Indigenous Peoples

1. Indigenous Peoples ANTH 146

2. Terms • Indigenous peoples • Tribal / Tribal people • Genocide • Ethnocide • Terra Nullius • Social Darwinism • Imperialism • Economies and • Colonialism • Exchange

3. Indigenous People • claim their lands because they were the 1st or have occupied them since time immemorial • are groups that have been conquered by peoples racially, ethnically, or culturally different from themselves (Colonization, Westernization, Urbanization and the role of Nation State)

4. Native peoples of the Americas share many parallels with indigenous peoples today • Indigenous peoples had no place in the making of the Nation-state.

5. Social Darwinism • Theory of social evolution • Based on Darwin’s theory of evolution • Scientific support for imperialism • Proved Western superiority • Justified imperialism in the name of progress.

6. Social Darwinism • Placed societies on an evolutionary framework • Hierarchy with indigenous and tribal peoples at the bottom and Western societies at the top • Natural order of things was for stronger, more advanced people to conquer and rule over weaker, more backward ones

7. To overcome “backwardness” and indigenous society was urged to: • Abandon its traditional way of life • Abandon its language • Cease to exist as a separate society • Assimilate with the population

8. Ethnocide • Conquest of the indigenous peoples was justified • They were not fully human (no rights) • Need to civilize them • Development • Indigenous peoples stand in the way of development

9. If indigenous peoples unwilling to assimilate • They undermine the State • Impede modernization

10. Economies • Definition: Making or getting a living • Production, Distribution, Consumption • Economic types: • Foraging, food-collecting  reciprocal exchange, mobile bands, consumption for survival • Horticulture, garden cultivation  redistribution by chiefs for prestige • Pastoralism  redistribution Agriculture  market exchange, private land ownership Industrialization – of goods and food  market exchange, stratified social classes, consumption goal in itself • Service/information economies

11. Exchange • Exchange (distribution of goods) promotes social cohesion • Major types of exchange: • Reciprocity • Redistribution • Market

12. Reciprocity • Food collecting, small-scale societies • Egalitarian • Fosters long-term relations • Everyone taken care of  moral economy • Redistribution • Centralized collection of surplus (food, goods, etc.) by chief • Redistribution through feasting – provides for all • Often competitive -- gain in status, prestige

13. Market Exchange • Buying/selling of commodities (even food) • Direct exchange of goods (barter) • Exchange through money

14. Nomads: Foragers/Pastoralists • Highly mobile • Inconvenient to nation-states • Straddle national boundaries • Disrupt the imaginary map of homogenous development

15. Hunter and Gatherer • Pastoralists • Animal husbandry • Horticulturalists • Swidden agriculture / slash and burn

16. Indigenous cultures are not extinguished by natural laws but by political processes that are susceptible to human controls.