About me (original) (raw)

I am Carlos Mondragón, an anthropologist and historian specialising in the study of Island Melanesia, and more specifically the archipelago of Vanuatu, in the South West Pacific. Overall, I have interdisciplinary interests which cut across anthropology, politics, history and cultural production in Oceania and the broader Asia-Pacific region. During the past decade I have carried out several stints of ethnographic fieldwork in north Vanuatu, primarily in the Torres Islands, and have traveled to various parts of Oceania and Asia. Additionally, during a postdoctoral period of 3-4 years (2001-2004), which was mainly sustained by support from the British Academy and the U of Cambridge, I had some experience studying and working with rural societies in Tibet, mainly among mobile pastoralist (aka nomad) populations in the south central Himalayan range of the Tibet Autonomous Region. These activities included a period of language training at Tibet University and consultancy work with several NGOs.

Salül is an informal name given to white people (literally it means ‘white man’) in the language of Lo-Toga, which is one of the two related Austronesian languages that are spoken in the Torres Islands. The Torres Islands are a micro-archipelago located in the northern border of Vanuatu, and are home to just over 1,000 people. Since 1999, the bulk of my ethnographic fieldwork and friendships have evolved in the village of Lunharigi, on Loh island.

Recently, I have also begun to prepare a new research project centred on the cultural revival, political and identity claims of the indigenous inhabitants of Rapa Nui.

At right: Overlooking Rano Kau crater, Rapa Nui, August 2010. *(inserted on 2/11/2010)

One of my interests for this initiative is to offer a fresh perspective (as a Latin America-based researcher) for Oceanic scholars regarding the relationship of the only contemporary Polynesian community living under the influence of a South American nation-state.

Below: canoeing across the saltwater lagoon that separates Loh from Linua islands, with William Collins, the local Torres Islands’ fieldworker for the Vanuatu Cultural Centre (2008).

The title of this blog is intended in playful reference to the way in which a particular small-scale society categorises those persons who do not belong to any given local lineage, have no specific ancestry and no apparent territorial identity within the local social horizon; on the other, it speaks to a more serious issue which has to do with exoticisation and distance, which are two of the various themes that I hope to touch on throughout the duration of this blog.

For more information regarding my work, visit my webpage, or jump straight to my extended CV (both currently available only in Spanish).

Publications

Books

Mondragón, Carlos, Un Entramado de Islas: Persona, Medio Ambiente y Cambio Climático en el Pacífico Occidental, México: El Colegio de México, 2015. (Winner of the National Award for Best Research in Anthropology 2016, granted by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico)

Edited volumes

Mondragón, Carlos, ed., El cristianismo en el mundo: Contrastes y reflexiones desde Asia, Oceanía y las Américas (Arqueología y Antropología de las Religiones, Vol. V), México: El Colegio de México, forthcoming.

Patricia Fournier, Carlos Mondragón and Walburga Wiesheu (eds.), Peregrinaciones, Ayer y Hoy: Arqueología y Antropología de las Religiones, Vol. IV, México, El Colegio de México, 2012.

Mondragón, Carlos, ed., Moana: Culturas de las Islas del Pacífico (Exhibition Catalogue), México, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2010.

Patricia Fournier, Carlos Mondragón and Walburga Wiesheu (eds.), Ritos de Paso: Arqueología y Antropología de las Religiones, Vol. III, México, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2009.

Chapters, Journal Articles, and sundry publications

(yes, all in a jumble…this is a blog, not a cv)

Mondragon, Carlos and Sandra Rozental, “La escritura etnográfica: un campo común”, Boletín del Colegio de Etnólogos y Antropólogos Sociales,

“Forest, Reef and Sea-Level Rise in North Vanuatu: Seasonal Environmental Practices and Climate Fluctuations in Island Melanesia”, in Douglas Nakashima, Igor Kupnik, and Jennifer Rubis, eds., Indigenous Knowledge for Climate Change Assessment and Adaptation, Cambridge: UNESCO Publishing and Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 23-40.

“Whose Worlds, Whose Anthropologies?”, Cultural Anthropology, Editor’s Forum: Fieldsights (From Reciprocity to Relationality Series), Published online 26 September 2018, https://culanth.org/fieldsights/whose-worlds-whose-anthropologies

“El estudio de los contactos culturales en Mesoamérica y Oceanía. Alteridad y ritual en la obra de Inga Clendinnen”, en Gustavo Marín Guzmán y Gabriela Torres Mazuera (coords.), Antropología e historia en México. Las fronteras construidas de un territorio compartido, Mérida: CIESAS Peninsula, 2016, pp. 173-204.

“El Tíbet chino: Crecimiento económico con exclusión étnica”, Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica, Online edition, published 11 July 2016, http://revistafal.com/el-tibet-chino/

“Concealment, revelation and cosmological dualism: Visibility, materiality and the spiritscape of the Torres Islands, Vanuatu”, in Cahiers d’Anthropologie Sociale, Special Issue: Montrer-occulter, Paris: Éditions l’Herne/College de France, 2015, pp. 38-50.

“Sudden environmental change: sea level fluctuations and local perceptions of climate change in Melanesia. An assessment of a small island society in North Vanuatu.” in Kirsty Galloway McLean, ed., Weathering Uncertainty: Traditional Knowledge for Climate Change Assessment and Adaptation, , Paris: UNESCO and Tokyo: United Nations University-Traditional Knowledge Initiative, 2012, pp.

