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- Convenor:
-
Yoshinobu Ota
(Kyushu University)
- Location:
- Convention Hall B
- Start time:
- 18 May, 2014 at
Time zone: Asia/Tokyo
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
This panel is an exploration in anthropological responses to the global "indigenous presence," one of the undeniable historical signs that mark this century. Its four panelists critically reflect on possibilities and limitations for anthropological practices in often volatile field sites.
Long Abstract:
This panel is an exploration in anthropological responses to, what James Clifford has termed, the global "indigenous presence," one of the undeniable historical signs that mark this century. Such issues as repatriating patrimonial objects and human remains, revitalizing disappearing languages, mobilizing collectivities through cultural performances, and struggling for collective rights in liberal democracy have surfaced in many settler-nations whose histories of assimilation are now turning in a multicultural direction. This turning, call it a "decentering of progressive narrative of (Western) modernity," has refueled in this century a radical yet constructive critique of anthropology.
Some of the questions to be addressed in this panel might include as follows: how is anthropological knowledge renewed, transformed, and rearticulated in the face of "indigenous presence"?; what is a place of anthropological knowledge in indigenous curatorial practices?; how is it possible to denaturalize taken-for-granted notions of modernity and indigeneity?; what are some terms of condition necessary for keeping anthropological knowledge open and non-confrontational?
As anthropologists with field experiences in multiple locations, four panelists reflect on the futures of anthropological practices as they face the "indigenous presence": Sachiko Kubota (Kobe University) draws from her experience of working among the Australian Aboriginal people, Mitsuho Ikeda (Osaka University) among the Guatemalan Mam Maya people, Yoshinobu Ota (Kyushu University) among the Guatemalan Kaqchikel Maya people, and Koji Yamasaki (Hokkaido University) among the Japanese Ainu people.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the concept of "be indianness" through case study on recent local political debates and conflicts among a Mam Mayan town in Guatemala. To think "be indianness" through their social issue, can be potential for changing their own images.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines their own concept of "be indianness" ( ser indígena in Spanish) relating concept of "democracy"(democracía) through case study on recent local political debates and conflicts among a Mam Mayan town in western highland Guatemala. After the 36 years internal conflict ending in Dec. 1996, the government and the armed rebels unity have agreed with constructing the multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic Guatemala. But this idealistic principle remains only in official papers as political slogan and chiefly is forgotten, or is now transmogrified as commercial slogan in ethnic tourist papers. There is very official bureaucratic approach in which indigenous real political issues are/should be excluded from their cultural arena. Even many anthropological studies point out that modern indigenous political movements are incorporated with not only traditional but also newly invented/interpreted cultural thinking, the politicians, bureaucrats lawyers, and other professionals are familiarize with dichotomist thinking between culture and [real]politics. For them "cultural politics" and "political culture" are uses of oxymoron. To think "be indianness" incorporated their own culture through their political issue, in our case by talking on "what democracy is," can be potential for changing their images. But this process is avoidable to have a certain cultural dialogic intervention by anthropologists that reminds us the history of action anthropology in 1960s.
Paper short abstract:
The ethnography analyses the identity, and educational micropolitics of indigenous intelligentsia in Mexico who did not assimilated to the mestizo. The question is if and how nation-state is made from the margins.
Paper long abstract:
Mexican nationalism from the 19th and 20th centuries pretended to homogenize the population creating a mestizo identity and culture through compulsory education. This cultural politics changed in 1992, when the Political Constitution was amended, and Mexico changed into a multicultural and multilingual nation. The cultural project produced a bipolarity tradition-modernity and the impossibility to combine indigenous and professional in one single person. In spite of a very limited access to education there is a growing number of professionals who identify themselves as indigenous since decades who graduated in both academic programs for indigenous and for non-indigenous.
This ethnography analyzes the meaning and representation of indigenous professionals based on the assumption that the national, regional, local, ethnical, gender and generational identities are mutually constructed within the endless construction of nation-state (Canessa 2005). The second assumption is that nation-state is a cultural negotiation and an ethnical social closure (Wimmer 2002).
