Michael Heckenberger, Ph.D.
Title : Associate Professor
Interests : Brazil, complexity and complex societies, archaeology and history
Programs : Archaeology
Personal Statement
I place my work at the critical interface of anthropological subfields, within what has been called historical anthropology, a mode of inquiry that aims to build bridges and establish dialogue between different points of view, analytical mediums, and spatio-temporal scales. My research involves ethnographic, historical, and archaeological fieldwork among Amerindian peoples in the Amazon (with secondary interests in other parts of the Americas and the Pacific) and theoretical interests include the philosophy of history, social theory, and, particularly, sociopolitical and symbolic systems through time. I believe that history is mediated through symbolic systems that have their own logic or internal structure, a "deep" cultural order that is both structuring of and structured by history, but maintain a strong geographic and ecological orientation, within the context of historical ecology and landscape approaches. My work requires a commitment to holistic and deeply contextual research and interpretation, but is not framed in opposition to "positivist" viewpoints, whether evolutionist or functionalist. Instead it focuses on how abstract symbolic and structural principles are expressed in concrete social and ecological strategies within specific socio-historical cases and how these change over time, the intersection of local and European histories after c. 1500.
Office
Turlington Hall, Room B360
PO 117305
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-7305
Lab
Turlington Hall, Room B309
Office Phone Number: (352) 294-7586
Lab Phone Number: (352) 294-7571
Email: mheck (@ufl.edu)
Webpage: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/mheck
