Anthropologists and Indians in the New South
Publication Year: 2001
Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2002
An important collection of essays that looks at the changing relationships between anthropologists and Indians at the turn of the millennium.
Southern Indians have experienced much change in the last half of the 20th century. In rapid succession since World War II, they have passed through the testing field of land claims litigation begun in the 1950s, played upon or retreated from the civil rights movement of the 1960s, seen the proliferation of "wannabe" Indian groups in the 1970s, and created innovative tribal enterprises—such as high-stakes bingo and gambling casinos—in the 1980s. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 stimulated a cultural renewal resulting in tribal museums and heritage programs and a rapprochement with their western kinsmen removed in "Old South" days.Anthropology in the South has changed too, moving forward at the cutting edge of academic theory. This collection of essays reflects both that which has endured and that which has changed in the anthropological embrace of Indians from the New South. Beginning as an invited session at the 30th-anniversary meeting of the Southern Anthropological Society held in 1996, the collection includes papers by linguists, archaeologists, and physical anthropologists, as well as comments from Native Americans.
This broad scope of inquiry—ranging in subject from the Maya of Florida, presumed biology, and alcohol-related problems to pow-wow dancing, Mobilian linguistics, and the "lost Indian ancestor" myth—results in a volume valuable to students, professionals, and libraries. Anthropologists and Indians in the New South is a clear assessment of the growing mutual respect and strengthening bond between modern Native Americans and the researchers who explore their past.
Rachel A. Bonney is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. J. Anthony Paredes is Chief of Ethnography and Indian Affairs in the Southeast Regional Office of the National Park Service and editor of Indians of the Southeastern United States in the Late 20th Century. Raymond D. Fogelson is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago and author of The Cherokees.
Additional reviews:
"Anthropologists and Indians in the New South reaches beyond the Southeast to touch on issues in all areas of Native American studies and on contemporary methodological and ethical issues in anthropology and other fields such as history. It makes an excellent resource for research as well as teaching. . . . invaluable to any course about Native American culture, history, and contemporary issues."—American Indian Culture and Research Journal
"A nice contribution to the Southeastern anthropological literature for several reasons. First, it highlights the increasingly positive rapprochement between anthropologists and Indians rather than dwelling on the negative, as is so often done. Levy's article on the positive outcomes of NAGPRA is an example of this refreshing perspective. Second, it focuses on the changing relations between these two groups, reminding us that all cultures change; anthropology is no exception. Finally, all of the articles are tied together by the common theme of how anthropology has changed as the relationships between anthropologists and Indians change. Maintaining a strong theme throughout an edited volume is no easy task, especially when there are so many authors. Bonney and Paredes have done a commendable job in keeping this theme alive in each of the chapters and in the introductions to each section. Regardless of one's position on applied anthropology, readers will find the case studies presented here to informatively and succinctly characterize the changing nature of anthropologist-Indian relations in the Southeast today."—Southeastern Archaeology
Published by: The University of Alabama Press
Contents
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pp. v-vi
List of Figures and Tables
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pp. vii-
Foreword
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pp. ix-x
This welcome volume helps illuminate some dark spaces and times in Native American studies. In most survey courses and textbooks, the Southeast gets short shrift compared to the plenitude of plaintive Plains research, the surplus of salubrious southwestern...
Southeastern Tribal Locations Maps
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pp. xi-xii
Introduction
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pp. 1-8
This collection began as an invited session at the 30th-anniversary meeting of the Southern Anthropological Society, held in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, February 17–20, 1996. The overall theme of the meeting was “a retrospective and futuristic view of studies...
I. Changing Relationships between Anthropologists and American Indians
One of the major themes of this volume is how relationships between anthropologists and American Indians have changed over the past century as many anthropologists have altered their focus from “pure” scientific research to “applied” research. The chapters in this first section examine or are examples of some of those changes....
1. Anthropologists and the Eastern Cherokees
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pp. 11-16
As the field of anthropology has evolved, so has the relationship between anthropologists and the peoples being studied. Various paradigms and theoretical schools of thought have dominated the discipline of anthropology throughout its history. These paradigms and theories can be seen shaping the research carried out...
2. “Are You Here to Study Us?” : Anthropological Research in a Progressive Native American Community
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pp. 17-28
In the last 50 years, the Seminole Indians at Brighton Reservation in Florida have experienced rapid techno-economic, social, and ideological change. Most recent acculturation and self-determination place them on the cusp of yet another stage of cultural change....
3. The Archaeologists’—and Indians’—New World
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pp. 29-45
I take my title and theme from James Merrell’s fine history of the Catawba Indian Nation, The Indians’ New World. In his preface, Merrell lays out the core theme of his work: after Europeans arrived in the Americas, the native peoples were living in as much of a “new world” as were Europeans: “It seems logical to ignore Indians when examining these...
