Anthropology Publications Anthropology 8-2016 Settler agnosia in the field: Indigenous action, functional ignorance, and the origins of ethnographic entrapment Grant Arndt Iowa State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/anthr_pubs Part of the Indigenous Studies Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons The ompc lete bibliographic information for this item can be found at http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/ anthr_pubs/29. For information on how to cite this item, please visit http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/ howtocite.html. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Anthropology at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Anthropology Publications by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Settler agnosia in the field: Indigenous action, functional ignorance, and the origins of ethnographic entrapment Abstract In the late 1930s a novice fieldworker from the University of Chicago wrote in his field notes that his collaboration with a Ho-Chunk interpreter had failed because of the interpreter's “aggressions” in the struggle for “white class status.” The notes exhibit a pattern of perceptual failure that I call “settler agnosia,” elements of which have been noted in research on the obstacles facing Indigenous activists. The case shows that the tendency of older anthropological accounts of contemporary American Indian life to obscure evidence of both colonial oppression and Indigenous action may have originated as consequences of a form of functional ignorance triggered by interpersonal struggles over position in the everyday relations of settler society. An ethnographic investigation of the links between settler agnosia and the practice of settlerness connects perception in everyday interactions to larger issues of knowledge production in and of settler societies. Keywords settler colonialism, field theory, Bordieu, race, ignorance, indigeneity, Native North America Disciplines Indigenous Studies | Social and Cultural Anthropology Comments This article is from American Ethnologist 43 (2016): 465–474, doi:10.1111/amet.12339. Posted with permission. This article is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/anthr_pubs/29 GRANT ARNDT Iowa State University Settler agnosia in the field: Indigenous action, functional ignorance, and the origins of ethnographic entrapment ABSTRACT n September 1938, Leo Srole, a doctoral student in the Department In the late 1930s a novice fieldworker from the of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, traveled to the Wis- University of Chicago wrote in his field notes that consin Dells to begin a year of field research on Ho-Chunk (Win- his collaboration with a Ho-Chunk interpreter had nebago) social organization and cultural change. One of his first failed because of the interpreter’s “aggressions” in interviews was with Phyllis Crandall-Connor, the Anglo-American the struggle for “white class status.” The notes Iartistic director of The Stand Rock Indian Ceremonial, a tourist pageant in exhibit a pattern of perceptual failure that I call which Ho-Chunk people had performed for two decades. Crandall-Connor “settler agnosia,” elements of which have been complained to Srole that her Ho-Chunk employees refused to perform noted in research on the obstacles facing many of their traditional dances for tourists, ascribing their defiance to Indigenous activists. The case shows that the their “childlike” nature. She added, “The negro knows his place, but the tendency of older anthropological accounts of Indian doesn’t know how to act. You have to be careful about what you say contemporary American Indian life to obscure or he’ll walk out on you” (Srole 1938d, 6). In the typescript of his interview evidence of both colonial oppression and Indigenous with Crandall-Connor, Srole offered no comment on the remark but noted action may have originated as consequences of a elsewhere in his field notes that form of functional ignorance triggered by interpersonal struggles over position in the everyday the white attitude hereabouts seems to be a clear-cut case of ambiva- relations of settler society. An ethnographic lence. On the one hand the Indian is looked upon as something of a investigation of the links between settler agnosia museum piece, the remnant of a glorious, colorful tradition in Amer- and the practice of settlerness connects perception ican history, which has been especially memorialized in the school- in everyday interactions to larger issues of booksofchildren....Butontheotherhand,therearealmostcaste- knowledge production in and of settler societies. like attitudes and evaluations of the Indian, expressed