reason, and partly because of their association with Christian conversion, they may be seen as symbo…
Anthropologies of Guayana
Anthropologies of Guayana: Cultural Spaces in Northeastern Amazonia. Neil L. Whitehead , Stephanie W. Alemán
The Anthropology of Sustainability
This book compiles research from leading experts in the social, behavioral, and cultural dimensions of sustainability, as well as local and global understandings of the concept, and on lived practices around the world. It contains studies focusing on ways of living, acting, and thinking which claim to favor the local and global ecological systems of which we are a part, and on which we depend for survival. The concept of sustainability as a produ…
Creativity and Control
Creativity and Control: Property in Guianese Amazonia. This article introduces the anthropology of property relations to indigenous Amazonia, where property has long been assumed to be absent, and shows that focusing on Amazonian forms of property can lead to greater understanding of native practices and institutions. The article begins by showing that the Trio, Wayana and Akuriyo of southern Suriname have a wide range of practices and values whi…
Maps and clocks in Amazonia
Engaging with the recent interest in materiality in the anthropology of Amazonia, this article focuses on objects which might seem to present a challenge to indigenous systems of thought. Maps and clocks separate and abstract space and time from each other, and from the phenomena of experience, by reducing them to plane and number. Partly for this reason, and partly because of their association with Christian conversion, they may be seen as symbo…
Animism in rainforest and tundra
Amazonia and Siberia, classic regions of shamanism, have long challenged 'western' understandings of man's place in the world. By exploring the social relations between humans and non-human entities credited with human-like personhood (not only animals and plants, but also 'things' such as artifacts, trade items, or mineral resources) from a comparative perspective, this volume offers valuable insights into the constitutions of humanity and perso…
Narratives of the Invisible
Shamanic knowledge is based on an ambiguous commensality with invisible others. As a result, shamans oscillate constantly between spheres of intimacy, both visible and invisible. A place of power and transformation, the spirit world is rarely described by native interlocutors in an objective, detached way; rather, they depict it in terms of events and experiences. Instead of examining the formal qualities of accounts of the spirit world through a…
Beyond the ‘tyranny of metrics’? Indicator literacy in sustainable finance
Sustainable finance ‘thought leaders’ call for metrics as the key to aligning investment with sustainability objectives and harnessing the market for ‘good’. In this article, we consider how measurement is used in sustainable finance through three case studies of financial instruments described as bonds (green, forest, and impact) and develop Sally Engle Merry's concept of ‘indicator literacy’ as a contribution to critical geographies of sustaina…
The imbalance of power
Amerindian societies have an iconic status in classical political thought. For Montaigne, Hobbes, Locke, Hume and Rousseau, the native American 'state of nature' operates as a foil for the European polity. Challenging this tradition, The Imbalance of Power demonstrates ethnographically that the Carib speaking indigenous societies of the Guiana region of Amazonia do not fit conventional characterizations of 'simple' political units with 'egalitari…
Accueillir les morts
In this article we consider the afterlife of the remains of unidentified migrants who have died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Albania and North Africa to Italy. Drawing on insights from long term, multi-sited field research, we outline paths taken by human remains and consider their multiple agencies and distributed personhood through the relational modalities with which they are symbolically and materially engaged at different…
Esperança e compatibilidade equívoca na governança da floresta
REDD+ é um programa ambicioso para uma arquitetura global da governança da floresta. Os preparativos técnicos para seu estabelecimento estão em andamento em diversos países. No Suriname, os riscos e benefícios referentes ao REDD+ diferem de acordo com as perspectivas de distintos atores. A possibilidade do REDD+ trouxe urgência para uma luta política corrente sobre os direitos a terra de povos indígenas e tribais. Ainda assim, enquanto as negocia…
Securitization, alterity, and the state
Focusing on the region surrounding the Maroni River, which forms the border between Suriname and French Guiana, we examine how relations between different state and non-state social groups are articulated in terms of security. The region is characterised by multiple "borders" and frontiers of various kinds, the state boundary having the features of an interface or contact zone. Several key collectivities meet in this border zone: native Amazonian…
