Daniel Rosenblatt

Biography

I am a cultural anthropologist interested in social thought, contemporary critical and anthropological theory, and the history and ethnography of both the Pacific and the contemporary U.S. My Pacific research (with New Zealand Maori) is concerned with the performance and experience of local cultural traditions and identities in the context created by such transnational forces as capitalism, colonialism, modernity, and globalization. I also explore performances, identities, and experience in my U.S. work, which is currently centered on the ways people negotiate their relationship to the idea of “success.” In both cases I am interested in the interplay between ritual/symbolic constructions of the world and the possibilities for imagining political projects and attempting to achieve political agency. In NZ, this leads to a concern with the indigenization of such things as city life, development, and modernity as part of an effort to find a place for tradition in modern life and, in the U.S., I am interested in the logics and expressions of the pursuit (or refusal) of upward mobility.

Research Interest

Cultural Performance; Self-Construction, Identity, & Practice; Global-Local Interrelationships; Local Modernities; New Zealand and Polynesian Ethnography; North American Ethnography & American Studies; Postcolonialism & Colonial History; Social Theory; Media Studies & Visual Anthropology; Indigenous Peoples’ Movements; Migration and Urbanization; Ritual; Visual Art; Countercultural Movements About