This course brings together ethnographic and ethnohistorical accounts about Indigenous Peoples’ history and culture in South America comparing them with strategies of Indian self- representation in order to characterize a new space of struggles and negotiations in the current process of Indian political mobilizations.
Prerequisites:
None
Learning outcomes:
This course aims at bringing awareness to the fact that Indigenous Peoples’ history and culture should not be taken for granted. “History” and “culture” are Western constructs that do not necessarily resonate with the various notions elaborated out of the experiences of the mostly violent contacts between Indians and non Indians since 15th century. By approaching this problem, the course seeks to enhance sensitivity to “other” experiences and notions of being, acting and changing in time-space. Questions to explore will be: How was/is the history and culture of Native Peoples in South America traditionally represented? What general picture of Indians and Indian-ness do these strategies convey? How these images are affected by the current political Indian empowerment in South America? Which are some of the images, discourses and practices of becoming “Indian” and “new Indian”? How do they combine and/or clash with Western ideas of historicity, culture and Indian-ness?
Method of presentation:
The instructor will outline the main themes and issues of each session. Students will expose texts assigned beforehand and comment on them. A general discussion will be then organized under the guidance of the instructor. A recapitulation will ensue.
Required work and form of assessment:
There will be one short paper-essay format- (mid-term 30%) and a final exam (50%). Class participation will be strongly encouraged (20%). At least 75% of class attendance is required.
content:
1st week: Western Civilization’s New World
Christian love, terror and a woman devoured by dogs…
TODOROV, T. 1999 (1982) “Understanding, Taking Possession, and Destroying”; “Enslavement, Colonialism and Communication.” In The Conquest of America. The Question of the Other. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 127-145; 168-182.
…and the contemporary Pro-Indian bureaucrat’s frustration with real Indians.
RAMOS, A. R. 1994 “The Hyperreal Indian.” Critique of Anthropology 14:153-171.
2nd week: In search of a framework: received analytical categories and values about the “Native Peoples of South America”
Indians!: Pointing to the Power of Representations in the Public Sphere. A Power-Point Montage of experts’, journalists’ and laymen’s visual discourse.
What American-lead anthropology “established” during the mid-50s and still lingers on: notions of Indian as “culture area”, “culture type”, “ecological adaptation,” and “evolution.”
STEWARD, J. and L. FARON. 1959 “Retrospect and prospect” in Native Peoples of South America. New York: MacGraw Hill Book Co, 445-471.
3rd week: The re-emergence of Indigenous Peoples: a framework of analysis
Why are Western representations of Indian-ness and attitude toward Indians being contested today? A view from political science: struggles for citizenship and democracy.
YASHAR, D. 1998 “Contesting Citizenship Indigenous Movements and Democracy in Latin America.” Comparative Politics 31 (1): 23-42.
How do Indian leaders express their sense of “return”, “demand” and “struggle”? Political and cultural self-representation of history and culture.
ANGER, E. and MUÑOZ, E. 2003 “Indigenous Leaders Speak Out.” In Contemporary Indigenous Movements in Latin America. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, 195-209.
4th week: Visual strategies of Indigenous self-representation: the Kayapó Video Project
Why and how have the Kayapó appropriated videofilm? Have they “lost” their “culture” by doing this? Do they think of themselves in terms of the anthropologist’s idea of “culture types”? What is this new role of the anthropologist?
Screening of videos filmed by the Kayapó.
TURNER, T. 1992 “Defiant Images: The Kayapo Appropriation of Video.” Anthropology Today 8 (6): 5-16.
5th week: Culture and History as “realities”, “inventions” and “experiences” in the contact zone
Which are some of the consequences once “culture” and “history” are thought of as “inventions”? Whose “invented” culture and history? And whose “real,” then?
JACKSON, J. 1989 “Is There a Way of Talking about Making Culture Without Making Enemies?” Dialectical Anthropology 14 (2): 127-144.