Water Management in Sites of Abundance
Water Management in Sites of Abundance
Creativity and Control
Creativity and Control: Property in Guianese Amazonia. This article introduces the anthropology of property relations to indigenous Amazonia, where property has long been assumed to be absent, and shows that focusing on Amazonian forms of property can lead to greater understanding of native practices and institutions. The article begins by showing that the Trio, Wayana and Akuriyo of southern Suriname have a wide range of practices and values whi…
Anthropologies of Guayana
Anthropologies of Guayana: Cultural Spaces in Northeastern Amazonia. Neil L. Whitehead , Stephanie W. Alemán
Maps and clocks in Amazonia
Engaging with the recent interest in materiality in the anthropology of Amazonia, this article focuses on objects which might seem to present a challenge to indigenous systems of thought. Maps and clocks separate and abstract space and time from each other, and from the phenomena of experience, by reducing them to plane and number. Partly for this reason, and partly because of their association with Christian conversion, they may be seen as symbo…
Animism in rainforest and tundra
Amazonia and Siberia, classic regions of shamanism, have long challenged 'western' understandings of man's place in the world. By exploring the social relations between humans and non-human entities credited with human-like personhood (not only animals and plants, but also 'things' such as artifacts, trade items, or mineral resources) from a comparative perspective, this volume offers valuable insights into the constitutions of humanity and perso…
Securitization, alterity, and the state
Focusing on the region surrounding the Maroni River, which forms the border between Suriname and French Guiana, we examine how relations between different state and non-state social groups are articulated in terms of security. The region is characterised by multiple "borders" and frontiers of various kinds, the state boundary having the features of an interface or contact zone. Several key collectivities meet in this border zone: native Amazonian…
First Contacts, Slavery and Kinship in North-Eastern Amazonia
The Trio, Wayana and Akuriyo are Carib-speaking Amerindians of the border regions of Brazil, southern Suriname and southern French Guiana. 1 We have carried out fi eld research since 2003 in southern Suriname, in a predominantly Trio village shared with a number of Wayana and most of the surviving Akuriyo.A relationship of asymmetry has evolved between the Trio and Akuriyo since the late 1960s, although arguably from a native point of view these …
Ownership and Nurture
The first book to address the classic anthropological theme of property through the ethnography of Amazonia, Ownership and Nurture sets new and challenging terms for anthropological debates about the region and about property in general. Property and ownership have special significance and carry specific meanings in Amazonia, which has been portrayed as the antithesis of Western, property-based, civilization. Through carefully constructed studies…
Narratives of the Invisible
Shamanic knowledge is based on an ambiguous commensality with invisible others. As a result, shamans oscillate constantly between spheres of intimacy, both visible and invisible. A place of power and transformation, the spirit world is rarely described by native interlocutors in an objective, detached way; rather, they depict it in terms of events and experiences. Instead of examining the formal qualities of accounts of the spirit world through a…
The imbalance of power
Amerindian societies have an iconic status in classical political thought. For Montaigne, Hobbes, Locke, Hume and Rousseau, the native American 'state of nature' operates as a foil for the European polity. Challenging this tradition, The Imbalance of Power demonstrates ethnographically that the Carib speaking indigenous societies of the Guiana region of Amazonia do not fit conventional characterizations of 'simple' political units with 'egalitari…
Esperança e compatibilidade equívoca na governança da floresta
REDD+ é um programa ambicioso para uma arquitetura global da governança da floresta. Os preparativos técnicos para seu estabelecimento estão em andamento em diversos países. No Suriname, os riscos e benefícios referentes ao REDD+ diferem de acordo com as perspectivas de distintos atores. A possibilidade do REDD+ trouxe urgência para uma luta política corrente sobre os direitos a terra de povos indígenas e tribais. Ainda assim, enquanto as negocia…
The Imbalance of Power
