Robert Storrie
Curator Americas
The North American collections
Department: Africa, Oceania and the
Americas
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7323 8028
Email: rstorrie @ thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
Robert Storrie is trained in anthropology and his current
research explores the way indigenous identities are negotiated in
Native North America in the context of nation states. He has
recently begun a fieldwork-based project on the Pacific Northwest
Coast of America, particularly with ’Namgis Kwakwaka’wakw, Sto:lo
and Haida communities.
His interests build upon earlier long-term
fieldwork and research in Amazonia including five months with the
Yanomamï of the Upper Orinoco and three years living with Hoti
families – nomadic hunter-gatherers who live in the Serranía de
Maigualida mountains of central Venezuelan Guiana. The outcome of
this was an ethno-ecological and linguistic study concerned with
taxonomy and classification Being Human: personhood, cosmology
and subsistence for the Hoti of Venezuelan Guiana
(PhD Thesis University of Manchester, 1999).
Robert Storrie’s work on classification has
included an interest in exploring the ways in which authority and
the capacity to wield power rest upon categorization and
epistemology, and resistance implies the exploration and
transgression of classificatory boundaries. This is
particularly relevant to the processes by which indigenous
knowledges are either valued or de-legitimised through such notions
as “Traditional Ecological Knowledge”.
Robert Storrie’s previous work has included
teaching anthropology and documentary and ethnographic film
production.
Current British Museum projects
Pacific Northwest Coast Native art and identity
Previous British Museum projects
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External fellowships/ honorary positions/ membership of professional bodies
Fellow and Council Member of the Royal
Anthropological Institute
Publications
R. Storrie, 'The politics of shamanism and the limits of fear',
in Tipiti – Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of
Lowland South America (2006)
R. Storrie, J. C. H. King and B. Pauksztat (eds.), Arctic
Clothing (British Museum Press: London, 2005)
R. Storrie, 'Reply to Shapiro', Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute, 10:4 (2004) pp. 904-6
R. Storrie, 'Equivalence, personhood and
relationality. Processes of relatedness among the Hoti of
Venezuelan Guiana', Journal of the Royal Anthropological
Institute, 9:3 (2003) pp. 407-28