Indigenous mythical and historical consciousness of the experiences of the deadly history of contact.
HILL, J. 1988 “Introduction: Myth and History.” In Hill, J. (ed.) Rethinking history and myth: indigenous South American perspectives on the past. Urbana and Chicago: niversity of Illinois Press, 1-17.
TURNER, T. 1988 “Commentary: Ethno-Ethnohistory: Myth and History in Native South American Representations of Contact with Western Society.” In Hill, J. (ed.) Rethinking history and myth: indigenous South American perspectives on the past. Urbana and Chicago: niversity of Illinois Press, 261-271.
Contact zones of contention, alliance and misunderstanding.
PRATT, M. L. 1991 “Arts of the Contact Zone.” Profession 91:33-40. New York: MLA.
6th week: The “Paraguayan” contact zone
A more or less “real” historical panorama of interethnic relations in Paraguay from 15th to 19th century
SAEGER J. 1999 “Warfare, reorganization, and readaptation at the margins of Spanish rule - The Chaco and Paraguay (1573-1882).” In Salomon F. and S. Schwartz (eds.) The Cambridge History of Native Peoples of The Americas. Volume III, Part II, 257-286.
…and a more or less “artful” experience of history by the Ishir of northern Paraguay.
ESCOBAR, T. 2007 The Curse of Nemur: In Search of the Art, Myth and Ritual of the Ishir (Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press.
MID TERM EXAM (instructions for the essay)
7th week: Activity 1: We Are The Indians/Mbya Tierra en Rojo. Discusion with director
Valeria Mapelman and anthropologist Diana Lenton.
MID-TERM EXAMS (Deadline for the essay)
8th week: BREAK
9th week: Activity 2: Accompanying an Indigenous Peoples’ counter-commemoration: The Last Day of Freedom.
10th week: The “Southern” contact zone
A more or less “real” historical panorama of interethnic relations in Araucanía, Pampas and Patagonia from 15th to 19th century.
JONES, K. 1999 “Warfare, Reorganization and Readaptation at the Margins of Spanish Rule: The Southern Margin (1573-1882)”. In Salomon F. and S. Schwartz (eds.) The Cambridge History of Native Peoples of The Americas. Volume III, Part II, 138-168.
The Rankülche, a reemerging “extinct tribe:” reading an Indian historical and political statement.
LAZZARI, A. 2010 Self-organizing the return of the Phantom Indian. In The Autonomy of the Apparition: Phantom Indians, Selves and Freedom (on the Rankülche in Argentina). Unpublished Ph. D. Thesis. New York: Columbia University.
Browsing images in a text by a Rankülche activist.
CANUHE, G. 1998 Un largo camino de regreso a casa. m.s
11th week: The “Gran Chaco” contact zone
A more or less “real” historical panorama of interethnic relations in the Gran Chaco from 15th to 20th
century.
BRAUNSTEIN, J. y E. MILLER. 1999 “Ethnohistorical Introducción.” In Miller, E. (ed.) Peoples of the Gran Chaco. London, Bergin & Garvey, 1-24.
Interpreting Toba Indians counter-memories…
GORDILLO, G. 2002 “The Breath of the Devils: Memories and Places of an Experience of Terror.” American Ethnologist 29 (1): 33-57.
…and the dialogues between Toba and anthropologist in Buenos Aires.
WRIGHT, P. 1999 “Histories of Buenos Aires.” In Miller, E. (ed.) Peoples of the Gran Chaco. London, Bergin & Garvey, 135-156.
12th week: Activity 3: Exploring Buenos Aires in search of “in-visible Indians”
13th week: The “Amazonian” contact zone
A more or less “real” historical panorama of interethnic relations in the Amazon from 15th to 20th century.
RAMOS, A. R. 1994 “Frontier expansion and Indian Peoples in the Brazilian Amazon.” In Weber, D. and J. Rausch (eds.) When Cultures Meet. Frontiers in Latin America History. Jaguar Books on Latin America, 6. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources Inc, 196-211.
