0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
xiv
personally and socially significant visions and dreams in the con-
text of fieldwork.
Since then, many more conversations on this topic with colleagues
in other national and international conferences led to the decision in
December 2003 to engage in the preparation of this book. It contains
the expanded and revised versions of the four papers presented at the
casca symposium, along with the contributions of twelve other col-
leagues. Many among them are well-established authors in their own
right, with numerous significant publications to their names; others
are at the early stage of their teaching and academic careers, coming
after most creative fieldwork as manifest in each of their chapters. The
quality of their contributions led one reviewer to write that “there are
several junior authors within the collection whose work I would ad-
vise [the University of Nebraska Press] to seek out for future book-
length publication.”
Each chapter makes original contributions to sociocultural anthro-
pology and makes obvious our indebtedness to the men and women,
old and young, who have been our teachers and mentors in the field.
Through patient association with us, they showed us how to be at-
tentive to their lives and to ours as they unfolded, in their environ-
ment, as they feel and know it. Throughout the book, readers will
become familiar with some of these mentors. In three chapters, con-
tributors chose not to identify by name individuals with whom they
interacted and from whom they learned so much. This is the case for
Peter Gardner with the Dene of Canada’s Northwest Territories, Anahí
Viladrich with the Argentine tango dancers in the city of New York,
and Millie Creighton in Japan. In all other chapters, we know who
the key mentors were: Shura Chechulina and Nina Uvarova among
the Kuriak in the northern tundra of the Kamchatka Peninsula; Glo-
ria, Marvin, and Morris among the Kainai in southern Alberta; Jes-
sie Wirrpa in Yarralin, in the Northern Territory of Australia; Mi-
chel and Sylvie among Spiritualists in Montreal; Mary Ellen Thomas,
Udlu Pisuktie, and their children in the Canadian Arctic; Alhadj Touré
among the Mandinga of Guinea-Bissau; Alexis Seniantha among the
Dene Tha of northern Alberta; Marie and her dog among the Sekani
Acknowledgments
