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- Convenors:
-
Martin Hebert
(Université Laval)
Cristhian Teofilo da Silva (Universidade de Brasilia)
- Stream:
- Worlds in motion: Worlds, Hopes and Futures/Mondes en mouvement: Mondes, espoirs et futurs
- Location:
- SITE B0138
- Start time:
- 5 May, 2017 at
Time zone: America/New_York
- Session slots:
- 3
Short Abstract:
This panel brings together anthropological experiences that reach beyond the "suffering subject" as a representation of Indigenous Peoples in colonial situations. The objective is to examine avenues for an anthropology that is relevant to opening up possibilities, desires, and futures.
Long Abstract:
Calls for renewed anthropological attention to aspirations, hopes, utopias, and futures have multiplied over recent years. They have come from within the discipline, from our research partners, as well as from other scholars and activists preoccupied with the foreclosing of possibilities that the "end of history" ideology seems to take for granted. Anthropology has made many important theoretical and ethnographic contributions to our understanding of social and cultural suffering and resistance in colonial settings and power asymmetric structures. The present panel seeks to build on this critical anthropology. However, following other authors (Marcus and Fischer 1986, Robbins 2013, Ortner 2016), we recognize the theoretical and political limits of framing critical anthropology within the boundaries of multifaceted reduction, resilience and resistance, all defined in relation to the violence of a given situation. By discussing various case studies relating to Indigenous peoples of the Americas in a comparative perspective, we will examine the ways in which anthropology can better account for, and enter in closer dialogue with various forms of constituent imaginations, be they hopes, utopian desires, life projects, scenarios of autonomy and self-determination, bien vivir and other forms of possibilities and futures actively made today. The panel welcome papers that address concrete experiences and experiments in alternative world-making in the Americas. We announce an emphasis on Indigenous contexts, but we also encourage contributions in which hopes, futures and utopias cut across worlds and ethnicities.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
Nous examinerons la manière dont des projets politiques autochtones interagissent avec divers récits concernant le futur. Cette démarche nous mènera à des conclusions sur les apports de l'anthropologie à l'étude empirique et socio-politiquement située de la construction sociale de futurs.
Paper long abstract:
L'histoire des communautés autochtones de la Selva lacandona du Chiapas (Mexique) est marquée par une série de ruptures avec des ordres sociaux localement jugés comme inacceptables. Qu'il s'agisse de l'exode hors des communautés traditionnelles des Hautes-terres à partir des années 1930, de renégociations des identités autochtones/paysannes dans les années 1960-70, ou de mobilisations anti-hégémoniques dans la foulée du soulèvement zapatiste de 1994, l'idée de (re)construire le monde social de manière intentionnelle est présente dans la politique régionale depuis longtemps. Dans cette communication, nous examinerons la manière dont ces projets politiques sont en interaction avec divers récits concernant le futur, les espoirs politiques et les possibilités d'un véritable changement social. À partir de données ethnographiques et documentaires recueillies depuis vingt ans dans la région, nous nous attarderons ici principalement 1) à l'articulation d'expériences locales avec la téléologie chrétienne de la "libération", 2) à l'intertexte qui existe entre elles et diverses expériences révolutionnaires latino-américaine, en nous attardant notamment aux rapports avec le récit de leur "échec" inéluctable, et 3) à l'appropriation locale de divers futurs mis en scène dans les discours écologiques. L'examen de ces trois avenues et de leurs enchevêtrements nous mèneront à proposer des conclusions sur les apports de l'anthropologie à l'étude empirique et socio-politiquement située de la construction sociale de futurs.
Paper short abstract:
La antropología como ciencia de la diversidad humana debe contribuir a una verdadera convivencia interétnica e intercultural. Mejores y mas altos índices de digitalización y conectividad entre colectivos de poblaciones vulnerables pueden contribuir significativamente a fortalecer su cultura.
