Harald E. L. Prins is a Dutch anthropologist, ethnohistorian, filmmaker, and human rights activist specialized in North and South America's indigenous peoples and cultures.

Brief biographical sketch

Harald Prins was born in the Netherlands and is a University Distinguished Professor of anthropology at Kansas State University

Kansas State University

Kansas State University, commonly shortened to K-State, is an institution of higher learning located in Manhattan, Kansas, in the United States...

.

Academically trained at various universities in the Netherlands, where he studied prehistoric archaeology, history, and cultural anthropology, among others under Anton Weiler, Albert Trouwborst, Anton Blok

Anton Blok

Anton Blok is an anthropologist, famous for studying the Mafia in Sicily in 1960s. Anton Blok was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan and University of California, Berkeley in 1988. He is a professor emeritus of cultural anthropology at the University of Amsterdam...

, and Ton Lemaire, he completed his doctoraal at the Radboud University Nijmegen

Radboud University Nijmegen

Radboud University Nijmegen is a public university with a strong focus on research in Nijmegen, the Netherlands...

 (1976). After two years as an Assistant Professor in theoretical history at its graduate program, he came to New York City under the auspices of the Netherlands-America Institute in 1978. As a Vera List Fellow at the Graduate Faculty of Social and Political Science, the New School for Social Research (1978–1979), he studied anthropology under Eric Wolf

Eric Wolf

Eric Robert Wolf was an anthropologist, best known for his studies of peasants, Latin America, and his advocacy of Marxian perspectives within anthropology.-Early life:...

, Michael Harner

Michael Harner

Michael Harner is the founder of the and the formulator of "core shamanism." Harner is known for bringing shamanism and shamanic healing to the contemporary Western world...

, Edmund Snow Carpenter

Edmund Snow Carpenter

Edmund "Ted" Snow Carpenter was an anthropologist best known for his work on tribal art and visual media.-Early life:...

 and others. In addition, he received formal training in advanced 16mm film-making in NYC (1979–1980).

Although he has also done research among half a dozen other indigenous nations in North and South America, he is primarily known for his ethnographic and historic research on Wabanaki

Wabanaki

Wabanaki, Wabenaki, Wobanaki, etc. may refer to:In geography* area referred as the "Dawn land" by many Algonquian-speaking peoples to describe the Eastern region of the North American continent, generally described as being New England in the United States, plus Quebec and the Maritimes in CanadaIn...

 Indian peoples and cultures, in particular the Mi'kmaq (or Micmac). After ethnographic fieldwork in La Pampa, Argentina (1980–1981), he merged the theoretical perspectives of cultural ecology

Cultural ecology

Cultural ecology studies the relationship between a given society and its natural environment as well as the life-forms and ecosystems that support its lifeways . This may be carried out diachronically , or synchronically...

 and political economy

Political economy

Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...

 into a concept of political ecology

Political ecology

Political ecology is the study of the relationships between political, economic and social factors with environmental issues and changes. Political ecology differs from apolitical ecological studies by politicizing environmental issues and phenomena....

. During a decade of advocacy anthropology among Maine Indians as Director of Research and Development for the Association of Aroostook Indians (1981-982), and as tribal anthropologist for the Aroostook Band of Micmacs (1982–1990), he was instrumental in helping this impoverished and landless indigenous community win federal recognition of its tribal status and a 5000 acres (20.2 km²) landbase in northern Maine. He also served as Expert Witness on native rights in the US Senate (1989) and in several Canadian courts (1996, 2000), and was an international observer in the presidential elections of Paraguay (1993).

Author of numerous publications in eight languages, including books and edited volumes, he is also international award-winning documentary filmmaker. He was visual anthropology editor for American Anthropologist

American Anthropologist

American Anthropologist is the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association . It is known for publishing a wide range of work in anthropology, including articles on cultural, biological and linguistic anthropology and archeology...

