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RAI Book Launch: Social Anthropologies of the Welsh, 29th July 2022

 

Book Launch: Social Anthropologies of the Welsh

Social Anthropologies of the Welsh: Past and Present

with editors
Prof W. John Morgan (Cardiff University)
Dr Fiona Bowie (Oxford University)

contributors
Dr Elaine Forde (Swansea University)
Prof Chris Hann (Max Planck Institute of Social Anthropology)
Dr Rhys Dafydd Jones (Aberystwyth University)
Prof Huw Pryce (Bangor University)

It can now be watched here  

Asking the perennial question, 'Who are the Welsh?', this collection illustrates the history of anthropology in Wales and its distinctive contributions to this debate. Its essays range from the ethnographic insights of Gerald of Wales in the twelfth century, to analyses of the multicultural Wales of today. Contributors discuss the legacy of Iorwerth Peate, co-founder of the Welsh Folk Museum of St Fagans (now the National Museum of History), and the schools of research pioneering community studies of Welsh rural life in the second half of the twentieth century. Writings on the changing nature of family relations in de-industrialized settings such as the 1950s 'new' town of Cwmbrân and a contemporary Welsh public-housing estate provide new insights, while research on shifting patterns of religious adherence re-examine what has often been seen as a defining characteristic of Welsh society. Case studies on the challenges faced by European immigrants in Wales post Brexit and the Welsh diaspora in Patagonia add a global dimension.The interdisciplinary nature of anthropology as practised in Wales brings both a richness and openness born of collaboration. Revealing both the startling variety and continuity of Welsh life and identity, certain themes consistently emerge: connections with place and the natural world as a way of being Welsh, the complex meanings of language in identity formation and the role of kinship in giving a sense of belonging to the Welsh nation.

The book is published by Sean Kingston Publishers and available here

Origins

 I succumbed to the temptation to send off my DNA for profile analysis with Ancestry.com. No surprises but it is nice to know that our family stories of origins and names are reasonably accurate (72% Scots - I wonder whether that would earn me a Scottish passport in an independent Scotland?). I was surprised that the (supposed) French Huguenots were not better represented (Sellons) but perhaps their DNA was not typical of their regions either and it was quite a long time ago. Following mitochondrial DNA links back, ie. the maternal line, I have arrived 8 generations back to Hampshire - no searching of records yet,  just good family information and an interest in past relations. That would account for the small 'English' bit.

Place, Place and Religious Landscapes: Living Mountains

You are welcome to join the online launch of this volume on Friday 30th October 2020. Registration is necessary but free. I have a chapter on 'Mountains as Sources of Power in Seen and Unseen Worlds' that draws on the channelled writings of Cynthia Sandys as well as more conventional ethnographic studies. Seven of the contributors to the volume will be giving short presentations of their work.

About Space, Place and Religious Landscapes

Exploring sacred mountains around the world, this book examines whether bonding and reverence to a mountain is intrinsic to the mountain, constructed by people, or a mutual encounter. Chapters explore mountains in England, Scotland, Wales, Italy, Ireland, the Himalaya, Japan, Greece, USA, Asia and South America, and embrace the union of sky, landscape and people to examine the religious dynamics between human and non-human entities.

This book takes as its starting point the fact that mountains physically mediate between land and sky and act as metaphors for bridges from one realm to another, recognising that mountains are relational and that landscapes form personal and group cosmologies. The book fuses ideas of space, place and material religion with cultural environmentalism and takes an interconnected approach to material religio-landscapes. In this way it fills the gap between lived religious traditions, personal reflection, phenomenology, historical context, environmental philosophy, myths and performativity.

In defining material religion as active engagement with mountain-forming and humanshaping landscapes, the research and ideas presented here provide theories that are widely applicable to other forms of material religion.

Table of contents

List of Figures
List of Maps
List of Tables
List of Contributors

Introduction: Darrelyn Gunzburg and Bernadette Brady (University of Wales Trinity Saint David) 
Foreword: Professor Christopher Tilley (Professor of Anthropology & Archaeology, UCL)

PART I: PREHISTORIC CONVERSATIONS 
1. Frank Prendergast (Technological University, Dublin): The Archaeology of Height-cultural meaning in the relativity of Irish megalithic tomb siting.
2. Anna Estaroth (University of Wales Trinity Saint David): How the shadow of the mountains created sacred spaces in Bronze Age Scotland.

PART 2: MEDIEVAL CONVERSATIONS
3. Jon Cannon (University of Bristol): Time and place at Brentor: exploring an encounter with a 'sacred mountain'.
4. Darrelyn Gunzburg (University of Wales Trinity Saint David): Building Paradise on the Hill of Hell in Assisi: Mountain as Reliquary.

PART 3: ANIMISTIC CONVERSATIONS 
5. Fiona Bowie (Research Affiliate, School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, Oxford University): Mountains as sources of power in seen and unseen worlds. 
6. Amy Whitehead (Massey University, New Zealand): Appalachian animism: religion, the woods, and the material presence of the mountain

PART 4: STORIED CONVERSATIONS
7. Bernadette Brady (University of Wales Trinity Saint David): Mountains talk of kings and dragons, the Brecon Beacons.
8. Christos Kakalis (Newcastle University): Representing the Sacred: Printmaking and the depiction of the Holy Mountain.

PART 5: CONTEMPORARY CONVERSATIONS
9. Lionel Obadia (Université de Lyon / ANR): 'Sacred' Himalayan peaks: for whom? The paradoxical and polylogical construction of mountains.
10. Alan Ereira (Professor of Practice, University of Wales, Trinity Saint David): The Black Line of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta; a Red Line for a mountain.

Reviews

“This book is a unique transdisciplinary contribution that, like a mountain itself, stands at the intersection of heaven and earth, of myth and ritual, of people and the world around them. By drawing attention to these themes across different spatial, temporal and cultural brackets, the infinitely citable essays contained within highlight the significant role, meaning and agency afforded by the iconic landforms.” –  FABIO SILVA, Lecturer in Archaeological Modelling, Bournemouth University, UK

“An unusually interesting collection of essays on mountains and the human, moral and religious imagination.” –  BRON TAYLOR, University of Florida, USA, author of Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future (2012) and editor of The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (Bloomsbury, 2005).

Book launch presentation link