Paper long abstract:
La interculturalidad realmente existente, se compone de aproximaciones emprendidas desde varias ópticas culturalmente diferenciadas, para construir puentes entre poblaciones e individuos de culturas distintas cuyas relaciones sociales son asimétricas y enmarcadas por estructuras de poder. Es una interfase comunicativa que aspira a crear competencias suficientes que hagan posible un verdadero diálogo entre culturas. El diálogo de saberes solo puede establecerse entre culturas realmente existentes, que producen nuevos componentes y que se apropian de otros, que se transforman y adaptan permanentemente para no desaparecer o ser asimiladas. En un mundo global, asimétrico, desigual, injusto y culturalmente diverso, las acciones con un enfoque intercultural de mayor impacto no se dan en el ámbito de la educación, sino en el terreno de la comunicación. La multimedia y las llamadas redes sociales se han convertido en una arena de combate por las ideas, los principios y los intereses de grupos y sujetos marginados y vulnerables. También es el lugar donde se expresan acciones de denuncia y se produce y transmite información a través de dispositivos móviles y plataformas de intercomunicación que escapan al control monopólico de los grandes medios. También es el espacio donde concurren acciones que buscan el reconocimiento de grupos étnicamente diferenciados y que plantea la necesidad de poner en movimiento procesos de comunicación intercultural que vayan mas allá de las luchas por el reconocimiento y establezcan mecanismos de respeto y convivencia duraderos.
Paper short abstract:
Les scénarios d’autonomie et espoirs de développement envisagés aux îles Marquises par les acteurs des milieux politiques et culturels seront abordés à travers quelques cas de projets concrétisés et en cours d’élaboration, illustrant des visions d’avenir parfois concurrentes, parfois concomitantes.
Paper long abstract:
Les îles Marquises (Henua 'Enana en marquisien du nord) constituent l'archipel le plus septentrionnal du « plus vaste pays océano-insulaire » au monde , la Polynésie française, une construction coloniale tout à fait récente rassemblant plusieurs peuples polynésiens géographiquement éloignés et culturellement distincts. Des élus marquisiens ont dénoncé depuis les années 1960 la domination politique, économique et culturelle du gouvernement central de Tahiti, accusé de ne laisser à leur archipel « que les miettes » des subventions octroyées par la France et de ne pas faire profiter leurs îles du développement qu'a connu le centre. S'inscrivant en faux par rapport au clivage politique dominant entre indépendantistes et autonomistes (polynésiens), une mouvance autonomiste marquisienne revendiquant la sécession de la Polynésie française et un statut propre pour leur archipel, au sein de la France, a ainsi pris forme. Replaçant cette tendance dans le paysage politique plus large, cette présentation aborde les scénarios d'autonomie imaginés par différents acteurs des milieux politique et culturel marquisien, et les « images-souhaits » (Bloch 1976) et espoirs fondés par ces derniers en termes de développement. À l'aide de quelques cas de projets concrétisés et en cours d'élaboration, les intersections de ces visions d'avenir parfois concurrentes seront examinées.
Paper short abstract:
This paper draws from Sider's (2014) notion of the building of tomorrow through the daily life of today along with the Iroquois spiritual concept of renewal to explain the means and process by which the Kanatsiohareke Mohawks have attempted to develop an alternative present and future for Mohawks.
Paper long abstract:
This paper draws from Sider's (2014) notion of the building of tomorrow through the daily life of today along with the Iroquois spiritual concept of renewal to describe and explain the means and process by which the Kanatsiohareke Mohawks have attempted to develop an alternative present and future for Mohawk people. The community was established in 1993 in their ancestral homelands in the Mohawk river valley in New York State following the social and ecological devastation among the St. Lawrence Mohawk communities caused by the creation of the seaway and the casino economy at Akwesasne. This paper examines how these Mohawks have utilized the spiritual metaphor of renewal to describe and explain their movement as a renewal of relationships to the ancestral homelands and renewal of Mohawk identity and peoplehood through the reconnection with each other and with the land (and the agrarian use of the land). This metaphor of renewal also involves their relationships with local non-indigenous people and the bonds of social solidarity that have been developed along the lines of a shared moral economy. This contemporary relationship with non-indigenous locals is expressed in the historical analogy of the relationship between the Mohawks and the Palatine Germans in the Eighteenth Century. This paper therefore examines meanings involved in this conceptualization and its translation into a practice of agrarian solidarity across ethnic and religious lines as all try to build a new life for themselves with each other within the context of the shifting political economy of late capitalism.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the resurgence of traditional food practices among urban Indigenous elders and activists in central Vancouver Island, Canada.