(1998–2002), and served as President of the Society of Visual Anthropology

Visual anthropology

Visual anthropology is a subfield of cultural anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media...

 (1999–2001).

Having previously taught at Radboud University Nijmegen

Radboud University Nijmegen

Radboud University Nijmegen is a public university with a strong focus on research in Nijmegen, the Netherlands...

 (The Netherlands), Bowdoin College

Bowdoin College

Bowdoin College , founded in 1794, is an elite private liberal arts college located in the coastal Maine town of Brunswick, Maine. As of 2011, U.S. News and World Report ranks Bowdoin 6th among liberal arts colleges in the United States. At times, it was ranked as high as 4th in the country. It is...

, Colby College

Colby College

Colby College is a private liberal arts college located on Mayflower Hill in Waterville, Maine. Founded in 1813, it is the 12th-oldest independent liberal arts college in the United States...

, and the University of Maine

University of Maine

The University of Maine is a public research university located in Orono, Maine, United States. The university was established in 1865 as a land grant college and is referred to as the flagship university of the University of Maine System...

, he has won numerous outstanding teaching awards at Kansas State U., including the 1993 Conoco Award, the 1999 Presidential Award, and the 2004 Coffman Chair of Distinguished Teaching Scholars. In 2005, he was appointed University Distinguished Professor, the highest academic rank. A year later, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching selected him as Kansas Professor of the Year. Most recently, he taught as Guest Professor of Social Anthropology at Lund University

Lund University

Lund University , located in the city of Lund in the province of Scania, Sweden, is one of northern Europe's most prestigious universities and one of Scandinavia's largest institutions for education and research, frequently ranked among the world's top 100 universities...

 in Sweden (2010). The American Anthropological Association honored him with the 2010 AAA/Oxford University Press Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Since 2008, he is also a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...

 in Washington DC.

Son of Dutch maritime anthropologist A. H. J. Prins

A. H. J. Prins

Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins, generally known as A. H. J. Prins was a Dutch Africanist and maritime anthropologist....

  and godson of Kikuyu

Gikuyu language

Gikuyu or Kikuyu is a language of the Bantu family spoken primarily by the Kikuyu people of Kenya. Numbering about 6 million , they are the largest ethnic group in Kenya. Gikuyu is spoken in the area between Nyeri and Nairobi. Gikuyu is one of the five languages of the Thagichu subgroup of the...

 and Swahili

Swahili language

Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...

 specialist Harold E. Lambert

Harold E. Lambert

Harold E. Lambert OBE was a British linguist and anthropologist in Kenya.Born in Pield Heath, raised in Bournemouth, and educated at Queens' College, Cambridge , Lambert served as a platoon commander in the Gloucestershire Regiment during World War I, and was wounded at the Battle of the Somme in...

, Senior District Commissioner in British colonial Kenya, he is married to American author and journalist Bunny McBride

Bunny McBride

Carol Ann McBride is an American writer, author of a wide range of nonfiction books on subjects ranging from cultural survival and wildlife conservation to Native American themes. Her most recent book is Indians in Eden: Wabanakis and Rusticators on Maine's Mt.Desert Island...

.

Selected publications

• "Two George Washington Medals: Missing Links in the Chain of Friendship between the U.S. and the Wabanaki Confederacy." Pp. 9–11. The Medal (British Museum, 1985)
• "A Wabanaki Renaissance?: Political Movement among Micmacs and Maliseets." (in Dutch) Pp. 108–44. Terugkeer van een Verdwijnend Volk. (eds. T. Lemaire and F. Wojciechowski, 1985)
• "Micmacs and Maliseets in the St. Lawrence River Valley." Pp. 263–78. Papers of the Seventeenth Algonquian Conference. (ed. W. Cowan, 1986)
• "Norridgewock: Village Translocation on the New England-Acadian Frontier." Pp. 137–58. Man in the Northeast, No.33 (with B. Bourque, 1987).
• Tribulations of a Border Tribe: Discourse on the Political Ecology
  Political ecology
  Political ecology is the study of the relationships between political, economic and social factors with environmental issues and changes. Political ecology differs from apolitical ecological studies by politicizing environmental issues and phenomena....
  
