description Signe Howell Overview
Signe Howell is a Norwegian social anthropologist whose research has addressed kinship, adoption, personhood, morality, and indigenous cosmology. She is particularly associated with long-term ethnographic work among the Chewong, an Indigenous people of Peninsular Malaysia. Her scholarship is intended for students and researchers in social and cultural anthropology, especially those studying Southeast Asia and comparative forms of relatedness.
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Who is Signe Howell?
She is a Norwegian social anthropologist long associated with the University of Oslo. Her research addresses kinship, adoption, personhood, morality, and indigenous cosmology.
What did Signe Howell study among the Chewong?
She carried out long-term fieldwork among the Chewong, an Indigenous people of Peninsular Malaysia, examining their cosmology, rules of behavior, and concepts of the person. The work was published as 'Society and Cosmos: Chewong of Peninsular Malaysia' (1984).
What did Signe Howell write about adoption?
Alongside her Chewong work, she turned to transnational adoption in Norway, analyzing how adoptive kinship is created across cultural and national boundaries. Her writing from the 2000s onward helped shape anthropological debates on what makes relatives 'real' kin.
Where does Signe Howell's Chewong research fit in anthropology?
Her Chewong ethnography, published in 1984, became a key reference in studies of indigenous Southeast Asian cosmology and personhood. It is frequently cited in kinship theory alongside her later Norwegian adoption research from the University of Oslo.
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