Emeritus Faculty - James Howe
MIT Anthropology
James Howe
Professor of Anthropology (Emeritus)
617-253-6954
jhowe@mit.edu
CV
Biography
Professor Howe received an A.B. degree from Harvard College (1966), an M.A. from Oxford University (Social Anthropology, 1967) and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania (Anthropology, 1974). He carries out research in political and historical anthropology, indigenous-state relations, and missionization; his publications include The Kuna Gathering: Contemporary Village Politics in Panama (1986), and A People Who Would Not Kneel: Panama, the United States, and the San Blas Kuna (1998).
Selected Publications
| 2009 | Chiefs, Scribes, and Ethnographers: Kuna Culture from Inside and Out. University of Texas Press. |
| 2008 | "Argument is Argument: An Essay on Conceptual Metaphor and Verbal Dispute." Metaphor and Symbol 23:1-23. |
| 2004 | Un pueblo que no se arrodillaba: Panama, los Estados Unidos, y los kunas de San Blas. Guatemala: CIRMA & Plumstock Mesoamerican Studies. (translation of Howe 1998) |
| 2002 | "The Kuna of Panama: Continuing Threats to Land and Autonomy." In The Politics of Ethnicity: Indigenous Peoples in Latin American Studies, David Maybury-Lewis, ed. Harvard University: David Rockefeller Center Series on Latin American Studies,, pp.81-106. |
| 1998 | A People Who Would Not Kneel: Panama, the United States, and the San Blas Kuna. Smithsonian Institution Press. |
News
December 1, 2012
In an audio slideshow, James Howe, Professor of Anthropology, tells the story of how a Kuna village prepares for and conducts a great communal celebration, an event that can last up to four days, and embodies many of the Kuna's important values, beliefs, and ways of life.
November 1, 2012
During his more than 40 years working with the Kuna people of Panama, Professor James Howe established a close, collegial relationship with the subjects of his research, people who became agents as well as subjects of their own ethnography. Some years ago, Howe commissioned from a Kuna woman a special tapestry called a mola for the MIT Anthropology Program.
April 27, 2010
Students in James Howe's course, Monitoring the Rights of Native Peoples, submit a five-page report on the Kuna people of Panama for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), the United Nations' process for reviewing human rights practices around the world.
