Surviving desires: making and selling native jewellery in the American Southwest

Abstract

Showcasing the vitality and continuously transforming nature of Native American artistic practice. Situating this iconic form of jewellery in the cultural economy of the American Southwest, this publication explores Southwestern jewellery as a decorative form in constant transition. It describes this rich tradition as subject to a number of desires, fostered and regulated at different times by government agencies, individual entrepreneurs, traders, curators and Native American communities. It presents a series of perspectives on Southwest Native American Jewellery and explores questions relating to its identity as craft, material culture, commodity and adornment.

Contents

Introducing Southwestern jewellery -- Navajo and Pueblo jewellery : a brief cultural and material history -- The business of jewellery : tourism, curio and craft -- Between innovation and tradition : regulating the matter of jewellery -- Peceptions of value : historical collecting in British Museums -- Give and take : the dynamics of contemporary collecting -- Surviving desires -- Archival materials and records.