S. Elizabeth Bird

University of South Florida | USF · Department of Anthropology

First author Roger Villamar. Using participatory photography, we explore ways in which indigenous, Amazonian Peruvians define and negotiate their multiple identities (as native people, Peruvians, and global citizens) with a focus on those who leave their communities to seek education in the city. We show how they maintain a foot in each world witho...

What happens when you take archaeological artifacts out of the lab or the museum, and use them to inspire a storytelling performance? How might artifacts inspire theater, and how might theater animate artifacts? Here, in a dialogue between a writer/performer and an anthropologist, we explore these questions, using a recent solo performance piece to...

In 1961, Rosina 'Rose' Martin married John Umelo, a young Nigerian she met on a London Tube station platform, eventually moving to Nigeria with him and their children. As Rose taught Latin in Enugu, they found themselves caught up in Nigeria's Civil War, which followed the 1967 secession of Eastern Nigeria--now named Biafra. The family fled to John...

In October 1967, early in the Nigerian Civil War, government troops entered Asaba in pursuit of the retreating Biafran army, slaughtering thousands of civilians and leaving the town in ruins. News of the atrocity was suppressed by the Nigerian government, with the complicity of Britain, and its significance in the subsequent progress of that confli...

Based on case studies spanning time and geography from the Spanish to the Nigerian civil wars, to government repression in Argentina, genocidal policies in Guatemala and Rwanda and on to forced population removal in Australia and Israel, this collection represents a focused attempt to come to grips with some of the strategies used to express trauma...

In the United States, television news is where the issue of tabloidisation is most loudly debated, as news merges into the countless talk shows and syndicated “reality” programming. While critics often place the blame on the journalism profession itself, I focus on the audience drive toward tabloidisation, critiquing both the uncritical celebration...

This article explores the consequences of a massacre of civilians in Asaba, a town on the west bank of the river Niger, during the early stages of the Nigerian civil war. While ethnically Igbo, Asaba was not part of the Igbo-dominated Biafra, remaining part of the ethnically diverse midwest region. In the international memory of the war, the midwes...

In early October 1967, four months into the Nigerian Civil War, federal troops massacred hundreds in Asaba, a town in southeast Nigeria on the west bank of the Niger. While ethnically Igbo, Asaba was not part of Igbo-dominated Biafra. Through the reconstruction of this event, the article fills a significant gap in the historical record and contribu...

This article offers a critical analysis of the relevance of convergence culture to the field of media audience study, opening up new ways to see audiences as active cultural producers. At the same time, I argue that the enthusiastic embrace of Web 2.0 practices as the new model of audience activity may hinder a full understanding not only of the im...

On October 5, 1967, Nigerian federal troops entered Asaba, a town in south-east Nigeria on the west bank of the Niger. The war over the secession of the predominantly Igbo2 area known as Biafra had broken out in July; by August, the Biafran army had advanced across the Niger, through Asaba and about 120 km beyond. Federal troops mounted a counter-a...

Anthropology has long had a complex relationship with news media. Increasing collaboration between anthropologists and print, broadcast or online journalists offers great potential for making our work more accessible, as well as boosting public understanding of and engagement with anthropological research findings and perspectives. However, it also...

The last few years have seen a significant volume of work on representations of Native Americans in all kinds of media, from contemporary popular culture to historic artifacts of all kinds. In particular, there has been a growing interest in the analysis of historical photographs, many rarely if ever seen since they were first circulated. Steven D....

This is an oral history interview with the Honorable Emmanuel Okocha, author of Blood on the Niger, the only book about the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. Okocha, a survivor of the massacre, was a small child at the time; his father was killed at Asaba, and two older brothers also d...

Working Images: Visual Research and Representation in Ethnography. Sarah Pink, László Kürti, and Ana Isabel Afonso. New York: Routledge, 2004. 224 pp.

This paper discusses the effect that large scale private landowncrship has had on social development in a Scottish rural parish. Much of Scotland's land area is concentrated in the hands of a few owners, and it is argued that their decisions on land use continue to have a significant impact on potential for growth or decline in Scottish rural settl...