Surviving colonialism by telling tales of violence.
RIVAL, L. 2002 Trekking through History. The Huaorani of Amazonian. Ecuador. New York: Columbia University Press, 46-67.
14th week: The “Andean” contact zone
A more or less “real” sociocultural panorama of interethnic relations in the Andean from 15th to 20th century.
WOLF, E. and E. HANSEN. 1972 The Human Condition in Latin America. London, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 71-99.
A shamanic curing of the diseases of “history” and “culture”…
TAUSSIG, M. 1987 Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man. A Study in Terror and Healing. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 435-446.
…and an Aymara counter-memory workshop.
STEPHENSON, M. 2002 “Forging and Indigenous Counterpublic Sphere: The Taller de Historia Oral Andina in Bolivia.” Latin American Research Review 37 (2): 99-116.
Questions for take home FINAL EXAM
15th week: General Review and discussion of the main issues and cases studied
FINAL EXAM (deadline)
Notes:
Activity 1: We Are The Indians / Mbya Tierra en Rojo
Screening of the documentary (2006) and encounter with the director, Valeria Mapelman and anthropologist Diana Lenton. The film is about the Mbya Guarani survival in Northeastern Argentina. Directors: Philip Cox, Valeria Mapelman. Spanish, English subtitles.
Activity 2: Accompanying an Indigenous Peoples’ counter-commemoration: The Last Day of Freedom.
On October 11, Indigenous organizations, allies and general public use to gather in order to express their claims on official memory and culture. We will assist this commemoration in order to have a first-hand experience of the topics of the course. A brief summary of the impressions by each student will be discussed on the next class.
Activity 3: Exploring Downtown Buenos Aires in search of “in-visible Indians:” a tour hosted by Mapuche activist Miguel Leuman.
Argentina is generally imagined (and desired) by insiders and outsiders as a “country without Indians”. Why? Standard expert and common-sense accounts point to the “transplant” of European immigrants stocks into these lands in late 19th century. They would have contributed -- the story goes on -- to the building up of an “enclave” of white European-ness in a region of South America where there were nothing but “empty” or “depopulated” spaces. Yet, these spaces were inhabited by peoples which were killed, ousted and “absorbed” as a consequence of frontier expansion through military campaigns and settler colonization. This process is still undergoing through soybean agribusiness and mining.
Perhaps Argentina could be better understood as a “country with invisible Indians”. In-visibility is dual, meaning too much to see and not enough to see. So in-visible Indians appear in two fundamental ways:
1) as a saturation of Indian-ness in circumscribed spaces; and 2) as a trace, a suspicion that happens to pass by.
In this activity, a tour in search of in-visible Indians in Buenos Aires, we will be hosted by a Mapuche
Indian activist, Miguel Leuman. We will start at the foot of the Monument to General Roca. This statue is today a contested site, a dangerous crossroad of official history and non-official memories as attested by the graffiti and the damages it has suffered. Roca is officially recognized as the founder of the modern Argentine State, mainly because he conquered the Indian territories in Patagonia, Pampa and Chaco. This is precisely what the Indian activists that have left their marks on the statue accused him of. For them, Roca is the symbol of a State terror and genocide. Our host will abound on this issue. From this monument we will go to visit the Museo Etnográfico, a place where the Indian is exhibited between walls. Perhaps, in our explorations, we will “sense” the phantom Indian in bodies, attitudes, smells... for in Argentina, one of its names is “the people”. Enjoy it!
Brief Biography of Instructor:
Axel Lazzari is Ph. D in Anthropology (Columbia U.), M.A. in Anthropology (Museu Nacional, U. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Licenciado en Antropología (U. de Buenos Aires). He currently teaches graduate (Doctoral Program) and undergraduate courses at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and the Universidad de General San Martín. He is also a researcher at CONICET. He has published in Argentina, the United States and Great Britain on indigenous peoples and the history of anthropology.
