The reluctant sovereign: New adventures of the US presidential Thanksgiving turkey (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

  1. Magnus Fiskesjö

Article first published online: 5 OCT 2010

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8322.2010.00757.x

Issue

Anthropology Today

Anthropology Today

Volume 26, Issue 5, pages 13–17, October 2010

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How to Cite

Fiskesjö, M. (2010), The reluctant sovereign: New adventures of the US presidential Thanksgiving turkey (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate). Anthropology Today, 26: 13–17. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8322.2010.00757.x

Author Information

  1. Teaches anthropology and Asian studies at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York State, and from 2000 to 2005 was director of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, Sweden. He has conducted field research in the Wa country in the China-Burma borderlands and published on many aspects of ethnic relations and ethno-politics in East and Southeast Asia, and on museums and global heritage issues. His email is nf42@cornell.edu

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 5 OCT 2010
  2. Article first published online: 5 OCT 2010

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This article revisits the annual US presidential ritual of pardoning a Thanksgiving turkey, and explores the changes made to the procedures since 2003, when the author's Prickly Paradigm pamphlet on the issue was published. This includes such curious developments as the turkey being retired to Disneyland in Florida instead of a nearby petting zoo; the presidential contender Sarah Palin's attempt at pardoning her own turkey, a PR disaster with a twist; the new Virginia-based movement to pardon a pig instead of a turkey; and President Obama's apparent reluctance in face of the ceremony — by now a spectacle so firmly implanted in US political life that it can no longer be dislodged. An extended interpretation is offered for just how all these developments relate to the deep-seated American ambivalence towards the place of Native Americans in the nation's history, as well as towards the position of the US as a military superpower.

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