The study analyzes how some indigenous professionals negotiated their politics of indigeneity and education during the school process, how they represent themselves socially and symbolically in the cities versus their non-indigenous colleagues, how they represent themselves socially and symbolically in their places of origin versus their indigenous rural and non-professional mates, if they become cultural brokers, if they develop new cultural, indigenous identity politics or discourses within their laboral space, and if the meaning and representation of urban indigenous professionals changed after the amendments of the national cultural policies.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, social changes concerning Aboriginal people in Australia will be examined. In the future, what does it mean to be ‘Indigenous’ for them?
Paper long abstract:
From the 1970s, the settler colonial states such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand among others developed and drive to spread the idea of 'indigenous rights' in international arena. The definite group called 'indigenous' has emerged in various places by the end of 20th century as a result. In many countries the recognition of indigenous identity leave widened.
In Australia, Aboriginal issues are always treated with national interest in current situation and it started to be visible especially since 1970s. In other words, the indigenous issues became one of the main concerns of the country. Although, until very recently, Aboriginal people were treated as second citizen and been excluded from social arena. How these drastic changes happened? And further, what is the future of Aboriginal people as indigenous? In this presentation, I will first talk about general historical changes surrounding Aboriginal people special reference to Yolngu, in northeastern Arnhem Land, Australia. And then to examine the changes experienced by Aboriginal people to discuss what is the meaning and importance for Aboriginal people to become 'Indigenous'.
Paper short abstract:
A comparative study of how indigenous politics of identity might be viewed in three locations: Guatemala, the Ryukyu Islands, and Hokkaido, Japan.
Paper long abstract:
This paper is a comparative study in formations of anthropological theories as they arise in response to the indigenous politics of identity in three locations: Maya movement in Guatemala, "Independence" activism in the Ryukyu Islands, Japan and Ainu activism in Hokkaido, Japan. While anthropologists have evaluated increasingly widespread indigenous visibility in Latin America--post -Peace Accord Maya case in Guatemala, for example--as already being circumscribed by the state-sponsored neoliberal multiculturalism, I advance a more open-ended, articulatory perspective toward the same visibility observed in two Japanese cases, both of which make me, a Japanese anthropologist/citizen, to reflect critically on my own theoretical stance largely resulting from my fieldwork experience in Guatemala. In the Ryukyu Islands the discourse of decolonization has been wide-spread; it anchors its legitimacy in the language of indigeneity. "Independence" activists express their desire for self-determination by translating decolonization as the exercise of indigenous right. For some Ainu activists their challenge is to reaffirm in contemporary Japan their presence after being declared as completely disappeared, an act of reinsription which not only reconfigures the meaning of (indigenous) sovereignty but also adumbrates a possible future for historical healing.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, I pay my attention to the phenomenon at the museum and discuss about the Ainu people and their culture.
Paper long abstract:
In 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted "The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples". Correspondingly, both the House of Representatives and the House of Councilors unanimously adopted the "Resolution to Recognize the Ainu as an Indigenous People" on 6th of June, 2008. In response to these new developments, the Chief Cabinet Secretary formed "The Advisory Council for Future Ainu Policy". In July 2009, the Advisory Council submitted its Final Report. Based on the Final Report, the "Council for Ainu Policy Promotion" was set up. Now, the Council is working on the realization of comprehensive recommendations by the former Advisory Council, which identified policy priorities in Japan with reference to the UN Declaration.
Currently, indigenous people of the world are taking the initiative to revive their traditional cultures, and it seems the movements are picking up steam. The Ainu people are no exception.In an event there, a parallel phenomenon is observed worldwide. One of the examples of such an attempt is the project to make replicas of the old artifacts owned by museums. This activity is now looked upon as a helpful procedure to regain what has been lost and integrate the traditional skills of ancestors into contemporary works. Moreover, the activity makes the new cultural resources.
In future, the relations with indigenous people and the museum will be deepened. In this paper, I report the possibility of cultural anthropological renewals by practice and struggle at the museum.