Neal B. Keating, Ph.D

Associate Professor
(585) 395-5707
nkeating@brockport.edu
Office: Liberal Arts 314

Education

  • PhD, University at Albany, SUNY

Areas of Specialty

My practice of anthropology is mainly ethnographic and focuses on questions of human rights and political ecology in the 21st century, through a collaborative and transnational perspective that is grounded in partnerships and fieldwork with Indigenous Peoples and communities in Southeast Asia, North and Central America. My toolkit includes visual, curatorial and historical methodologies, in addition to conventional methods of qualitative ethnography. As a teacher I am influenced by Paolo Friere’s pedagogies, and aim at cultivating a critical anthropological perspective among the students I work with. In addition to general anthropology, I offer a variety of courses on topics that include museology, the Anthropocene, human rights, and religion.

Courses Taught

  • ANT 100 - The Human Condition
  • ANT 201 - Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
  • ANT 301 - Contemporary Issues in Native America
  • ANT 325 - Indigenous Peoples & Globalization
  • ANT 337 - Iroquois Culture and History
  • ANT 363 - Anthropology of Religion
  • ANT 380 - Political Ecology
  • ANT 383 - Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology
  • ANT 401/501 - Native American Art
  • ANT 415/515 - Political Ecology of Human Rights
  • ANT 463/563 - Museology
  • ANT 471/571 - Anthropological Theory

Research Interests

The Political Ecology of Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights in Southeast Asia
The aims in this project are to describe and analyze the Indigenous Peoples human rights movement in this region across different scales of human interaction, from international to regional, national and local scales. This is an ongoing long term project grounded in collaborative partnerships with Indigenous Peoples organizations and communities. The current focus is with Indigenous Peoples from Cambodia and Vietnam.

Indian Residential Schools in Canada: Mush Hole Remembered

This project combines curatorial practice with ethnographic and historical methods to explore the past, present and future implications of the Mohawk Institute Indian Residential School (a.k.a. the Mush Hole), which was constructed on the Grand River Territory of the Six Nations Indigenous Peoples (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora) during the 19th century. The project’s primary focus is a collaboration with a Mohawk artist and survivor of the Mush Hole, that revolves around the creation, interpretation and exhibition of a large body of artwork based on the artist’s memories and experiences of Indian residential school.