It was controversial even at the time. Had he published it in 2020.. well he probably could not have done so at all in a mainstream anthropology journal by then.
Although I get your point and don’t disagree, I am of the mind that people should be called by their desired nomenclature. I’m not sure what the Native American community can or cannot agree to, but I would be interested in their consensus opinion. Up until the late 60’s , early 70’s we called Black people “negroes. .” That was replaced with “Black” or “ African American. “ it was a good change and pretty much has stood the test of time.
Yeah totally agree. For North America, I don't think there's polling or anything on that subject, but my impression has been that activist-minded folks that are really politically engaged tend to use Indigenous but the majority use some other term. Native, Indian, American Indian, the actual Tribal name, etc. I think the term is implicitly an appeal to the larger political movement, so if you're not invested in that, then you tend not to use it.
I do recall polling on that question, since I included it in the class "racial and ethnic minorities" that I taught about 15 years ago. "Indian" was widely preferred over Native American by Indians themselves, though that may have changed somewhat since then. I believe Hispanic and Black were also widely preferred over the newer alternatives. I can look up where I got that from if interested, probably best to drop me an email at jindraprof@gmail.com.
A major article here is "Twenty-first century indigenism” 2006; 6; 455 Anthropological Theory
Richard Borshay Lee . Below are some notes I took from it, in case that is helpful to anyone . I did like parts of the article, because he acknowledges that people in indigenous groups vary from modernizers to traditionalists, but yes he does make it a political category along the lines you discuss.
Notes:
"the main story is how indigenous people are connected to the land, how indigenous people are living in cultures that are profoundly non-capitalist, and how their ongoing existence bears witness that even in this hard-bitten age of real-politik and globalization, other ways of being, other ways of living in the world are possible.” p. 472
Distinguishes Indigenous One describes the Americas after 1492, Australia after 1788 and probably Siberia after 1600 in the period of Russian eastward expansion; small peoples facing Eurocolonial invasion and conquest. Native Americans, from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego, are the classic cases.
Indigenous Two deals with the parts of the world where those claiming to be indigenous are encapsulated, not by European settler states, but by agrarian polities in which the dominant ethnicity situates itself in one or another of the Great Traditions from which the indigenes are excluded. Thus we have India and its scheduled tribes, Malaysia with its Orang Asli, and Indo-China and its Montagnards (cf. Mittal and Sharma, 1998; Winzeler, 1997). (It may also be useful to add Indigenous Three for groups reclaiming lost identities, such as the Neo-Khoisan discussed above.)
Thanks! I figured there had to be some literature on this beyond my armchair. I'm glad there's some anthropologists reading this to fill in the blanks. i'll give this a read.
relevant (and published more than two decades ago!):
https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/631/return-of-the-native
That's a fantastic read! Thanks for sharing. Interesting that this person mapped onto a lot of the same issues two decades ago.
It was controversial even at the time. Had he published it in 2020.. well he probably could not have done so at all in a mainstream anthropology journal by then.
Although I get your point and don’t disagree, I am of the mind that people should be called by their desired nomenclature. I’m not sure what the Native American community can or cannot agree to, but I would be interested in their consensus opinion. Up until the late 60’s , early 70’s we called Black people “negroes. .” That was replaced with “Black” or “ African American. “ it was a good change and pretty much has stood the test of time.
Yeah totally agree. For North America, I don't think there's polling or anything on that subject, but my impression has been that activist-minded folks that are really politically engaged tend to use Indigenous but the majority use some other term. Native, Indian, American Indian, the actual Tribal name, etc. I think the term is implicitly an appeal to the larger political movement, so if you're not invested in that, then you tend not to use it.
I do recall polling on that question, since I included it in the class "racial and ethnic minorities" that I taught about 15 years ago. "Indian" was widely preferred over Native American by Indians themselves, though that may have changed somewhat since then. I believe Hispanic and Black were also widely preferred over the newer alternatives. I can look up where I got that from if interested, probably best to drop me an email at jindraprof@gmail.com.
A major article here is "Twenty-first century indigenism” 2006; 6; 455 Anthropological Theory
Richard Borshay Lee . Below are some notes I took from it, in case that is helpful to anyone . I did like parts of the article, because he acknowledges that people in indigenous groups vary from modernizers to traditionalists, but yes he does make it a political category along the lines you discuss.
Notes:
"the main story is how indigenous people are connected to the land, how indigenous people are living in cultures that are profoundly non-capitalist, and how their ongoing existence bears witness that even in this hard-bitten age of real-politik and globalization, other ways of being, other ways of living in the world are possible.” p. 472
Distinguishes Indigenous One describes the Americas after 1492, Australia after 1788 and probably Siberia after 1600 in the period of Russian eastward expansion; small peoples facing Eurocolonial invasion and conquest. Native Americans, from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego, are the classic cases.
Indigenous Two deals with the parts of the world where those claiming to be indigenous are encapsulated, not by European settler states, but by agrarian polities in which the dominant ethnicity situates itself in one or another of the Great Traditions from which the indigenes are excluded. Thus we have India and its scheduled tribes, Malaysia with its Orang Asli, and Indo-China and its Montagnards (cf. Mittal and Sharma, 1998; Winzeler, 1997). (It may also be useful to add Indigenous Three for groups reclaiming lost identities, such as the Neo-Khoisan discussed above.)
Thanks! I figured there had to be some literature on this beyond my armchair. I'm glad there's some anthropologists reading this to fill in the blanks. i'll give this a read.