   of the Aroostook Band of Micmacs (16th-20th Centuries). (1988)
• "American Indians and the Ethnocinematic Complex: From Native Participation to Production Control." Pp. 80–90. Eyes Across the Water. (R. Boonzajer Flaes, 1989)
• "The Anthropologist as 'Trickster': Critical Reflection and Political Action in Anthropology." (in Dutch). Pp. 174–87. Natuur en Cultuur. (eds., R. Corbey & P. v.d. Grijp, 1990)
• "Cornfields at Meductic: Ethnic and Territorial Configurations in Colonial Acadia. Pp.55-72. Man in the Northeast, No.44 (1992).
• "To the Land of the Mistigoches: American Indians Traveling to Europe in the Age of Exploration." Pp. 175–95. Am. Indian and Culture and Research Journal, Vol.17 (1993).
• American Beginnings: Exploration, Culture, and Cartography in the Land of Norumbega. (co-ed. with E. Baker et al., 1994)
• "Children of Gluskap: Wabanaki Indians on the Eve of the European Invasion." Pp. 165–211. American Beginnings. (eds. W. Baker et al., 1994)
• "Neo-Traditions in Native Communities: Sweatlodge and Sundance among the Micmac Today." Pp. 383–94. Proceedings of the 25th Algonquian Conference. (ed. W. Cowan, 1994)
• "Turmoil on the Wabanaki Frontier, 1524-1678." Pp. 97–119. Maine: The Pine Tree State from Prehistory to Present. (ed. R. Judd, 1995)
• "Tribal Network and Migrant Labor: Mi'kmaq Indians as Seasonal Workers in Aroostook's Potato Fields (1870-1980)." Pp. 45–65. Native Americans and Wage Labor. (eds. A. Littlefield and M. Knack, 1996)
• The Mi'kmaq: Resistance, Accommodation and Cultural Survival. (Harcourt Brace, 1996)
• "Chief Rawandagon alias Robin Hood: Native 'Lord of Misrule' in the Maine Wilderness." Pp. 93–115. Northeastern Indian Lives, 1632-1816. (ed. R. Grumet, 1996)
• "Walking the Medicine Line: Molly Ockett, A Pigwacket Doctor." (with B. McBride) Pp. 321–47.Northeastern Indian Lives, 1632-1816. (ed. R. Grumet, 1996)
• "The Paradox of Primitivism: Native Rights and the Problem of Imagery in Cultural Survival Films." Pp. 243–66. Visual Anthropology Vol.9 (1997).
• "Chief Big Thunder (1827-1906): The Life of a Penobscot Trickster." Pp. 140–58. Maine History Vol.37 (1998).
• "Storm Clouds over Wabanakiak: Confederacy Diplomacy until Dummer’s Treaty (1727)" http://www.wabanaki.com/Harald_Prins.htm
• "A Handful of Ashes: Reflections on Tristes Tropiques." Pp. 94–99. Contemporary Cultures and Societies of Latin America. (ed. Dwight R. Heath, 2001)
• "The Crooked Path of Dummer's Treaty: Anglo-Wabanaki Diplomacy and the Quest for Aboriginal Rights." Pp. 360–77. Papers of the 33rd Algonquian Conference (ed. H.C. Wolfart
  H.C. Wolfart
  H. Christoph Wolfart is a German-born Canadian researcher, editor, translator and Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at the University of Manitoba. He is a graduate of the University of Freiburg as well as Cornell University. He completed a Ph.D...
  
