Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Movements

Anthropology 35

Fall 2000

Meeting time and place
113 Hopkins, MWF 11:00-11:50

Office Information
Office: 307 Hopkins Center
Office phone:  #2219
e-mail:  thoops@austincollege.edu
                Office hours:  Mon. and Wed. 1:00-3:00, and Tues. and Thurs. 9:00-11:00
 (I'm often available at other times as well)

What this course is about

This course examines the place of native peoples and ethnic groups occupy in today’s world, and the struggles of these groups to protect their identities, sovereignty and culture.  That is the course content in a nutshell; the actual story is much more complex.  Perhaps we should start by noting the amazing fact that indigenous groups still exist in today’s world.  Indeed, their demise has long been predicted.  Already in the 19th century prominent social theorists like Franz Boas, Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx were predicting the inevitable demise of the remaining native inhabitants on the earth.  This was an age of imperialism and technological progress, after all, and the disappearance of native peoples seemed simply a matter of time.  Darwin’s evolutionary thinking, when applied to human societies, seemed to back up these predictions:  if only the fittest of a species survive, then, since primitive peoples were "less fit" on the continuum of human societies, they would inevitably be swept away by the advancing tide of civilization.  The nationalistic and liberal sentiments of the 19th century made the disappearance of the native almost a mission; political leaders and thinkers like the great South American liberator San Martin, and the Argentine educator Domingo Sarmiento, believed that it was the mission of modern nations to incorporate native peoples into the national fabric. The resulting demise of native cultures would help sweep away ignorance and superstition.  Modernist thinkers of the 20th century believed that native peoples needed to abandon their traditions if they wished to fully participate in the benefits of modernization and build a future for themselves.  Socialists and other radical thinkers believed that the persistence of ethnic enclaves and identities were products of exploitative systems linked to global capitalism, and advocated raising the consciousness of members of these groups which would inevitably eliminate the natives' need for common cultural association and identity.   Inevitably, the modern age drove forward the forces that tended to destroy traditional native cultures:  the global exploitation of natural resources, the expansion of markets for industrial goods into previously untouched regions, the advance of grand scale religions that accompanied colonial expansion, the increasingly volatile wars between colonial powers in regions far from Europe.  And indeed, the dire predictions of the demise of native cultures seemed inevitable, as colonial expansion swallowed up, destroyed or transformed native cultures all over the globe.  On the American continent, where this process has a history of over five centuries, the destruction of native cultures has been called the Great Holocaust.  Even today where native peoples survive, their lands, resources and cultures continue to be threatened on all sides.  Certainly the Mayans in Guatemala, the Miskito in Nicaragua, the Quichua in Peru, the Yanomamo and Kayapo in Brazil, the Aborigines in Australia, the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq, and numerous other groups have become household names spread through news stories as they try to protect themselves against the ravages of war, racism, and genocide.  Nevertheless, despite the doomsday forecasts of experts, native peoples and ethnic groups continue to survive, and in some places, to thrive politically and economically, causing anthropologists, policy makers, and development experts to rethink their assumptions about the inability of these groups to adjust to the modern world.  Perhaps even more surprisingly, the end of the 20th century saw a renewed appearance of “ethnic politics” in such places as Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sudan, Palestine, Indonesia, and some of the former Soviet republics, as native and ethnic groups became increasingly involved in struggles for liberation and autonomy.

So who are these people?  John Bodley (author of Victims of Progress) estimates that there are 220 million indigenous peoples living in the world today (in this figure he is not including all the ethnic minorities that live within and across national boundaries, a much larger number).  Traditionally it has been anthropology’s job to address this question.  Why anthropology?  Of all the disciplines in the modern university, anthropology is perhaps the one most equipped to say something about indigenous peoples because it has spent much of its disciplinary life in the study and accumulation of  knowledge about them.  Since its beginnings as a discipline more than a century and a half ago, anthropology has been the only discipline that has systematically and continuously focused on the study of “primitive" societies.  In fact, while anthropologists study all kinds of human groups today, the discipline continues to be known within the public arena as the field that concentrates on the exotic world of pre-modern tribal societies (this may be a blessing or a curse, depending on how you look at it).  And anthropologists do admit that to a large degree the methods and approaches that they use to study human society come from their experiences studying societies that were relatively isolated (from our point of view), had no written records or histories, and had relatively little contact with the modern world (we will see that these were often assumptions anthropologists made of the societies they studied, but were perhaps more the result of the anthropologists’ perceptions than of the reality of the societies they were studying).  Even today, when anthropologists delve into the classroom and the corporation, the discipline still holds to the anchor of native cultures as the basis for calling itself a comparative science of humanity.