Paper long abstract:
In a context where the demands of urban life make 'living on the land' much less feasible, this paper explores the tensions between continuity and change within the resurgence of Indigenous food practices. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2013, it explores the nature of resurgence through three key questions. Firstly, how are the tensions between the continuity of traditional practices and the drastic changes to the environment and community life precipitated by settler colonialism negotiated through resurgent practices? How are traditional practices and knowledges evoked as a movement of shared meanings through time and across communities to make sense of uncertain contemporary circumstances? And, lastly, through exploring the merging of temporal spaces (between the past and present), can we uncover a way of thinking through and recognizing tradition or indigeneity without making an evaluation of some level of cultural 'authenticity'?
Paper short abstract:
Throughout the collaboration of the recovering of the Xavante's memories it is possible documenting not only the processes that caused deep changes in their lifes, but also to see the memories beyond pain's narratives revealing ideals of future and an idea of death which doesn't represent an end.
Paper long abstract:
Anthropology has been very successful in documenting the violence imposed on the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas throughout the process of colonization and formation of national states. In Brazil, the Xavante People of Maraiwatsédé has regained the right to return to their territory and are now struggling to obtain reparation for the forced removal that almost exterminated them in 1966. The recovery of the memories of the survivors has been a way of documenting the process that caused deep changes in their way of life, food system, health and social organization. The collaboration with the transcription of 42 testimonies of the survivors allowed me to analyze personal memories of violence, going beyond narratives of pain and injustice and reaching ideals of future associated to an idea of "death", whose conception does not seem to represent an end, but an strategy of (re) existence that connects the history of each person to those who have died and, in this sense, represents collective continuity. Relativizing the Western conception of utopia (MORUS 1495), and understanding the discourse as the "most direct manifestation of the consciousness that seeks an understanding" (BASSO 1995), the analysis of the utopia in the Xavante's elders narratives doesn't mean abandoning the analysis of the colonial violence but also looking into visions of the future that has almost ruined their society's project despite the "world-modern-system", pointing out to ways to combine descriptions of disgrace and sadness to ontologies that contribute for overcoming and healing the past.
Paper short abstract:
This paper broadens the scope of what it means to be “political” by exploring: What constitutes “political participation” amidst ongoing social, economic and political crises and transformations? What futures are being imagined, and how are they shaped by past experiences and present struggles?
Paper long abstract:
The upheavals of Brexit and Trump have greatly destabilized the UK, Europe, and the US, exposing and exacerbating deep divides and resentments several decades in the making: between neglected peripheries who have lost out from globalization and metropolitan centers who have gained from it, between those with college degrees and those without, and between black, brown and white communities. This paper draws from my ongoing dissertation fieldwork in Cardiff and the South Wales Valleys, which focuses on Wales as a particular case study of how political and "infrapolitical" subjectivities are shaped by, shaping and emerging from the contemporary crisis conditions and contradictions of liberal democracies across the globe, in which centrist politics is unraveling, far-right and left-wing populist movements are gaining strength, and crises of social reproduction and oppositional politics are intensifying. While much research is understandably focused on the growth of populist social and political movements, critically, my project extends this research by attending to emergent and less visible subjectivities of individuals feeling discontent with the establishment, but whose disaffection stirs beneath and on the edges of conventional "political" forms. This paper illuminates ambivalent feelings and viewpoints often covered over by "spectacular moments" of democratic participation (e.g. referendums, elections and protests) that reduce complex positions to binary choices between being either "for" or "against," "yes" or "no." Further, it highlights how individuals in motion around social movements and political events are more privately negotiating complex dilemmas, expressing and envisioning desires, and grappling with life-choices and political imaginaries during a time of great uncertainty.