Solen recently completed her Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Her dissertation, titled Culturally Modified Capitalism: The Native Northwest Coast Artware Industry, is an examination of “how Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal individuals who are currently participating in the Native Northwest Coast artware industry of Vancouver (B.C.) view this market’s present configuration and envision its future."
Solen's dissertation argues that "the artware industry is being progressively shaped into a form of Culturally Modified Capitalism in relation to enduring concerns about levels of Aboriginal involvement, different conceptions of authenticity and collaboration, as well as tensions between democratization and exclusion, deterritorialization and localization, individual and collective interests, and development and sustainability.”
Solen became an IPinCH Graduate Student Associate in 2009 while she was doing her fieldwork. When the time came to write her dissertation, she was granted an IPinCH Graduate Student Fellowship. Soon thereafter, she was asked to join Sven Ouzman as co-chair of the Commodifications of the Past? Working Group. In this capacity, she is currently organizing a workshop on the theme of "Indigenous Peoples, Cultural Commodification, and Self-Determination” to be held in early May 2013 at the University of British Columbia. Solen is currently teaching two courses as a sessional instructor (one at UBC and one at SFU), and has begun her search for a more permanent position in a university or museum.
The full text of Solen's dissertation is available here >