Challenging conventional portrayals of Amerindian societies as simple, egalitarian, and harmonious, Marc Brightman's "The Imbalance of Power: Leadership, Masculinity, and Wealth in Guiana" offers a nuanced ethnographic study of Carib-speaking indigenous groups in the Guiana region of Amazonia. Based on fieldwork conducted in partnership with Vanessa Grotti, Brightman argues that these societies, far from being balanced and egalitarian, are charac…
Introduction
There are many competing definitions of sustainability, but most of them stem from the long Euro-American tradition of managing natural resources. Anthropology can offer an alternative view of sustainability, starting from the recognition that a view of sustainability based on the objectification of nature is grounded in the very same ontology that has allowed the global ecological crisis that crowns the new epoch in which we now live: the Anthro…
Hunter-gatherers in a Changing World
This book compiles a collection of case studies analysing drivers of and responses to change amongst contemporary hunter-gatherers. Contemporary hunter-gatherers? livelihoods are examined from perspectives ranging from historical legacy to environmental change, and from changes in national economic, political and legal systems to more broad-scale and universal notions of globalization and acculturation. Far from the commonly held romantic view th…
The Anthropology of Sustainability
The Anthropology of Sustainability
This book compiles research from leading experts in the social, behavioral, and cultural dimensions of sustainability, as well as local and global understandings of the concept, and on lived practices around the world. It contains studies focusing on ways of living, acting, and thinking which claim to favor the local and global ecological systems of which we are a part, and on which we depend for survival. The concept of sustainability as a produ…
Accueillir les morts
In this article we consider the afterlife of the remains of unidentified migrants who have died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Albania and North Africa to Italy. Drawing on insights from long term, multi-sited field research, we outline paths taken by human remains and consider their multiple agencies and distributed personhood through the relational modalities with which they are symbolically and materially engaged at different…
Migrant Hospitalities in the Mediterranean
“This book offers a fresh view on hospitality, inviting us to rethink and rearticulate decades-long debates on migration and hospitality." —Nataša Gregorič Bon, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Re
Migrant Hospitalities in the Mediterranean
Hosting the Dead
In this chapter we consider the afterlife of the remains of unidentified migrants who have died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Albania and North Africa to Italy. Drawing on insights from long-term, multi-sited field research, we outline paths taken by human remains and consider their multiple agencies and distributed personhood through the relational modalities with which they are symbolically and materially engaged at different…
Savage Values
The idea of indigenous peoples of Amazonia living in harmony with their environment may be a cliché, with origins in romantic portrayals of native Americans such as those of Hudson, Rousseau or Chateaubriand, but recent studies in anthropology and ecology have confirmed that indigenous Amazonian ways of life are materially ‘sustainable’, given the right circumstances (Shepard et al. 2012), although they are not necessarily maintained on the basis…
Chapter 5 Narratives of the Invisible Autobiography, Kinship, and Alterity in Native Amazonia
Chapter 9 Humanity, Personhood and Transformability in Northern Amazonia
CHAPTER 2 First Contacts, Slavery and Kinship in North-Eastern Amazonia
The first book to address the classic anthropological theme of property through the ethnography of Amazonia, Ownership and Nurture sets new and challenging terms for anthropological debates about the region and about property in general. Property and ownership have special significance and carry specific meanings in Amazonia, which has been portrayed as the antithesis of Western, property-based, civilization. Through carefully constructed studies…
A moral turn in finance
With the use of financial technologies to address social and environmental problems, the global finance industry now has a new proclaimed moral aim. While impact and sustainable and climate finance are promising new frontiers for the management of social and environmental public concerns, a closer scrutiny reveals a more complex picture than the industry’s surface narratives. Here, new forms of finance extraction legitimize the reproduction of ol…
Sociology (15 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (12 works) · Political science (11 works) · Anthropology (10 works) · Geography (10 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Amazon rainforest (9 works) · Biology (9 works) · Ecology (9 works) · Law (8 works)