Totem: The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology

From the Co-Editors

For twenty years now TOTEM has been publishing creative anthropological works written by students from across the globe. Contributions from all of the various sub-disciplines of archaeological, linguistic, socio-cultural and bioarchaeological research have provided readers with insight into the novel research of graduate and undergraduate students pursuing the study of humans and human behavior. Our goal for this issue was to expand upon the exemplary work of our predecessors and to further contemporary conversations between the sub-disciplines that challenge artificial boundaries which separate the insights of each from the others. There is a thematic thread then that runs through this issue that explores how language affects our understanding of bodies and biology, how new approaches to biology might alter our assumptions regarding human bodies and behavior in the past, and how challenging expectations becomes an essential ingredient in a healthy and broadly conceived anthropology capable of including diverse approaches as additive interventions.

We are very excited to announce the winner of this year’s Editor’s Choice Award, Julien Cossette for his paper entitled “How far is it?” which highlights the role of geo-technologies in recreational activities and employs a rigorous ethnographic method that combines an adept use of theory with the authors’ fieldwork in a rarely addressed community; one which breaches the divides between online and “real” worlds, and reaches towards new ways of understanding personal risk and threatened places.

Furthermore, we would like to welcome Dr. Andrew Walsh as our unofficial TOTEM advisor, and we would like to thank him for taking an interest in the well-being of the student body at Western University by supporting one of its leading publications.

We received many interesting submissions this year and would like to thank everyone who chose to submit to TOTEM. Our authors did excellent work throughout the sometimes too lengthy review process and the peer-reviewers helped maintain the integrity of the journal through engaged and encouraging feedback. We thank everyone who contributed to this issue, all of the past editors, our colleagues and peers in the department of Anthropology at the University of Western Ontario. We hope you enjoy this issue and we look forward to your submissions in the coming years!

Kelly Abrams & Kaitlyn Malleau
Department of Anthropology
The University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario
June 2014