Who are these indigenous societies that anthropologists have spent so much time and energy visiting and studying?  In the past decade or so anthropologists have begun looking at this question more closely.  As they have begun to critically examine the assumptions built into their studies of these societies, it has become evident that this is a much more complicated question than previously thought.  In the past it was assumed that tribal societies had slowly evolved into their present forms, and that it was anthropology's task to explain the forces that directed that process of evolution (and by doing so, to begin explaining the origins of human society).  The value of studying  so called primitive societies was that it could teach us that humans have the capacity, through the medium of culture, to create and live in radically different ways.  However, recent critical re-examination of the historical record has revealed that many “tribes” did not “evolve” slowly into their present form, but rather were transformed by their contacts with the outside world through colonial expansion and the expansion of market forces.  In the past anthropologists often assumed that these societies were politically naive, and therefore defenseless against outside encroachment; the historical record has revealed that non-state societies have often carried out hard fought, and often ingenious, struggles to preserve their lands, their resources and their cultures against the destructive powers of outside encroachment.  Indeed, many of the cultural institutions assumed to simply be part of traditional tribal cultures may have been recent inventions which appeared in response to outside encroachment.

Such issues have led anthropologists to re-examine their understanding of primitive societies and the place they occupy in the modern world.  Questions have arisen about how anthropology conceptualized the societies it studied, and how it carried out its disciplinary “practices.”  Among the questions raised by this effort to re-examine the discipline is where the notion of the primitive or tribal or native comes from.  It certainly isn't what these groups call themselves.  If the notion of primitive it is a Western construct, what conceptual baggage is “built into” the concept, and what does the term tell us about how Western society (and anthropology) understands (and invents) itself?  Certainly the concept, as it is used today, has its roots in European colonialism; this raises other questions.  How did the concept serve the interests of colonial expansion?  How have non-western societies been affected by colonialism, and how did their characterization as “primitive” (other terms such as barbarians, savages, Indians, pagans, backward people) justify Western treatment of them?  If anthropology used the term uncritically over the course of a century, what kind of relationship does this suggest that anthropology had with the colonial project?  These questions raise some other issues that are directly relevant to the survival of non-western societies today.  Can non-western “primitive” societies find a means to speak for themselves?  How can these societies survive in today's world?  And, how can anthropology contribute to their survival?

So you see, there are a lot of issues that we will be addressing in this course.  The semester itself will be broken down into four components or modules.  I’ve titled these as follows:

1. Identities

Literary critique Edward Said has suggested that the primitive, like the “oriental,” functions as a quintessential, necessary other to Western society.  This may seem a bit obscure for the moment, but he means essentially that Westerners are interested in the primitive primarily to understand something about who they themselves are.  This segment will deal with the primary issue of who native peoples and ethnic groups are, how they have been (and continue to be) perceived in Western society, and what impact this has had on native peoples around the globe.

2. Encounters

This segment focuses on the nature of the encounters between native peoples and larger political forces and institutions such as colonialism and the state.  In this segment we will ask why colonial expansion took place to begin with, and the kinds of impacts that it had on native peoples around the globe. We will focus particularly on one tribal group, the Nuer of southern Sudan, as it struggles to survive a devastating and genocidal civil war.  The Nuer are particularly significant in anthropology because they are the subjects of one of anthropology’s most famous, and most influential, ethnographic studies, so a great deal is known about them.  The case will allow us to see that the encounter can have extremely complex consequences on cultural traditions, and that maintaining a cultural identity in crisis conditions can be very difficult.

3. Regeneration

This idea is taken from one of our books called The Spirit of Regeneration.  The thesis of this book and of this segment is that native groups have their own cultural resources to negotiate their relationship with the external world, and to critique the larger economic and political systems that encroach on their worlds.  This segment will explore what the West means by development and modernization, and how Quechua Andean peoples critique those notions.  We will also examine how indigenous systems of knowledge allow native peoples to carry alternative forms of development which don’t violate their cultural values and ethics.

4. Relations with the State

This segment explores one of the most critical issues facing native peoples and ethnic groups today, their relationship with the state.  We will look at how states address their relationships with distinctive groups within their borders.  Issues of sovereignty, language, land, autonomy, cultural practices, and representation are all critical in this relationship.  We will particularly be looking at one case, that of one group of Aborigines in Australia.

Readings for the course

The following books are required readings for the course.  They are or will be available in the bookstore.

