Paper short abstract:

After decades of critical reflection on the performative effects of words, and given today's global crises, we consider from the perspective of social anthropology the appropriateness of continuing to think about the category of "indigenous" beyond rights and multicultural policies.

Paper long abstract:

Categories matter. Anthropology has reflected critically on the performative effects of words, for example with deconstruction of the concept of race (Margaret Mead 1940; Lévi-Strauss, Leiris, Métraux 1959) and its culturalist parallel (Stolcke 1995) after the Second World War, and recognition and problematisation of hybrid categories—like mestizaje (Bernand & Gruzinski 1992; Gruzinski 1999; Amselle 1990; De la Cadena 2006; Wade 2004; Stolcke 2008; Ventura et al 2014)—for diluting essentialisms. Besides drawing attention to the political effects of categories on human collectives, anthropology has consolidated thoroughgoing reflection on the limits of thinking about the world on the basis of deep-rooted dichotomies in western thought, especially when starting from the nature/culture division. Paradoxically, the category of "indigenous"—imbued with blood cleansing ideologies of colonial times, enlightened racial theories, and twentieth-century culturalist perspectives—has been widely revived in recent decades after being reclaimed by social movements and international organisations, and to such an extent that anthropology has turned the debate over its use into a question of rights (Kuper 2003; Kenrick & Lewis 2004; Gausset, Kenrick & Gibb 2011) or choice (Viveiros 2006). In a world where environmental and health crises are increasingly global, this paper aims to question the appropriateness of continuing to observe reality from the standpoint of the category of "indigenous", and to consider how anthropology can keep thinking about cultural diversity in an overall framework of human rights.