Current Anthropology Volume 44, Number 3, June 2003 ᭧ 2003 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved 0011-3204/2003/4403-0004$2.50 but perhaps it comes across as more scientific. At the same time, the names used for particular indigenous peo- ples have undergone changes, and therefore we now CA✩ FORUM ON have, for example, Saami for Lapp, Inuit for Eskimo (see Stewart 2002:88–92), and San for Bushman. ANTHROPOLOGY IN PUBLIC As is so often the way with this sort of relabelling, “San” turns out to be a pejorative Hottentot—or Khoe- khoe—term for Bushmen, connoting “vagabonds” and “bandits” (Barnard 1992:8), but the principle is defensi- The Return of the ble. It is a good idea to call people by names they rec- ognize and find acceptable. Nevertheless, discredited old 1 arguments may lurk behind new words. “Culture” has Native become a common euphemism for “race.” Similarly, in the rhetoric of the indigenous peoples movement the terms “native” and “indigenous” are often euphemisms by Adam Kuper2 for what used to be termed “primitive” (cf. Be´teille 1998). Indeed, one of the major NGOs in this field, Survival International, began life as the Primitive Peoples’ Fund. It has since changed its name, but clinging to the same anachronistic anthropology it now promotes itself as a movement “for tribal peoples.” Once this equivalence On Human Rights Day 1992, the United Nations pro- between “indigenous” and “primitive,” “tribal,” “hunt- claimed an International Year of the World’s Indigenous ing,” or “nomadic” peoples is grasped, it is easier to un- People. A Decade for Indigenous Peoples was subse- derstand why the secretary general of the United Nations quently launched, to run from 1995 to 2004, and a Forum glossed “indigenous peoples” as “nomads or hunting of Indigenous Peoples established. The inaugural meet- people” (Boutros-Ghali 1994:9). The indigenous peoples ing of the Forum, held in Geneva in 1996, was unfor- forum from which the Boers were ejected was dominated tunately disrupted by gate-crashers. A self-styled dele- by delegations speaking for Inuit, San, Australian Abo- gation of South African Boers turned up and demanded rigines, Amazonian peoples, and others, precisely the to be allowed to participate on the grounds that they too quintessential “primitive societies” of classical anthro- were indigenous people. Moreover, they claimed that pological discourse.4 their traditional culture was under threat from the new Not only has the ghostly category of “primitive peo- African National Congress government. They were un- ples” been restored to life under a new label but the UN ceremoniously ejected, and no doubt their motives were secretary general of the day, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, iden- far from pure, but the drama might usefully have drawn tified common problems that these peoples suffered in attention to the difficulty of defining and identifying the modern world: They had been “relegated to reserved “indigenous people.” territories or confined to inaccessible or inhospitable The loaded terms “native” and “indigenous” are the regions” and in many cases “seemed doomed to extinc- 3 subject of much debate in activist circles. “Native” still tion.” Governments treated them as “subversive” be- has a colonial ring in many parts of the world, though cause they “did not share the sedentary lifestyle or the it has become an acceptable label in North America. It culture of the majority. Nations of farmers tended to is now always capitalized (Native), perhaps in order to view nomads or hunting peoples with fear or contempt.” suggest that it refers to a nation of some sort, and in fact However, the secretary general noted that “a welcome the term “First Nations” is often used as an alternative change is taking place on national and international lev- designation in Canada and the U.S.A. In international els.” The unique way of life of indigenous peoples had discourse, however, the term “indigenous” is usually at last come to be appreciated at its true value. Organ- preferred. This has a slightly foreign ring to English ears, izations of indigenous people had been formed. Collec- tive rights in historical homelands were being recognized 1. Versions of this paper were presented in June 2002 at the 23d and land claims pressed with some success (Boutros- Congress of the Association of Brazilian Anthropologists and in an address delivered at the opening ceremony of the Max Planck In- Ghali 1994:9–13). stitute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. I also had the The secretary general was certainly right to identify opportunity to try out the argument in a small seminar of human new international thinking on these issues. The ILO rights specialists at the London School of Economics under the Convention no. 169 (1989) concerning Indigenous and chairmanship of Stanley Cohen. Detailed comments on the paper Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries laid down that were made by Alan Barnard, Mark Nuttall, and Evie Plaice. Robert Hitchcock kindly gave me copies of his unpublished papers on cur- national governments should allow indigenous peoples rent developments in Botswana. to participate in the making of decisions that affect them, 2. Department of Human Sciences, Brunel University, Uxbridge, that they should set their own development priorities, Middlesex UB83PH, U.K. ([email protected]). 