Department of Anthropology

Neal Keating
PhD, SUNY Albany
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology

• Courses Taught
• Areas of Specialization
• Current Research Projects
• Selected Publications

Courses Taught

• ANT 201 - Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
• ANT 325 - Indigenous Peoples & Globalization
• ANT 363 - Anthropology of Religion
• ANT 401/501 - Native American Art
• ANT 415/515 - Political Ecology of Human Rights
• ANT 463/563 - Museology
• ANT 471/571 - Anthropological Theory

Areas of Specialization

Contemporary and historical ethnographies of human rights, indigenous peoples’ movements, visual and material culture, power, globalization processes. Geographic areas include Northeastern North America, Southeast Asia, and Central America.

Current Research Projects

• “Iroquois Art, Power, and History” - ethnographic, historical, and collections-based research project analyzing the relationship between visual expression and political economy of Haudenosaunee and Iroquoian peoples in both Canada and the US, from the seventeenth century into the twenty-first.  In addition to numerous museums, archives, and private collections, field research sites included the Six Nations Grand River Territory, the Mohawk Nation Territories of Akwesasne, Kahnawake, Kanehsatake, and Tyendinaga; Oneida Nation Territories (NY and ONT); the Onondaga Nation Territory; the Tonawanda Seneca Territory, the Seneca Nation Territories of Allegany and Cattaraugus, and the Tuscarora Nation Territory.
• “Belated States & Plurinations: An Ethnographic Study of Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights Implementation in Cambodia.” - a pilot study with Kuoy communities in Preah Vihear, Cambodia, using collaborative ethnography to develop and investigate local qualitative indicators of human rights implementation within indigenous communities, using a framework based on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
• “Mush Hole Remembered: R. G. Miller” - ethnography and exhibit curation of the Indian residential school experience in Canada and its impact on indigenous peoples in Canada, centering on the history, memory, and visual expression of an indigenous Mohawk artist who spent 11 years as a student-inmate in the Mohawk Institute Indian residential school in Brantford, Ontario.
• “Indigenous Peoples and Self-Determination: Deskaheh and the League of Nations in the 1920s” - archive and ethnographically-based study of Deskaheh’s attempt to attain international recognition and acceptance of the Haudenosaunee Six Nations Grand River Territory as an independent nation-state and member of the League of Nations.
• “Proyecto Nuevo B’aqtun” - collaborative capacity building project with indigenous Maya K’iche artist group TIMACH (Guatemala), centered on developing a trans-Anowaro or pan-American network of contemporary indigenous artists to provide exchanges of information and creative expression, and use a human rights framework to build greater support for contemporary indigenous artistic expression throughout the Americas.
• “Precolombian Ceremony & Postcolombian Foreclosure: The Case of Las Mercedes, Costa Rica” - collections-based, archaeological and historical study of a major precolombian ceremonial site in Costa Rica, and the wholesale removal of its contents to museums and warehouses in New York City during the late 19th century.

Selected Publications

(Feb 2012)
Iroquois Art, Power, and History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
(2012)
“Iroquoian Religion in the Seventeenth Century,” forthcoming in The Cambridge History of Religions in America: Volume I: Pre-Columbian Times to 1790, ed. by S. Stein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(2012)
“Art, Human Rights, and Trans-Anowaro Indigenous Art Exchange” Invited Papers from Kexb’al kino’jib’al qawinaqil / Intercambio Americano de Artistas Indígenas. Guatemala City: Casa Ibargüen.
2008
Keating, N. B. Whitey And The Mush Hole: Reclaiming Lahiaaks.. 36 min documentary video.  Woodland Cultural Centre.
2007
"UN General Assembly Adopts the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 143-4." Anthropology News (48):8.
2006
Native Perspectives: George Longfish / Shelley Niro. Clinton, NY: Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College.
1998
G. Peter Jemison: Iroquois Art Howes Cave: Iroquois Indian Museum.