Native Peoples Of South America 16Th - 20Th Centuries
This course brings together ethnographic and ethnohistorical accounts about Indigenous Peoples’ history and culture in South America comparing them with strategies of Indian self- representation in order to characterize a new space of struggles and negotiations in the current process of Indian political mobilizations.
None
This course aims at bringing awareness to the fact that Indigenous Peoples’ history and culture should not be taken for granted. “History” and “culture” are Western constructs that do not necessarily resonate with the various notions elaborated out of the experiences of the mostly violent contacts between Indians and non Indians since 15th century. By approaching this problem, the course seeks to enhance sensitivity to “other” experiences and notions of being, acting and changing in time-space. Questions to explore will be: How was/is the history and culture of Native Peoples in South America traditionally represented? What general picture of Indians and Indian-ness do these strategies convey? How these images are affected by the current political Indian empowerment in South America? Which are some of the images, discourses and practices of becoming “Indian” and “new Indian”? How do they combine and/or clash with Western ideas of historicity, culture and Indian-ness?
The instructor will outline the main themes and issues of each session. Students will expose texts assigned beforehand and comment on them. A general discussion will be then organized under the guidance of the instructor. A recapitulation will ensue.
There will be one short paper-essay format- (mid-term 30%) and a final exam (50%). Class participation will be strongly encouraged (20%). At least 75% of class attendance is required.
1st week: Western Civilization’s New World
Christian love, terror and a woman devoured by dogs…
TODOROV, T. 1999 (1982) “Understanding, Taking Possession, and Destroying”; “Enslavement, Colonialism and Communication.” In The Conquest of America. The Question of the Other. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 127-145; 168-182.
…and the contemporary Pro-Indian bureaucrat’s frustration with real Indians.
RAMOS, A. R. 1994 “The Hyperreal Indian.” Critique of Anthropology 14:153-171.
2nd week: In search of a framework: received analytical categories and values about the “Native Peoples of South America”
Indians!: Pointing to the Power of Representations in the Public Sphere. A Power-Point Montage of experts’, journalists’ and laymen’s visual discourse.
What American-lead anthropology “established” during the mid-50s and still lingers on: notions of Indian as “culture area”, “culture type”, “ecological adaptation,” and “evolution.”
STEWARD, J. and L. FARON. 1959 “Retrospect and prospect” in Native Peoples of South America. New York: MacGraw Hill Book Co, 445-471.
3rd week: The re-emergence of Indigenous Peoples: a framework of analysis
Why are Western representations of Indian-ness and attitude toward Indians being contested today? A view from political science: struggles for citizenship and democracy.
YASHAR, D. 1998 “Contesting Citizenship Indigenous Movements and Democracy in Latin America.” Comparative Politics 31 (1): 23-42.
How do Indian leaders express their sense of “return”, “demand” and “struggle”? Political and cultural self-representation of history and culture.
ANGER, E. and MUÑOZ, E. 2003 “Indigenous Leaders Speak Out.” In Contemporary Indigenous Movements in Latin America. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, 195-209.
4th week: Visual strategies of Indigenous self-representation: the Kayapó Video Project
Why and how have the Kayapó appropriated videofilm? Have they “lost” their “culture” by doing this? Do they think of themselves in terms of the anthropologist’s idea of “culture types”? What is this new role of the anthropologist?
Screening of videos filmed by the Kayapó.
TURNER, T. 1992 “Defiant Images: The Kayapo Appropriation of Video.” Anthropology Today 8 (6): 5-16.
5th week: Culture and History as “realities”, “inventions” and “experiences” in the contact zone
Which are some of the consequences once “culture” and “history” are thought of as “inventions”? Whose “invented” culture and history? And whose “real,” then?
JACKSON, J. 1989 “Is There a Way of Talking about Making Culture Without Making Enemies?” Dialectical Anthropology 14 (2): 127-144.
Indigenous mythical and historical consciousness of the experiences of the deadly history of contact.
