Leaders, Followers, and Supporters: The Okanagan Experience

Abstract

This article discusses some of the conceptual problems and issues of leadership as this idea is commonly used by social anthropol ogists in their work among native peoples in Canada. The main argu ment of the article is illustrated by research among the Okanagan Indians of British Columbia. Although the formulation presented here has no grand theoretical pretensions, an attempt is made to deal with the problem of leadership in both time and space (i.e., diasynchroni cally). Particular attention is paid to external forces which impinge on the position of local leaders, and on the ideology and actions of follow ers and supporters of local leaders. Resume: Cet article examine quelques-uns des problemes conceptuels et des questions lies a la fagon de concevoir l'idee de chef telle qu'elle est generalement employee par les specialistes de l'anthropologie so ciale dans leurs etudes des peuples autochtones au Canada. L'article illustre ses propos des recherches faites chez les indiens Okanagan de la Colombie Britannique. Bien que la presentation faite ci-dessous n'ait pas de grande pretension theorique, elle a neanmoins essaye de traiter le probleme du chef a la fois dans l'espace et dans le temps (c'est-a-dire ?diasynchroniquement?). L'article a egalement accorde une attention particuliere aux forces exterieures qui empietent sur les pouvoirs des chefs regionaux ainsi que sur l'ideologie et les actions de leurs disciples et partisans. Most social anthropologists trained in the tradition that takes the ideas of social structure and social organization seriously are bound to have a view of society which is rooted in concepts such as groups, classes, categories, seg ments, factions and other forms of institutionalized or semi-institutionalized configurations. Closely associated with this perspective of a geometry of the social world (Simmel 1950:21, 152; Spykman 1925) is the assumption that many of these components, notably social groups (both primary and secon dary), are made up of leaders and followers. But even those anthropologists who attempt to avoid paradigms based on groupology (Boissevain 1968) can never really avoid dealing with the questions of decision-making, leader