Maybury-Lewis, David:  Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Groups and the State.  1996.  Allyn & Bacon.

Bodley, John:  Victims of Progress, 4th Edition.  1998.  Mayfield Publishing Company.

Hutchinson, Sharon:  Nuer Dilemmas.  1996.  University of California Press.

Apffel-Marglin, Frederique, ed:  The Spirit of Regeneration.  1998.  Zed Books.

McIntosh, Ian:  Aboriginal Reconciliation and the Dreaming.  2000.  Allyn and Bacon.

Course requirements

Participation

A number of criteria are included under the rubric of class participation, including attendance, preparedness in class, and contributing to the class experience and to the conversation which forms our classroom experience.  Evaluation of participation is necessarily subjective, but I will be promoting continuous opportunities to participate in class, so that you shouldn’t be a great deal of difficulty getting full credit in this area.

Attendance

Perfect attendance during the semester is often impossible, and in certain circumstances (attending a conference, a job/medical school interview, etc.) you may need to be absent.  Nevertheless, absences have detrimental effects on classroom discussions and interaction.  My attendance policy attempts to strike a balance, encouraging you to attend regularly, but not punishing you if you must be absent a few times during of the semester.  Accordingly, you may be absent from the course fives times during the semester without penalty.  More than five absences will bring your course grade down ½  a grade point, and each three absences following this will bring your grade down another ½  grade.  To encourage your faithful attendance, I will reward those who are absent three or fewer times by raising their average by ½ grade.  I should note that there is a hidden double penalty in too many absences… they also bring down your participation grade.

Tests

The two tests will include an in class short answer component, and a take home component.

Critics Corner:  The Movie Project

Thjs small project, due early on in the semester, involves watching a contemporary movie about indigenous/native peoples.  A complete description of the project will be handed out during the second week of class.

The Indigenous Peoples Web Project

As a class, we will be building a web site dedicated to disseminating critical and thoughtful information about indigenous groups around the world.  Hopefully future classes will be able to build on this web site, and Austin College can become one of many sources for those interested in learning more about indigenous peoples.  The project will include a number of components  Each member of our class will focus on one indigenous group during the course of the semester, and build a web page dedicated to that group.  Each web page (which will also have a link to a world map) will contain the following information:

1. A title identifying the group and perhaps identifying its current situation (for example:  Fighting the Rising Tide:  The Kayapo and the Brazilian State)
2.  A short section outlining basic information about the group:  its population, where members of the group live, the cultural geography of the group (villages, rivers, mountains, and the like), current issues facing the group, and other basic information.
3. Environmental/land issues and the relationship of the group to its environment.  The length of this will vary with the group, but land and the environment is one of the most important issues for most indigenous groups.
4. An account of some of the most important cultural and social organizational characteristics of the group.  This will be one of the more substantive components of your project, and will require a bit more work.  These may include how the group makes a living, its kinship and marriage practices, its religious practices and cosmology, the nature of its leadership, and other basic characteristics.
5. An analysis of the relationship of the indigenous group to the state; an exploration of issues of autonomy, sovereignty and political representation.  This segment of the project will also include a historical account of that relationship.
6. A list of sources that you used to compile your report, and to which outside readers can turn for further information.  The sources will include books, articles, web sites, and newspaper articles.

Development of the project will take place in stages.  Each of these stages will be evaluated, and feedback given.  There are five steps to this project:

1. Exploration:  you will examine at least three distinct indigenous groups of interest to you in order to select one group for the project.  Your selection should be based on whether there are adequate sources available, and whether you will have access to the group or to people who have studied the group.
2. Compilation of a bibliography and list of sources from the web and news sources.
3. Ethnographic description of the group you have chosen to study, including its relationship to the environment, social relations, leadership, and cosmology.  I will be handing out a description of this component later in the semester.
4. The encounter of this group with outsiders.  You may need to explore the impact of colonialism, the struggle with the state, the articulation of the group with the larger economy.
5. Compilation of the web site.

Late Policies

I want to encourage you to complete your work on time.  However, I will permit written work to be turned in two days late without penalty, as long as it isn’t critical to class discussion and class activities on the due date.  However, assignments turned in late after this period will receive a 1/3 grade lower for each day that it is turned in late.

