Studying indigenous groups: the case of Yanomam

1
Studying indigenous groups the case of Yanomamö

• continued

2
Video Yanomami Homecoming

• The story of Yarima and Kenneth Good
• National Geographic filming crew
• New Jersey vs the Amazon jungle
• Yarima
• Noble savage
• Cinderela Rebelde
• Times (London)
• The Stone Age bride who had exchanged her
  paradise in New Jersey for the rain forest.

3
Contested identities ethnicity, race and nation
in South America

• 25.02.2004

4
Readings

• Maybury-Lewis (2001) Becoming Indian in Lowland
  South America. (in Urban and Sherzer)
• Wade (2003) Race and Nation in Latin America An
  Anthropological View. (in Applebaum, Macpherson,
  and Rosemblatt)

5
Nation and nationalism as objects of study I

• Nationalism political doctrine
• humanity can be divided into separate, discrete
  units nations
• shared culture
• shared language
• shared religion
• shared history
• each nation should constitute a separate
  political unit a state
• shared territory
• being ruled by people of the same kind
• Based on ideas of romantic Germanic philosophers
  Herder and Fichte
• Also anthropological concept of culture (Boas)
• gt Anthropology shares an intellectual history
  with nationalism

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Nation and nationalism as objects of study II

• For long ignored in social sciences
• Weber and Marx
• lot on class but little on nation
• underestimation of the power of nationalism
• anthropologists - rarely questioned the idea of
  nationhood
• studies of ethnicity dominated
• A few early studies by Mauss, Dumont, and Geertz
• on nationalism and national rituals

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Nation and nationalism as objects of study III

• Nationalism as a distinct object anthropological
  study - 1980s
• several reasons
• 1960s and 1970s
• separatist nationalisms in Europes peripheral
  areas (eg. Brittany the Basque country, Scotland)
• civil war and violent movements towards
  separatism in the 3rd World (eg. Africa)
• 1980s
• collapse of communist regimes and explosion of
  nationalist and separatist conflict in Eastern
  Europe (eg. former Yugoslavia).

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Nation and nationalism as objects of study IV

• a number of theoretical books on nationalism in
  the 1980s, early 1990s
• Ernest Gellner Nations and Nationalism (1983)
• links between nationalism and modernity
• industrial society based on a necessary cultural
  homogeneity
• state takes control over the process of cultural
  reproduction
• -gt institution of mass schooling
• gt Nationalism a modern phenomenon
• Gellner anthropologically unfashionable
• Hobsbawm and Ranger Invention of Tradition
  (1983)
• rituals and symbols of nationalism
• challenge to authenticity and long history of
  nationalist claims
• Benedict Anderson Imagined Communities (1991)
• nationalism as a modern phenomenon
• nationalism as a mode of political imagination
  (like religion or kinship)
• strongest impact on anthropology
• gt new research on nationalist cultural
  production

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Presentations

• Radcliffe, S., and S. Westwood 1996. Remaking the
  Nation Place, Identity and Politics in Latin
  America.

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Discussion topics

• What factors favour and what constitute a
  challenge to nationalism and nation building" in
  South America and why?
• Mestizaje racial harmony or a cover on racist
  and ethnocidal whitening practices?
• What has "becoming Indian" in South America meant
  in worst and "best" cases?

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Multiple identities in South America

• 1) Communal identity
• Pueblismo, Paisanazgo
• 2) Regional identity
• Eg. Andean vs coastal identity in Peru
• Maracaibo vs Caracas
• 3) Ethnic identity
• 4) National identity
• imagined community
• National symbols, heroes, invented traditions
• 5) Indigenous identity
• Consolidated by Europeans
• indio vs indigena
• Pan-ethnic
• 6) (Racial identity)
• Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia
• latinos
•