Abstract
Predictions of the imminent demise of Indigenous cultures have circulated among Western intellectuals for more than two hundred years. Capitalism, Christianity, and Western civilization were thought by 19th century scholars to be on the verge of eradicating global cultural variation. Contemporary scholars have revived these views, suggesting that not only were Indigenous cultures about to succumb to Western hegemony, these forces were poised to bring about the end of history itself. What unites these perspectives are an ideology stressing asymmetrical power relations between the West and Indigenous cultures, and the proposition that only Western intervention is capable of rescuing Indigeneity. This paper examines the current crisis of Indigenous cultural sustainability, arguing that the epistemology informing many of these perspectives remain largely unchanged from their 19th century precursors. Citing case studies in archaeology and cultural heritage management, I suggest a ground-up approach to cultural sustainability in which Western institutions and individuals serve only the expressed desires and at the invitation of Indigenous peoples. Such restraint represents both recognition of Indigenous sovereignty regarding all cultural preservation efforts, as well as the dynamic, ever-changing nature of culture itself.
Highlights
Since the discipline’s founding in the waning days of the 19th century, American anthropology has possessed several unique characteristics
Physical, historical, and cultural spaces as inherently flawed, stating, “Claims to the past based on fixed boundaries and close associations between people and cultures are contradicted by the evidence that culture is passed down through complex and fluid channels, heritage is continually being reproduced and reinterpreted, human groups and cultures are in the long term open and in flux.”
Archaeology is commonly thought of as dealing with ancient cultures, even this discipline can be of use to contemporary Indigenous peoples as they marshal aspects of the past to craft unique cultural identities in the present and look toward the future
Summary
Since the discipline’s founding in the waning days of the 19th century, American anthropology has possessed several unique characteristics. Many of these efforts fail to recognize the inherent ethnocentrism of views equating Indigeneity with a state of nature [15,16,17,18,19,20] Such equivalencies are generated and perpetuated both through naiveté of cultural resiliency and intellectual traditions (like that of the Boasians) that seek to maintain cultures at particular historical moments and deny them the possibility of change; resulting in the equivalent of a culture fossilized in amber, maintaining its present form in perpetuity. The accumulated evidence of past experience, suggests that we must actively resist “volunteering” our expertise when it has not been requested, but serve instead as ready allies and accomplices in Indigenous-generated cultural sustainability efforts
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