  , 2002)
• The Origins of Visual Anthropology. Visual Anthropology Review (co-ed. with Jay Ruby, 2002)
• "Visual Media and the Primitivist Perplex." Pp. 58–74. Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain. (ed. by F. Ginsburg et al., 2002)
• "Visual Anthropology." Pp. 505–25. A Companion to the Anthropology of American Indians. (ed. by T. Biolsi, 2004)
• The Essence of Anthropology. (1st ed., with W. Haviland et al., 2006)
• "Pragmatic Idealism in Challenging Structural Power: Reflections on Advocacy Anthropology." Pp. 183–200. Ethik, Ethos, Ethnos: Aspekte und Probleme Interkultureller Kritik. (ed., A. Hornbacher, 2006)
• Evolution and Prehistory: The Human Challenge. (8th ed., with W. Haviland et al., 2007)
• Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge. (12th ed., with W. Haviland et al., 2007)
• "Vers un monde sans mal: Alfred Métraux, un anthropologue à l'UNESCO." Pp. 115–25. 60 Ans d'Histoire de l'Unesco. Paris: UNESCO, 2005 (with E. Krebs)
• "Edmund Carpenter: A Trickster's Exploration in Culture & Media." (with J. Bishop). Pp. 207–46. Memories of the Origins of Ethnographic Film. (ed. by B. Engelbrecht, 2007)
• Asticou's Island Domain: Wabanaki Peoples at Mount Desert Island 1500-2000. Boston: Northeast Region Ethnography Program. National Park Service, U.S. Dept of the Interior 2007. (2 vols, with B. McBride). Digitally published on National Park Service website: http://www.nps.gov/acad/historyculture/ethnography.htm
• Indians in Eden: Wabanakis and Rusticators on Maine's Mt.Desert Island, 1840s-1920s. (with B. McBride) Camden: Down East Books, 2009
• "The Atlatl as Combat Weapon in 17th-Century Amazonia: Tapuya Indian Warriors in Dutch Colonial Brazil." In The Atlatl 23(2):1-3. http://www.worldatlatl.org/Articles/Tapuya%20Atlatl%20Article%20by%20Harald%20Prins%2025%20May%202010.pdf
• "From Indian Island to Omaha Beach: The Story of Charles Shay, Penobscot Indian War Hero." (with B. McBride). Gardiner: Tilbury House Publishers, 2010. http://www.tilburyhouse.com/Maine%20Frames/me_from%20indian%20island.html

Documentary films

• Our Lives in Our Hands (with Karen Carter, 1986) (about Mi'kmaq Indian basketmakers in Maine) http://www.folkstreams.net/film,94
• Wabanaki: A New Dawn (by David Westphall and Dennis Kostyk, 1995) (served as major research consultant)
• Oh, What a Blow that Phantom Gave Me! (with John Bishop, 2003) (about Edmund Snow Carpenter
  Edmund Snow Carpenter
  Edmund "Ted" Snow Carpenter was an anthropologist best known for his work on tribal art and visual media.-Early life:...
  
  )
• Among Xavante
  Xavante
  The Xavante are an indigenous people, comprising some 9,600 individuals within the territory of eastern Mato Grosso state in Brazil...
  
   Friends (with Adam Bohannon and Jessie Stone, 2008) (about Harvard anthropologist David Maybury-Lewis, founder of Cultural Survival
  Cultural Survival
  Cultural Survival is a nonprofit group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA which is dedicated to defending the human rights of indigenous peoples. Their stated mandate is to promote the rights, voices and visions, of indigenous people. For 37 years, Cultural Survival has partnered with...
  
  )

External links

• Personal page Harald Prins on KSU website http://www.ksu.edu/sasw/anthro/prins.htm
• Personal page Bunny McBride on KSU website http://www.ksu.edu/sasw/anthro/mcbride.htm
• Background on the Mi'kmaq film Our Lives in Our Hands http://www.folkstreams.net/film,94
• Article on Edmund Carpenter http://www.wac.ucla.edu/bishop/articles/Prins.pdf
• Transcript of Oh, What a Blow... film http://users.design.ucla.edu/~jbishop/articles/owb.pdf