A Note about my Teaching

One of my favorite authors and poets, Kathleen Norris, argues that there is a clear distinction between scholars and poets.  She says:  “Scholars speak with authority, and they must, as they are trying to convince the reader that they have a worthwhile point of view.  On the other hand, poets speak with no authority but that which the reader is willing to grant them.  Our task is not to convince but to suggest, evoke, explore.” (The Cloister Walk, p. 37).  I wonder if perhaps, in teaching about others' realities, both approaches aren't necessary.  My primary task in this class, I think, is to open up to you the possibilities of other worlds, of other ways of living, of other realities, and to give you tools to understand those worlds.  One anthropologist has stated that the task of anthropology is to make difference intelligible. While I want to transmit to you a body of knowledge about a discipline (my expertise, and therefore the source of my authority), I also want you to come to own as your own the perspectives offered by the cultures we will encounter.  You will find that the strategies I use in my teaching, which include class discussions, a call to introspection, critical thinking about our own culture as it is illuminated by other cultural practices and world views, are also attempts to "suggest, evoke, explore."

Grading

As you can see, the total of all of the class requirements adds up to 100 points.  Grading is based on the following percentages:
 

A      93-100
 A-    90-92
 B+    87-89
 B      83-86
 B-     80-82
 C+    77-79
C      73-76
 C-    70-72
 D+    67-69
 D      63-66
 D-    60-62
 F      below 60

 Extra Credit

There two ways of getting extra credit:

Academic integrity

It is important to remember that the effort you put into this class should be fully yours; you should take full credit, and be given full credit, for the products of your own efforts and insights in this class.  You want to remember as well that the work of others that you use in formulating your own ideas and writing should be attributed to them.  The notion of integrity underlies the scholarly enterprise, which really is simply an interchange or conversation among scholars examining topics of common interest.  We are all privileged to be taking part in this conversation.

Reading and Topic Schedule*

Identity

Sept. 6      Introduction

Sept. 8      Time article:  Vanishing Tribes
                 Video:  The Gods Must be Crazy

Sept. 11     in class readings

Sept. 13     Bodley chpt. 1

Sept. 15     Bodley chpt. 2
                  Maybury-Lewis chpt. 1

Sept. 18     The Tasaday debate
                  In class readings

Sept. 20     Tasaday debate: the issues

Sept. 22     National Geographic
                  Maybury-Lewis chpt. 2

Sept. 25      Critics corner: Movie project discussion

Encounters

Sept. 27      video:  Contact:  The Yanomano Indians of Brazil

Sept. 29      Hutchinson, Prologue and chpt. 1
                   Maybury-Lewis chpt. 3

Oct. 2          video:  The Nuer

Oct. 4          Bodley, chpts. 3 & 4

Oct. 5          Ariel Dorfman lecture

Oct. 6          Hutchinson, chpt. 2

Oct. 9          Hutchinson chpt. 3

Oct. 11        Step 1 of Web Project due

Oct. 12 -15   Spring Break

Oct. 16         Hutchinson chpt. 6

Oct. 18         Hutchinson chpt. 7

Oct. 20       Test 1

Regeneration

Oct. 23          video:  Apu Condor

Oct. 25          Bodley chpts. 9 & 10
                      Step 2 of Web Project Due

Oct. 27          slides:  the Andean World
                      Bodley chpt. 7 & 8

Oct. 30          Development and regeneration
                      Apffel-Marglin (A-M) Introduction

Nov. 1           Indigenous knowledge of the environment
                      A-M chpt. 2

Nov. 4           Indigenous communities
                      A-M chpt. 3

Nov. 6           Healing
                      A-M chpt. 4

Nov. 8           Education
                      A-M chpt. 6

Nov. 11         Decolonization
                      A-M chpt. 7

Nov. 13         Step three of Web project

Relations with the State

Nov. 15         Bodley chpts. 5 & 11

Nov. 18         Maybury-Lewis chpt. 4

Nov. 20         McIntosh pp. 1-22

Nov. 22         McIntosh pp. 23-60

Nov. 22 - 25 Thanksgiving break

Nov. 26         McIntosh pp. 61-76

Nov. 28         McIntosh pp. 77-100

Dec. 1            McIntosh pp. 101-122

Dec. 4            McIntosh pp. 123-138

Dec. 6 & 8     Steps four and five of Web Project

Dec. 11          Review Day

Dec. 12          Final test (9:00-11:00)

*It is important to recognize that while a syllabus is a guide which allows all of us in the class to be on the same track, it is not written in stone.  There may be times when we need to spend more (or less) time on a subject or issue than is called for, and we may need alter our schedule for other reasons as well.  When this happens I will be sure to let you know where we are on the syllabus.  However, the reading schedule will probably be followed pretty tightly, so you want to pay attention to that.