3. See, for example, the correspondence published in Anthropology Today 18 (3) (June 2002):23–25 under the title “Defining Oneself, 4. For a historical review of the notion of primitive society, see and Being Defined As, Indigenous.” Kuper (1988). 389 390 F current anthropology Volume 44, Number 3, June 2003 and that they should be given back lands that they tra- Kalahari hunter-gatherers have more in common in their ditionally occupied. This convention has been ratified religious beliefs or kinship systems with neighbouring by Denmark and Norway among European states and by Khoi or Hottentot herders than with the Hadza of Tan- Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Par- zania or the Pygmies of the Ituri Forest in the Congo, aguay, and Peru in Latin America. However, no African many of whom lived until recently largely by foraging or Asian state has adopted it. (For a trenchant critique (see Barnard 1992). of the logic of the Indian “tribal” movement, see Be´teille Several generations—in some cases many centu- 1998.) More recently, a United Nations Draft Declaration ries—of European settlement have also greatly compli- on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has been negotiated, cated the picture. Local ways of life and group identities but particularly because of strong opposition from a have been subjected to a variety of pressures and have number of African states it has not yet been put before seldom, if ever, remained stable over the long term. It is the General Assembly.5 nevertheless often assumed that each local native group The rhetoric of the indigenous-peoples movement is the carrier of an ancient culture. In familiar romantic rests on widely accepted premises that are nevertheless fashion, this culture is associated with spiritual rather open to serious challenge, not least from anthropologists. than with material values. It is unique and expresses the The initial assumption is that descendants of the original genius of a native people. To be sure, it is conceded (even inhabitants of a country should have privileged rights, angrily insisted) that the authentic culture may survive perhaps even exclusive rights, to its resources. Con- only in rural enclaves, since (again in good romantic versely, immigrants are simply guests and should behave style) native cultures are represented as being every- accordingly. These propositions are popular with ex- where under threat from an intrusive material civiliza- treme right-wing parties in Europe, although the argu- tion associated with cities, with stock markets, and with ment is seldom pushed to its logical conclusion given foreigners. However, it is argued that the essence sur- that the history of all European countries is a history of vives and can be nursed back to health if the resources successive migrations. Even in the most extreme na- are provided. The alternative is represented in the bleak- tionalist circles it is not generally argued that, for in- est terms. The loss of culture is sometimes spoken of as stance, descendants of the Celts and perhaps the Saxons a form of genocide. Even in less apocalyptic discourses should be given special privileges in Britain as against it is taken for granted that a people that loses its culture descendants of Romans, Vikings, Normans, and, of has been robbed of its identity and that the diminution course, all later immigrants. of cultural variation represents a significant loss for all Where hunters and nomadic herders are concerned, it humanity. may be argued that they represent not merely the first Boutros-Ghali accordingly insisted that the indige- inhabitants of a country but the original human popu- nous-peoples movement was not only about land or lations of the world. In a certain sense primitive, abo- hunting rights. It was, even more fundamentally, con- riginal, humankind’s first-comers, theirs is the natural cerned with culture and identity. Indeed, beyond the con- state of humanity. If that is so, then perhaps it follows ventional list of individual human rights something new that their rights must take precedence. However, while was at issue. “Henceforth we realize that human rights Upper Paleolithic hunters and gatherers operated in a cover not only individual rights,” Boutros-Ghali claimed, world of hunters, every contemporary community of for- “but also collective rights, historical rights. We are dis- agers or herders lives in intimate association with settled covering the ‘new human rights,’ which include, first and farmers.