THE PERSISTENCE OF POPULAR MEMORY: THE CINEMATIC CONSTRUCTION OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN These two books, while having significant subject matter in common, are very different in style. Buscombe's small volume serves as an effective review of much that has already been written about cinematic representation of "Injuns," offering some useful new interpr...

An examination of disaster literature from the late 19th and early 20th centuries revealed social, political, and economic vulnerability issues that parallel many current concerns. A modern model of comprehensive emergency management was used to comparatively address selected issues of vulnerability found in these texts; looking specifically at eme...

While we often assume media are highly effective tools for learning, research shows an unpredictable relationship between text and audience response, with variable interpretation being the norm. This can be especially problematic in anthropology, whose central goal is to understand different cultures; some studies suggest that films may reinforce e...

In this slim volume, Wernitznig addresses the New Age phenomenon of "white shamanism"- the appropriation of Native American traditions by white self-help gurus who draw heavily on Plains Indian lore, with a sprinkling of everything from Buddhism to Celtic mythology for good measure. Wernitznig distinguishes between "white shamans" and "plastic medi...

Citation only. Full-text article is available through licensed access provided by the publisher. Published in Journal of American Culture, 13(2), 33-37. Members of the USF System may access the full-text of the article through the authenticated link provided below.

In recent years, there has been a surge of interest in the role of narrative in constructing culture, deriving from scholarship in anthropology, geography, folklore, and communication studies. In this article, the author uses popular folk legends, collected in one state, to bring together some of this interdisciplinary scholarship on the central ro...

Human Biology 74.4 (2002) 621-623 Robert Park says he wrote this book as a public service—to help lay people understand what they should know about science, and what they should reject as nonsense. He does exactly that in this entertaining, although occasionally repetitive, book. This is not a book for the scientific specialist, although Park's own...

This is an enthnographic study of an e‐mail list devoted to fans of the television show Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. The central question is whether e‐mail groups can function as “communities,” and if so, how. I examine the practices of the list members, including the establishment of rules, nurturing of community, and communal fantasy activities. I...

Contemporary popular culture is permeated with images of Native Americans, who have become symbols of wisdom, beauty, peace, and nostalgia. In this paper, I trace the changes in this imagery over time, with particular emphasis on the role of gender, and how Native American men and women have become sexualized in relation to the White gaze, which is...

* Introduction: Constructing the Indian, 1830s1990s S. Elizabeth Bird. * The First but Not the Last of the Vanishing Indians: Edwin Forrest and Mythic Re-creations of the Native Population Sally L. Jones. * The Narratives of Sitting Bulls Surrender: Bailey, Dix & Meads Photographic Western Frank Goodyear. * Reduced to Images: American Indians in Ni...

On October 10, 1991, ABC's news magazine Prime Time live, retold a story that had been causing a sensation in Dallas since early September, when Ebony magazine published a letter from a writer signing herself CJ, Dallas, Texas. The writer claimed to be deliberately infecting up to four men a week with the AIDS virus. The letter led to a flood of ca...

This article addresses recent trends in ethnographic studies of media audiences. While much of this rethinking of ethnography has been necessary and useful, it also has the potential to paralyze research of this sort and to continue building an ever‐more‐abstract theoretical narcissism. The future of cultural audience studies lies not with more abs...

The National Enquirer and other weekly “supermarket tabloids” have been branded a “disgrace to journalism” and seen as the epitome of “low‐taste” media. But are the tabloids really an entirely different species, fit only to be incinerated? This paper discusses how the tabloids report and write their stories, the relationship tabloid writing has to...

The development and diffusion of well-dressing, an annual folk festival characteristic of north-central England, is investigated. Changes in the form and function of the festival are discussed, paying particular attention to recent revivals of the festival and relating these to changing social circumstances in Derbyshire. While the form of the fest...

Oral history interview with Emmanuel Chukwara, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. When the Biafran soldiers crossed over to Nigeria, Chukwara took his wife and children across the Niger River to Onitsha, where his mother-in-law lived. Shortly after they left the shelli...

Oral history interview with Gertrude Chinwe Ogunkeye, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. Ogunkeye, her mother, and her siblings were living in Enugu but left shortly after Biafra seceded from Nigeria; they returned home to Asaba, where they stayed with Ogunkeye's grand...