in such words [settler colonialism, field theory, Bourdieu, race, as “dirty, stinking, drunken, thieving, lying.” (1938c, 4) ignorance, indigeneity, Native North America] Srole had come to the Dells in 1938 specifically to recruit James Daybreak, the Ho-Chunk master of ceremonies in Crandall-Connor’s tourist show, to be his guide and interpreter.1 Having worked for previous researchers, Daybreak promised to be an especially valuable contact for Srole because, in addition to his work at Stand Rock, he participated in “most of the ceremonies of the conservative or traditionalist religious faction” and was an initiated member of the Medicine Lodge, a status “unusual for one of his generation” (Srole 1938b, 14). But Srole and Daybreak’s collaboration did not last long. From the beginning, Daybreak criticized “white people who come to the Indians to get all they can out of them and give nothing in return,” and when the two visited Ho-Chunk households, he seemed to interfere in Srole’s efforts to document kinship AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 465–474, ISSN 0094-0496, online ISSN 1548-1425. C 2016 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/amet.12339 American Ethnologist Volume 43 Number 3 August 2016 and ceremonial activities (Srole 1938b, 4). In response, Clifford and Marcus 1986; Hymes 1972; Povinelli 2002; Srole broke off the collaboration and sent his supervisors at Turner 1991). Such concerns have reshaped anthropolog- the University of Chicago a 33-page account of Daybreak’s ical accounts of Native North America, leading anthro- “personality” in which he depicted Daybreak as marked by pologists to reflect on the complicated legacies of the a set of “aggressions” linked to the pursuit of “white class “Americanist tradition” (Briggs and Bauman 1999; Buckley status” (3, 6). 1996; Field 1999; Lewis 1998; Simpson 2007; Valentine and Srole continued his research after he stopped working Darnell 2007) and to create new ethnographic accounts that with Daybreak, eventually interviewing 22 Ho-Chunks and emphasize the agency of Indian peoples, past and present, 17 whites. He learned from both groups about the strained in struggles against dispossession and racism (Biolsi and race relations in the region, and his research included re- Zimmerman 1997; Cadena and Starn 2007; Strong 2005; see ports of recent mass meetings held by white residents who also Cattelino 2008; Dennison 2012; Fowler 2004; Lambert opposed the integration of Ho-Chunk students into local 2007; Nesper 2002; Richland 2008; Simpson 2014). Srole’s schools (Srole 1939a, 1939b, 1939c). The material he col- field notes suggest that an understanding of how ethnogra- lected substantiates the contention he expressed in a March phies carried out within settler-colonial contexts can entrap 15, 1939, letter to his advisers that he could write a study Indigenous people can look to the experiences created by “unlike (for better or worse) any other study of an Amer- the interpersonal politics in the colonial field, and the rela- ican Indian tribe” because he could describe and define tionship between racism, indigeneity, and settlerness. “exactly the nature and extent of the relations and status Settlerness, or “whiteness in settler contexts” (Veracini of the Winnebagoes in white society, the attitudes of both 2011, 9), names the position of privilege vis-a-vis` indigene- Winnebago and whites to each other and to their relations” ity within settler society.3 The position represents, in the (Srole 1939d, 1). Yet in Srole’s notes for a never-completed words of Audra Simpson, the “stable ontological core [and] monograph based on his research, he focused not on the unquestioned ‘self’” (2007, 70) that exists largely unmarked causes of the tense local race relations or white hostility to- in institutional and everyday contexts. As unmarked, it ward Indians, but rather on the breakdown of Ho-Chunk has often been invisible to white scholars and persons culture and the “instability” of the Ho-Chunk “personality” (Moreton-Robinson 2004). Its invisibility relative to Indige- (Srole 1939e). nous difference is sustained in part by what Mark Rifkin has Srole’s turn to personality despite the evidence of called a “settler common sense” that comprises an “embod- racism he documented will not surprise those familiar with ied set . of sensations, dispositions, and lived trajectories” the history of anthropological studies of American Indian that shape action in the “field of possibility” constituted acculturation (for bibliographies, see Keesing 1952; Siegel by settler society (Rifkin 2014, 8–9, 12–16; see also Rifkin 1955). Many anthropological accounts during the era of 2012). his research