II. Southeastern Indians and the Law
Since the arrival of the first Europeans in North America, Indian peoples have been subjected to legislation from the outside world, a practice that has increased with time. Many of the policies reflected in the legislation of the 19th-and 20th-century American government actually had their origins in the colonial period under British rule: compensable...
4. Federal Tribal Recognition in the South
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pp. 49-70
This chapter surveys the complex history of the expansion of acknowledged federal responsibility for Indian tribes in the South after Removal.1 Its review is limited to the history of recognition of tribes that are presently federally recognized.2 “Recognition” here...
5. Region and Recognition: Southern Indians, Anthropologists, and Presumed Biology
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pp. 71-85
In 1978, under President Jimmy Carter’s administration, when it became possible for American Indian peoples to obtain, renew, or revamp a relationship to the federal government that acknowledged the existence and native rights of their groups, a revolutionary....
III. Anthropological Contributions to Native American Communities
Max White’s chapter in the first section quotes a Cherokee who felt that the Indian people were not deriving any benefits from the anthropological studies of their communities. White gave some examples of how the Cherokees had benefited from work done...
6. Issues in Alcohol-Related Problems among Southeastern Indians: Anthropological Approaches
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pp. 89-107
Anthropology, as a comparative and holistic discipline, has contributed a great deal to the understanding of drinking behaviors. The impact of this holism is evident not only in the contemporary research concerning alcohol use among American Indian...
7. The Newest Indians in the South: The Maya of Florida
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pp. 108-125
The Maya of Florida are the newest Indians of the South. They brought with them a condensed history that began with their exodus from the Guatemalan civil war in the early 1980s. During this time, a few Guatemalan Maya began a chain migration...
8. A Disaster: Hurricane Andrew and the Miccosukee
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pp. 126-140
This chapter uses an interpretive, multidisciplinary approach to examine the efforts of extra-community and extra-tribal organizations in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew. Helping agencies that customarily hasten to the aid of nonnative disaster victims are defined here as extra-tribal. I have approached this topic from three....
IV. Culture Preservation and Ethnic Identity
Despite four centuries of European and Euro-American pressures to eliminate or assimilate Native American nations, native groups persist in the United States. Admittedly, the number and sizes of those tribes have been reduced considerably since the first Europeans set foot on North American soil, and the native cultures...
9. Celebrations and Dress: Sources of Native American Identity
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pp. 143-155
In 1981, while a new faculty member at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, I met the people who call themselves the Waccamaw Sioux. In the fall, two representatives from the Waccamaw community entered my office on campus and explained who they were and why they had come to see me. They needed an anthropologist...
10. From Mob to Snob: Changing Research Orientations from Activism to Aesthetics among American Indians
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pp. 156-171
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, many anthropologists interested in contemporary Native Americans focused their attention on the current political developments in Indian Country, including education, treaty rights, restoration of terminated tribes, supratribal interaction, and the activism that became prevalent at that...
V. Culture Contact and Exchange
As the two chapters in the preceding section demonstrate, not all anthropological research is applied, even today. A number of anthropologists continue to research “traditional” topics, testing hypotheses or researching specific, focused topics, as we find...
11. Mobilian Jargon in Southeastern Indian Anthropology
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pp. 175-183
Just as linguists have frequently ignored the sociocultural context of language in their preoccupation with linguistic structure, anthropologists have avoided linguistic questions, however central to their own extralinguistic concerns; historians...
12. Hypergamy, Quantum, and Reproductive Success: The Lost Indian Ancestor Reconsidered
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pp. 184-202
Throughout the long and complex history of Indian-white relations (see Washburn 1988), Native Americans have been forced to employ diverse strategies for cultural survival. These ranged from armed conflict, migration, and concealment, as was the case for the Seminoles who sought refuge in the swamps of southern Florida...
13. American Indian Life and the 21st-Century University: The “Playful Worldview” and Its Lessons for Leadership in Higher Education
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pp. 203-213
Anthropology is unique among the social sciences in that it typically recruits from among the marginalized, those of us uncomfortable with conformity, suspicious of rituals that others take for granted, and frequently uneasy around people whom history has dictated as being like ourselves. Anthropology as an academic...
Conclusions
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pp. 214-221
The chapters in this volume, intended to be a retrospective of the relationships between anthropologists and Indians in the New South over the past 30 years, actually are a retrospective of the past century and a glimpse of what the new millennium will be, a “new world” for both anthropologists and Indians. These chapters represent...
Comments
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pp. 222-233
In the winter of 1973 I attended my first professional anthropology meeting, that of the Southern Anthropological Society. I am a historian, not an anthropologist, and I participated in a session at the request of a colleague of mine at Haskell Indian...
Notes
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pp. 235-240
References
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pp. 241-275
List of Contributors
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pp. 277-280
Index
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pp. 281-286
E-ISBN-13: 9780817313234
Print-ISBN-13: 9780817310707
Page Count: 300
Publication Year: 2001