HILL, J. 1988 “Introduction: Myth and History.” In Hill, J. (ed.) Rethinking history and myth: indigenous South American perspectives on the past. Urbana and Chicago: niversity of Illinois Press, 1-17.
TURNER, T. 1988 “Commentary: Ethno-Ethnohistory: Myth and History in Native South American Representations of Contact with Western Society.” In Hill, J. (ed.) Rethinking history and myth: indigenous South American perspectives on the past. Urbana and Chicago: niversity of Illinois Press, 261-271.
Contact zones of contention, alliance and misunderstanding.
PRATT, M. L. 1991 “Arts of the Contact Zone.” Profession 91:33-40. New York: MLA.
6th week: The “Paraguayan” contact zone
A more or less “real” historical panorama of interethnic relations in Paraguay from 15th to 19th century
SAEGER J. 1999 “Warfare, reorganization, and readaptation at the margins of Spanish rule - The Chaco and Paraguay (1573-1882).” In Salomon F. and S. Schwartz (eds.) The Cambridge History of Native Peoples of The Americas. Volume III, Part II, 257-286.
…and a more or less “artful” experience of history by the Ishir of northern Paraguay.
ESCOBAR, T. 2007 The Curse of Nemur: In Search of the Art, Myth and Ritual of the Ishir (Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press.
MID TERM EXAM (instructions for the essay)
7th week: Activity 1: We Are The Indians/Mbya Tierra en Rojo. Discusion with director
Valeria Mapelman and anthropologist Diana Lenton.
MID-TERM EXAMS (Deadline for the essay)
8th week: BREAK
9th week: Activity 2: Accompanying an Indigenous Peoples’ counter-commemoration: The Last Day of Freedom.
10th week: The “Southern” contact zone
A more or less “real” historical panorama of interethnic relations in Araucanía, Pampas and Patagonia from 15th to 19th century.
JONES, K. 1999 “Warfare, Reorganization and Readaptation at the Margins of Spanish Rule: The Southern Margin (1573-1882)”. In Salomon F. and S. Schwartz (eds.) The Cambridge History of Native Peoples of The Americas. Volume III, Part II, 138-168.
The Rankülche, a reemerging “extinct tribe:” reading an Indian historical and political statement.
LAZZARI, A. 2010 Self-organizing the return of the Phantom Indian. In The Autonomy of the Apparition: Phantom Indians, Selves and Freedom (on the Rankülche in Argentina). Unpublished Ph. D. Thesis. New York: Columbia University.
Browsing images in a text by a Rankülche activist.
CANUHE, G. 1998 Un largo camino de regreso a casa. m.s
11th week: The “Gran Chaco” contact zone
A more or less “real” historical panorama of interethnic relations in the Gran Chaco from 15th to 20th
century.
BRAUNSTEIN, J. y E. MILLER. 1999 “Ethnohistorical Introducción.” In Miller, E. (ed.) Peoples of the Gran Chaco. London, Bergin & Garvey, 1-24.
Interpreting Toba Indians counter-memories…
GORDILLO, G. 2002 “The Breath of the Devils: Memories and Places of an Experience of Terror.” American Ethnologist 29 (1): 33-57.
…and the dialogues between Toba and anthropologist in Buenos Aires.
WRIGHT, P. 1999 “Histories of Buenos Aires.” In Miller, E. (ed.) Peoples of the Gran Chaco. London, Bergin & Garvey, 135-156.
12th week: Activity 3: Exploring Buenos Aires in search of “in-visible Indians”
13th week: The “Amazonian” contact zone
A more or less “real” historical panorama of interethnic relations in the Amazon from 15th to 20th century.
RAMOS, A. R. 1994 “Frontier expansion and Indian Peoples in the Brazilian Amazon.” In Weber, D. and J. Rausch (eds.) When Cultures Meet. Frontiers in Latin America History. Jaguar Books on Latin America, 6. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources Inc, 196-211.
Surviving colonialism by telling tales of violence.
