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Ethnohistory 51.3 (2004) 660-662



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Strangers to Relatives: The Adoption and Naming of Anthropologists in Native North America. Edited by Sergei Kan. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. 270 pp., map, index. $50.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.)

Since the mid-nineteenth century, Indians have adopted some of the anthropologists who have worked with them, and these adoptions have shaped the resulting work. Nonanthropologists may question the significance of adoption; those who actually believe in "objectivity" may even see it as a great danger. Adoption creates "fictive" kin relationships that inevitably introduce certain biases and even rule out some research—while offering other new possibilities. It can fuel any scholar's latent romantic delusions about oneself and one's understandings of another culture, but it also has certain efficacies—for the adopters as well as the adoptees. It creates a social place in the community for the otherwise anomalous researcher, establishing personal bonds that help protect all parties against possible inappropriate exploitations. As Michael Harkin writes, "With adoption there is both more and less than meets the eye" (57).

Although the emphasis in this volume is on living individuals—and is generally autobiographical, relating the authors' own experiences—there are several chapters on historical figures. Even before the reflexive turn of the 1980s and 1990s, adoptions were something that anthropologists sometimes talked about, but they were often taken as something too private to be written. Sometimes it is proper not to write about them, and several of the authors here are noticeably shy about their experiences. In contrast, some anthropologists have taken their adoption as a validation and have even used it to suggest that they and their work are superior to others. Ray Fogelson summarizes the risk in his commentary: [End Page 660]

For too many researchers, adoption becomes a manipulative field technique or a too soon forgotten romantic interlude rather than an abiding relationship of affection and trust; it's not surprising that many anthropologists are held in contempt by Native Americans for whom such relationships are far from "fictive."
(248)

There is but little evidence of that here, and Kan is to be commended for his work as editor. What one gets instead is a series of thoughtful reflections, most providing sensitive readings of the complex situations of adoption.

There are interesting questions for the discipline here. Is there something unusual about Americanist anthropology? One hears about anthropologist adoptions less often from other parts of the world (for consideration of some of the distinct qualities of Americanist anthropology, see Valentine and Darnell 1999, Darnell 2001). What are the implications for fieldwork ideals? Many anthropologists go to the field for a year for their dissertation research and then maintain little connection for long stretches of time; some Americanists have worked primarily in many repeated short visits over a long period of time, sometimes even maintaining contact by mail. The latter pattern may actually yield stronger relationships and greater trust. As Mary Black-Rogers writes, "After all, relatives are people you tend to keep in touch with" (110). What about the place of history? "History" is maintained in living memory and in archived documents, which tend to be located in different places (Native communities vs. libraries, each "remote" to one group). Scholars in history need both—and scholars in history are both, for we cannot ignore local, folk, amateur, or Native historians. Political action has a quite different base when one is working for "family."

Individual readers will find interest in different pieces. Kan's introduction concisely summarizes the issues. Harkin's, Anne Straus's, and Ann Fienup-Riordan's are among the more analytical pieces in the volume (although they are also firmly grounded in experience). Bill Fenton's reflection on his family's connections with the Senecas through several generations, and how that shaped his life and career, challenges some of the recent criticisms of him and demonstrates the quiet, respectful seriousness that won him so many Seneca friends—and relatives. Tim Buckley's examination of adoptions through four generations...

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