Download Handout Eight: Identity and Mobilisation

SC286
Week Ten Handout
Anthropology of Latin America
Session 8
New Indigenous Movements
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Introduction: The Indigenous Resurgence
Indian nations – reinvented tradition
Who speaks for the indians?
A Bolivian Case
A new language of identity
Introduction: The Indigenous Resurgence
In recent years indigenous peoples have been challenging a number of Latin American myths:
1) The iconic Latin American citizen is the mestizo a member of the “cosmic race”.
2.) The continent’s indigenous cultures and inhabitants no longer exist, or persist in miniscule
numbers as living museum exhibits in isolated pockets.
Why?
Deepening economic crisis.
Democratisation opening political spaces
The failure of class-based politics to address indigenous peoples’ issues.
Western support for environmental issues – the eco indian
Indian nations - reinvented traditions.
Hobsbawm and Ranger define reinvented tradition as "a set of practices, normally governed by
overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain
values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past."
Invented tradition, while it refers to the past, is in reality a response to current conditions,
providing conceptual continuity in the face of adaptations to novel situations.
Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983 The Invention of Tradition Cambridge: CUP
Recuperación 'Repossession' especially in the context of land rights. But also repossession of
culture.
Read from Joanne Rapport ‘Reinvented traditions’ 1993 p 213.
Recuperación...has also been used as a gloss for economic innovation, such as the
development of new agricultural techniques promoting self-sufficiency, regardless of whether or
not these methods find their roots in the past. As such, recuperación is at once a return to the past
and a masking of innovation by reference to history. A good example of this is the introduction in
Cumbal of datura as a fumigant against potato rust. Although the use of datura is called
recuperación, the plant ha never before been employed in this way. Its introduction thus marks an
innovation that is masked by a reference to historical continuity expressed through the use of the
term recuperación. But on the other hand, the use of datura as a fumigant does imply a return to
the past, to a time in which potato rust did not exist and when communities were not heavily
indebted by their dependence on chemical fumigants.
The national symbols we have been considering certainly demonstrate a degree of
continuity with the past. Nevertheless, each of them is also an invented tradition. On the one hand,
elements of the flag and crests are part of the Guambiano, Páez and Cumbal recent pasts, pushed
chronologically back to the distant past in order to fore a link with pre-Columbian peoples. On the
other hand, some of the emblems have been "excavated" from the distant past without forging a
direct link to the present.
The Guambiano flag provides a good example of the first. By depicting contemporary
clothing on their flag, the Guambiano create a symbolic link to their distant past: the cloth is
handmade and unique to Guambía, and is hence perceived by both Gambians and by outsiders as
"traditional" and a marker of Guambiano identity. In reality, the contemporary Guambiano
costume is a twentieth-century innovation; mid-nineteenth century watercolours of Guambianos
depict different types and styles of cloth from those used today. The inclusion in the flag of
clothing as a marker of tradition is therefore more of an image of a link to the past than empirical
evidence of such a connection.
Questions
 Why is the link to the past important?
 Why do contemporary indians invent flags and other trappings of nationhood?
 What is the significance of the fact that Guambiano traditional dress is less than a hundred
years old?
 Can things be traditional and new?
 Where does authentic Guambiano culture lie?
Who speaks for the indians?
Ramos questions:
1. How is the ‘hyperreal indian’ more real than the real flesh and blood version?
2. How do indian support NGOs depend on indians for their survival? How is their work
disrupted by ‘flesh and blood’ indians?
3. In what ways is the ‘hyperreal indian’ a product of bureaucracy?
4. Why, according to Ramos, are few anthropologists professional indigenists? Is anthropology
antithetical to the kind of indigenism describe here or does it also feed it?
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Read from Laura Graham (2003) ‘How should an indian speak’, p. 207
Verbal artistry and other cultural forms are often deployed as projections of pride and cultural
strength as well as to win political advantage by appealing to Western idealisations. In the late
1980sand 1990s the Kayapó became masters in the art of using cultural performance, a magnificent
sense of theatre, and verbal arts for political gain. When Brazil’s plans to construct a series of
hydroelectric dams that would flood portions of Kayapó land became public, the Kayapó leader
Payakan conceived of staging a huge protest demonstration in the Amazonian town of Altamira.
The event, which took place in February 1989, was designed to be a media spectacle that would
appeal to the Western appetite for Indian exotica. In addition to 500 Kayapó, hundreds of other
indians came to Altamira to show their support. Assured of an authentically stunning display, as
well as a politically fascinating encounter and high-level government officals, journalist from
around the globe flocked to the remote Amazonian frontier town where some 1,200 people had
gathered.
The indian participants staged dramatic cultural performances that drew heavily on visual
signs of indianness, verbal arts, and dances. Indians’ spectacular oral performances, both song and
dance and oratorical displays, attracted the attention of new crews. National and international
press often documented these native-language performances on the basis of their aesthetic appeal
alone. For example, a Xavante leader held the attention of film crews as he delivered a speech to
the cameras in the oratorical style of Xavante political discourse with no accompanying translation.
…One of the most stunning displays at the Altamira event was staged by a Kayapó woman,
Tuire, who approached the podium brandishing a machete. Gracefully and deliberately she
symbolically swiped it against the cheeks of the director of the regional power company as she
orated in Kayapó. Her gestures and speech were so symbolically powerful that no translation was
necessary. None was offered, and the audience roared with applause in support of her
performance.
Questions:
 Who are the real indians here? Who are the hyperreal indians?
 To what extent to indians participate in their own exoticisation? Why would they do so?
 Why was translation often not necessary in many of these oratorical performances?
 What would have been gained by speaking in Portuguese? What would have been lost?
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A Bolivian Case of ecoindianness and a new language of political engagement
Indigenous Protest in the 70s and 80s
Weak and ineffective
1990 March of territory and dignity
One of the clearest and most public indications of the ‘indigenous emergence’.
The Water War 1999-2000
A ‘war’ about water being controlled by multinational companies.
The Gas War 2003
Another resource ‘war’ which ultimately overthrew the government.
A new language of identity
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