MICHAEL ASCH
Interests
My particular interests lie in issues pertaining to Indigenous rights, particularly in Canada. I also have a strong interest in the historiography of Anthropology, and of the political philosophical thought with which the history of the discipline is associated.
Current Projects
At present, my research concerns aspects of treaty relations in Canada both historically and at present. My particular concern is in recovering the shared understanding between the partners and how the terms of treaties have been implemented. My research in historiography focuses on the political location of anthropologists in Canada and the United States with respect to issues of political relations with Indigenous peoples within those countries. It engages in particular with questions about the roles that anthropologists have played in issues of colonialism, particularly with respect to the stances they took (and are taking) in opposition to colonial rule.
2009-10 Courses
Spring 2010 Term: ANTH 393 04 Anthropology and Indigenous Rights in Canada
Selected Publication
Books
1997 Aboriginal and Treaty Rights in Canada : Essays on Law, Equality and Respect for Difference. M. Asch, editor. Vancouver : University of British Columbia Press.
Articles and Chapters
In press Radcliffe-Brown on Colonialism in Australia . Darnell, R and F. Gleach, editors, Histories of Anthropology Annual, Volume 5. Lincoln , Nebraska : University of Nebraska Press.
2009 Concluding Thoughts and Fundamental Questions. In Bell , Catherine and R. Paterson, eds., Protection of First Nations Cultural Heritage: Laws, Policy, and Reform . Vancouver : UBC Press. Pp. 394-411.
2009 (with Robert Wishart) Writing against the Grain of Materialist Orthodoxy: Richard Slobodin and The Teetl'it Gwich'in.” In R. Preston, ed., A Kindly Scrutiny of Human Nature: Essays in Honour of Richard Slobodin . Waterloo , Ont: Wilfred-Laurier Press. Pp. 33-43.
2009 Folkways Records and the Ethics of Collecting: Some Personal Reflections. MUSICultures (formerly The Canadian Journal for Traditional Music ). Pp. 111-127.
2007 Calder and the Representation of Indigenous Society in Canadian Jurisprudence. In Foster, H., H. Raven, and J. Webber, eds., Let Right be Done: Calder, Aboriginal Title, and the Future of Indigenous Rights . Vancouver : UBC Press. Pp. 101-110.
2007 Governmentality, State Culture, and Indigenous Rights. Anthropologica 49(2).
2006 (with Robert Hancock) Lewis Henry Morgan. In John Scott, ed., Fifty Key Sociologists: The Formative and the Contemporary Thinkers. London : Routledge.
2006 (with Colin Samson) More in the Return of the Native. Current Anthropology 47: 145-146.
2005 Lévi-Strauss and the Political: The Elementary Structures of Kinship and the Resolution of Relations between Indigenous Peoples and Settler States . Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 11:425-444.
2004 Les Structures Élémentaires de la Parenté et la Pensée Politique occidentale. Les Temps Modernes . (Special issue dedicated to Claude Lévi-Strauss, edited by Boris Wiseman) 628:201-231.
2004 (with Marc Pinkoski) Anthropology and Indigenous Rights in Canada and the United States : Implications in Steward's Theoretical Project. In A. Barnard, ed., Hunter-Gatherers in History, Archaeology, and Anthropology . Oxford : Berg pp. 187-200.
2004 Reflections on Relations between Indigenous Peoples and the Canadian State (Book Review Essay). American Anthropologist 106(1):165-168
2004 (with Colin Samson) On Return of the Native. Current Anthropology 45(2):261-262.
2004 (with Robert Wishart) History of Sub-Arctic Native Americans in Canada . In G. Hallowell, ed., Oxford Companion to Canadian History . Toronto : Oxford University Press.
2002 From Terra Nullius to Affirrmation : Reconciling Aboriginal Rights with the Canadian Constitution. Canadian Journal of Law and Society 17(2):23-40.
2001 Indigenous Self-Determination and Applied Anthropology in Canada : Finding a Place to Stand. Anthropologica 43(2):201-207
2001 Aboriginal Rights. In M. Galanter and L. Edelman, eds, The Law Section of P. Baltes and N. Smelser, eds, International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences . Oxford : Pergamon.
2001 Political Self-Sufficiency. In J. Bird, L. Land and M. MacAdam, eds., Nation to Nation: Aboriginal Sovereignty and the Future of Canada . Toronto : Public Justice Resource Centre and Irwin Publishing pp. 45-52.
2000 The Judicial Conception of Culture After Delgamuukw ” Review of Constitutional Studies . Alberta Law Review and Centre for Constitutional Studies pp. 119-137.
2000 First Nations and the Derivation of Canada 's Underlying Title: Comparing Perspectives on Legal Ideology. In C. Cook and J. Landau, eds ., Aboriginal Rights and Self Government: The Canadian and Mexican Experience in North American Perspective. McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal and Kingston pp. 148-167.
