David Maybury-Lewis

David Maybury-Lewis will receive the Anders Retzius gold medal of the Swedish Society of Anthropology and Geography on April 24, 1998. The medal is awarded to an anthropologist every few years ; previous recipients have been Fredrik Barth of Oslo University in Norway and Jack Goody of Cambridge University in England.

April 24 is Vega Day in Sweden, the day on which the return to Stockholm of Adolf Erik Nordenskiold on board his ship Vega is commemorated. Nordenskiold was a famous Arctic explorer who made a number of expeditions to northern Siberia in the late nineteenth century. His most famous and successful voyage was sponsored by King Oscar of Sweden. In 1878 he and his crew set sail from Gothenburg in an attempt to sail up the west coast of Norway, along the northern coast of Eurasia to discover and sail through the northeast passage into the Pacific Ocean, which had never been done previously. The voyage was successful and Nordenskiold and his crew succeeded in circumnavigating the entire Eurasian landmass, returning via Japan, Ceylon and the Suez canal to arrive in Stockholm on April 24, 1880.

His Majesty the king of Sweden will present the gold medal to David Maybury-Lewis on Vega Day, 1998. The occasion will be marked by a symposium dealing with major themes of David Maybury-Lewis’ work and a banquet. At the symposium, entitled “Anthropology, Ethnicity and Indigenous Rights,” David Maybury-Lewis will speak on “The Cultural Survival of Indigenous Peoples: Theoretical Issues and Practical Considerations.” Other speakers include Kay Warren, now at Princeton University, who will talk on”Maya Resurgence and Rights in Guatemala: Theoretical and Practical Reflections.” Warren, who is currently Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Princeton, will be joining the Department of Anthropology at Harvard on July 1. Kaj Aarhem (University of Gothenburg) will speak on “Territory, Identity and Change in the Colombian Amazon: The Implications of Anthropological Understanding” and James Anaya (The Indian Law Resource Center) will speak on “Indigenous Peoples and the Evolution of International Human Rights.”