“Entre Islas y Montañas: Movimiento y geografía cultural en Melanesia y el Tibet”, In P. Fournier, C. Mondragón y W. Wiesheu (eds.), Peregrinaciones Ayer y Hoy. Arqueología y Antropología de las Religiones Vol. 4, México: El Colegio de México, 2012, pp. 419-453.

“Powerful Torres Islands Artefacts”, in Lissant Bolton & Nicholas Thomas (eds.), The Melanesian Collections at the British Museum, London, The British Museum Press, 2012, pgs. 263-265.

“El demonio de las multiplicidades: el sureste asiático y el arte contemporáneo de Asia en el mundo”, in Entre Utopía y Distopía. Palestra Asia, México, Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporaneo, 2012, pgs. 34-47.

Mondragón, Carlos and F. Navarrete, “Cai Guo-Qiang, la alquimia de lo local/Cai Guo-Qiang, the Alchemy of the Local”, in Patricia Sloane et. al (eds.), Esplendor y Soledad (Sunshine and Solitude) de Cai Guo-Qiang (Exhibition catalogue), bilingual edition, México: Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo/UNAM, México, 2011.

“Oceanía, el mar de islas: una aproximación a su cultura material”, in C. Mondragón (ed.) Moana: Culturas de las Islas del Pacífico (Exhibition Catalogue), México, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2010, pp. 19-28.

“Personas partibles, sociedades fractales. Reflexiones sobre escala y complejidad en Vanuatu”, in Berenice Alcántara y Federico Navarrete (eds.), Sociedades Amerindias: Más allás del Estado, México: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2011, pp. 145-168.

“A Weft of Nexus: Changing notions of ‘space’ and geographical identity in Vanuatu, Oceania”, in Peter Wynn Kirby (ed.), Boundless Worlds: An Anthropological Approach to Movement. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2009, pp. 115-134.

“Encarnando a los espíritus en la Melanesia: La innovación como continuidad en el norte de Vanuatu”, in P. Fournier, C. Mondragón y W. Wiesheu (eds.), Ritos de Paso: Antropología y Arqueología de las Religiones, Vol. 3, México: ENAH/PROMEP, 2009. pp. 121-149.

“El combate a la pobreza en China y la Iniciativa de Desarrollo de la Región Occidental (2000-2005)”, in Romer Cornejo (ed.), China. Radiografía de una potencia en ascenso. México: El Colegio de México, 2008. pp. 443-526.

“Los disturbios de 2008 en Lhasa y las regiones tibetanas de China”, Estudios de Asia y África, v. XLIII, n. 136, 2008. pp. 455-476.

“Reflexiones historiográficas en torno a las percepciones oceánicas durante los primeros encuentros entre europeos y melanesios en el Pacífico”, en Miguel Luque Talaván y Marta Ma. Manchado López (Coordinación y Edición), Un océano de intercambios: Hispanoasia (1521-1898), Madrid: Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, 2008, pp. 81-99.

Luque, Miguel and Carlos Mondragón, “Early European Descriptions of Oceanic Watercraft: Iberian Sources and Contexts”, in Anne Di Piazza and Erik Pearthree (eds.), Canoes of the Grand Ocean. Oxford, British Archaeologigal Reports (BAR International Series 1802), 2008, pp. 9-22.

“Ethnological origins of the ni-Vanuatu “other”: Quirós and the early Spanish historiography of Asia and the Pacific”, in Frédéric Angleviel (ed.), Pedro Fernández de Quirós et le Vanuatu, 1606-2006. Nouméa, Université de la Nouvelle Calédonie, 2007. pp. 145-168.

“Visiones autóctonas y occidentales en las expediciones españolas a la Melanesia insular (1595-1606)”, in Gustavo Curiel (ed.), Orientes-Occidentes: El arte y la mirada del otro. México: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2007. pp. 119-149.

Miguel Luque Talaván and Carlos Mondragón, “El Capitán Cook en los Mares del Sur a través de tres cartas reservadas”, in Francisco Mellén Blanco and Annie Baert, Memorias del Congreso 2006 de la Asociación Española de Estudios del Pacífico. Madrid, Asociación Española de Estudios del Pacífico, 2007.

Miguel Luque Talaván and Carlos Mondragón, “Et in Arcadia Ego: La Terra Australis y la visión utópica de Pedro Fernández de Quirós”, Anales del Museo de América, núm. 24. Madrid. Museo de América, 2006. pp. 351-380.

“Time and the expression of temporality in the Torres Islands, Vanuatu”, in Eliseu Carbonell, Revista Etnològic de Catalunya (Dossier especial: Cultures de la temporalitat), vol. 28. Barcelona, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, 2006.

Miguel Luque Talaván and Carlos Mondragón, ‘Faith, fidelity and fantasy: Don Pedro Fernández de Quirós and the “foundation, government and sustenance” of La Nueba Hierusalem in 1606’, Journal of Pacific History, Vol. 40, No. 2, 2005, pp. 133–48.

“Of Winds, Worms and Mana. The traditional calendar of the Torres Islands, Vanuatu”, Oceania, 74(4), 2004.