Oral history interview with Medua Uraih, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. Uraih, who was twenty when the massacre took place, had been attending school in Asaba before the war started. When the Nigerian soldiers entered the city, he and his family were taken to his s...

Oral history interview with Peter Ojogwu, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. Ojogwu, who was a teenager when the massacre took place, had been attending school in Asaba. He, his brother, and three cousins were part of a group that encountered some federal soldiers who...

Oral history interview with Peter Okonjo, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. Okonjo was a teenage boy when the massacre took place and was living with his family in the city. When the Nigerian soldiers entered the city, he joined the group of people gathering in the pl...

Oral history interview with Sylvester Okocha, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians that occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. Okocha had been a civil servant in Benin City; when the war started, he and his family returned to their hometown of Asaba. They heard that the Nigerian soldiers were planning to kill all o...

This is an oral history interview with Chief Philip Asiodu, the Izoma of Asaba, Nigeria. Chief Asiodu briefly describes his education and career in Nigeria's Foreign Service and Civil Service; he has held a number of positions in the Nigerian federal government, including Minister of Petroleum. He discusses the events leading up to the Asaba Massac...

This is an oral history interview with Osakwe Igwemma, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians that took place in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. Igwemma, who was 23 when the massacre occurred, was living in Asaba with his mother and siblings at the time. The day of the massacre, the townspeople gathered in the plaza to we...

This is an oral history interview with Dr. Ifeanyi "Ify" Uraih, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. His father and older brother were killed; Uraih, who was fifteen years old at the time, was present during the shooting but survived because his brother pushed him deeper...

Oral history interview with Chris Mkpayah, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. Mkpayah, who was nineteen at the time, was a student at St. Patrick's College, Asaba. The day of the massacre, he returned to his grandmother's house after church, heard shooting, and decided...

This is an oral history interview with John Esenwa, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. Esenwa, who was fourteen years old when the massacre took place, was attending boarding school in the Asaba area at the time; his school was about a mile from the city. When the sold...

Oral history interview with Charles Ugboko, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. Ugboko, who turned twenty-one just before the massacre, had been teaching at a local high school and living with his family in Asaba. He and his family were taken to a soccer field near thei...

Oral history interview with four members of the Falcon Club, Asaba, Nigeria: Henry Ndozi Onyia, Felix P. C. Obi, Frank Obi Ogosi, and Emmanuel E. K. Onukwu. All four men are survivors of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. In this interview, each man briefly describes his family situ...

Oral history interview with Emmanuel A. C. Nwanze, the former vice-chancellor of the University of Benin and a survivor of anti-Igbo violence leading up to and during the Nigerian Civil War. When the war began in 1967, Nwanze was living in Benin City with his aunt. The Biafrans captured the city that summer and occupied it for about a month, during...

Oral history interview with Felix Ogosi, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. The day of the massacre, the townspeople received messages asking them to come to the town square to dance and welcome the Nigerian troops. Ogosi, who was twelve years old at the time, was in t...

Oral history interview with Nwka Obze, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. When the federal troops entered the city in October 1967, Obze's brother, who was one of the soldiers, warned her and her family that the troops were planning a massacre. Obze, her husband, and t...

Oral history interview with Patience Chukura, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. Mrs. Chukura and her husband had been living in Benin when the war started and returned back to their family in Asaba. The day the massacre took place, a messenger came to the house where...

Oral history interview with Patrick Obielue, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 as part of the Nigerian Civil War. Obielue, who was a schoolboy when the massacre took place, fled the town with his family when the Nigerian soldiers entered the city. They hid in the bush for several days before he and...

Oral history interview with Victoria Nwanze, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. Nwanze was a student at the University of Nigeria when the war started, and returned to her family in Asaba at the end of September 1967. On October 5, when the Nigerian troops entered the...

Oral history interview with Frank Igeh, a survivor of the Asaba Massacre, a mass killing of civilians which occurred in 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War. Igeh was a member of the Nigerian Red Cross Society. The year before the war started, he trained in Benin City and then returned to Asaba, his hometown. In October 1967, he was the only Red Cros...