RIVAL, L. 2002 Trekking through History. The Huaorani of Amazonian. Ecuador. New York: Columbia University Press, 46-67.
14th week: The “Andean” contact zone
A more or less “real” sociocultural panorama of interethnic relations in the Andean from 15th to 20th century.
WOLF, E. and E. HANSEN. 1972 The Human Condition in Latin America. London, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 71-99.
A shamanic curing of the diseases of “history” and “culture”…
TAUSSIG, M. 1987 Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man. A Study in Terror and Healing. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 435-446.
…and an Aymara counter-memory workshop.
STEPHENSON, M. 2002 “Forging and Indigenous Counterpublic Sphere: The Taller de Historia Oral Andina in Bolivia.” Latin American Research Review 37 (2): 99-116.
Questions for take home FINAL EXAM
15th week: General Review and discussion of the main issues and cases studied
FINAL EXAM (deadline)
Activity 1: We Are The Indians / Mbya Tierra en Rojo
Screening of the documentary (2006) and encounter with the director, Valeria Mapelman and anthropologist Diana Lenton. The film is about the Mbya Guarani survival in Northeastern Argentina. Directors: Philip Cox, Valeria Mapelman. Spanish, English subtitles.
http://watch-all-movies-online.com/Mbya-tierra-en-rojo-Watch-Online-Movi... [2]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLDmx2w6OIU [3]
Activity 2: Accompanying an Indigenous Peoples’ counter-commemoration: The Last Day of Freedom.
On October 11, Indigenous organizations, allies and general public use to gather in order to express their claims on official memory and culture. We will assist this commemoration in order to have a first-hand experience of the topics of the course. A brief summary of the impressions by each student will be discussed on the next class.
Activity 3: Exploring Downtown Buenos Aires in search of “in-visible Indians:” a tour hosted by Mapuche activist Miguel Leuman.
Argentina is generally imagined (and desired) by insiders and outsiders as a “country without Indians”. Why? Standard expert and common-sense accounts point to the “transplant” of European immigrants stocks into these lands in late 19th century. They would have contributed -- the story goes on -- to the building up of an “enclave” of white European-ness in a region of South America where there were nothing but “empty” or “depopulated” spaces. Yet, these spaces were inhabited by peoples which were killed, ousted and “absorbed” as a consequence of frontier expansion through military campaigns and settler colonization. This process is still undergoing through soybean agribusiness and mining.
Perhaps Argentina could be better understood as a “country with invisible Indians”. In-visibility is dual, meaning too much to see and not enough to see. So in-visible Indians appear in two fundamental ways:
1) as a saturation of Indian-ness in circumscribed spaces; and 2) as a trace, a suspicion that happens to pass by.
In this activity, a tour in search of in-visible Indians in Buenos Aires, we will be hosted by a Mapuche
Indian activist, Miguel Leuman. We will start at the foot of the Monument to General Roca. This statue is today a contested site, a dangerous crossroad of official history and non-official memories as attested by the graffiti and the damages it has suffered. Roca is officially recognized as the founder of the modern Argentine State, mainly because he conquered the Indian territories in Patagonia, Pampa and Chaco. This is precisely what the Indian activists that have left their marks on the statue accused him of. For them, Roca is the symbol of a State terror and genocide. Our host will abound on this issue. From this monument we will go to visit the Museo Etnográfico, a place where the Indian is exhibited between walls. Perhaps, in our explorations, we will “sense” the phantom Indian in bodies, attitudes, smells... for in Argentina, one of its names is “the people”. Enjoy it!
Axel Lazzari is Ph. D in Anthropology (Columbia U.), M.A. in Anthropology (Museu Nacional, U. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Licenciado en Antropología (U. de Buenos Aires). He currently teaches graduate (Doctoral Program) and undergraduate courses at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and the Universidad de General San Martín. He is also a researcher at CONICET. He has published in Argentina, the United States and Great Britain on indigenous peoples and the history of anthropology.