Allen Buchanan
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- April 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780198295358
- eISBN:
- 9780191600982
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198295359.003.0009
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Ch. 8 argued for combining a rather restrained, justice‐based view of the unilateral right to secede, the Remedial Right Only Theory, with a much more supportive stance toward forms of ...
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Ch. 8 argued for combining a rather restrained, justice‐based view of the unilateral right to secede, the Remedial Right Only Theory, with a much more supportive stance toward forms of self‐determination within the state: various forms of intrastate autonomy. This chapter argues that the international legal order ought to acknowledge the importance of self‐determination by supporting intrastate autonomy, and also suggests that, apart from the role that international law should play, individual states should generally give serious consideration to proposals for intrastate autonomy. The chapter first makes the case for including in the domain of transnational justice the monitoring and enforcement of intrastate autonomy regimes under certain rather exceptional circumstances, and then, in the last section, suggests that even where principles of transnational justice do not require it, there are cases in which the international community might play a constructive role by providing diplomatic support and economic inducements or pressure to encourage the creation and well‐functioning of intrastate autonomy regimes. The five sections of the chapter are: I. Intrastate Autonomy and Transnational Justice; II. Indigenous Peoples’ Rights; III. Justifications for Intrastate Autonomy for Indigenous Peoples; IV. Basic Individual Human Rights as Limits on Intrastate Autonomy; and V. International Support for Intrastate Autonomy: Beyond the Requirements of Transnational Justice.Less
Ch. 8 argued for combining a rather restrained, justice‐based view of the unilateral right to secede, the Remedial Right Only Theory, with a much more supportive stance toward forms of self‐determination within the state: various forms of intrastate autonomy. This chapter argues that the international legal order ought to acknowledge the importance of self‐determination by supporting intrastate autonomy, and also suggests that, apart from the role that international law should play, individual states should generally give serious consideration to proposals for intrastate autonomy. The chapter first makes the case for including in the domain of transnational justice the monitoring and enforcement of intrastate autonomy regimes under certain rather exceptional circumstances, and then, in the last section, suggests that even where principles of transnational justice do not require it, there are cases in which the international community might play a constructive role by providing diplomatic support and economic inducements or pressure to encourage the creation and well‐functioning of intrastate autonomy regimes. The five sections of the chapter are: I. Intrastate Autonomy and Transnational Justice; II. Indigenous Peoples’ Rights; III. Justifications for Intrastate Autonomy for Indigenous Peoples; IV. Basic Individual Human Rights as Limits on Intrastate Autonomy; and V. International Support for Intrastate Autonomy: Beyond the Requirements of Transnational Justice.
Avigail Eisenberg
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199291304
- eISBN:
- 9780191710704
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291304.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics, Political Theory
The current legal and political context is perhaps more congenial than ever before to considering claims made by minorities for the protection of some aspect of their identity. This book argues that ...
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The current legal and political context is perhaps more congenial than ever before to considering claims made by minorities for the protection of some aspect of their identity. This book argues that multicultural societies depend for their success on having courts and legislatures which are capable of assessing these identity claims in a fair and transparent manner. Identity claims appeal to distinctive and important features of an individual's or group's identity. Despite the ubiquity of identity claims before public institutions, how decision makers assess these claims and the identities of the groups which make them is only vaguely understood and mostly ignored in normative political theory and policy analysis. This book examines the key approaches used by national and international institutions to assessing the identity claims of religious, cultural, and Indigenous minorities today. It develops a normative guide to aid in the fair assessment of identity claims. The identity approach developed in the book is grounded on the requirement that public institutions must respect people's identities and that these institutions must have the capacity to reflect on their own unfair biases. The analysis identifies and responds to four important skeptical challenges to the public assessment of identity claims which include concerns about the incommensurability and questionable authenticity of identity claims, and about the risks of essentializing and domesticating the identities of the people who advance them. The approach developed in this book explains how decision makers can meet these challenges while engaging in a fair and transparent assessment of identity claims.Less
The current legal and political context is perhaps more congenial than ever before to considering claims made by minorities for the protection of some aspect of their identity. This book argues that multicultural societies depend for their success on having courts and legislatures which are capable of assessing these identity claims in a fair and transparent manner. Identity claims appeal to distinctive and important features of an individual's or group's identity. Despite the ubiquity of identity claims before public institutions, how decision makers assess these claims and the identities of the groups which make them is only vaguely understood and mostly ignored in normative political theory and policy analysis. This book examines the key approaches used by national and international institutions to assessing the identity claims of religious, cultural, and Indigenous minorities today. It develops a normative guide to aid in the fair assessment of identity claims. The identity approach developed in the book is grounded on the requirement that public institutions must respect people's identities and that these institutions must have the capacity to reflect on their own unfair biases. The analysis identifies and responds to four important skeptical challenges to the public assessment of identity claims which include concerns about the incommensurability and questionable authenticity of identity claims, and about the risks of essentializing and domesticating the identities of the people who advance them. The approach developed in this book explains how decision makers can meet these challenges while engaging in a fair and transparent assessment of identity claims.
Avigail Eisenberg
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199291304
- eISBN:
- 9780191710704
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291304.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics, Political Theory
This chapter examines the first sceptical reservation to the public assessment of identity claims, namely that identity claims are incommensurable. The problem of incommensurability rests on the idea ...
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This chapter examines the first sceptical reservation to the public assessment of identity claims, namely that identity claims are incommensurable. The problem of incommensurability rests on the idea that no coherent basis exists upon which to evaluate conflicting views about how identity matters and how it is to be weighed against other putatively fundamental considerations at play in any given conflict. This challenge is explored in relation to conflicts that arise between claims to sexual equality and minority claims to cultural accommodation or autonomy. Two approaches, one of which is rights‐based and the other which focuses on resolving conflicts through democratic processes, often lead to inadequate resolutions. The identity approach is shown to provide a more helpful approach that does not founder on the problem of incommensurability. The chapter compares the three approaches in relation to conflicts about sexist membership rules in Indigenous communities, and in relation to polygamy.Less
This chapter examines the first sceptical reservation to the public assessment of identity claims, namely that identity claims are incommensurable. The problem of incommensurability rests on the idea that no coherent basis exists upon which to evaluate conflicting views about how identity matters and how it is to be weighed against other putatively fundamental considerations at play in any given conflict. This challenge is explored in relation to conflicts that arise between claims to sexual equality and minority claims to cultural accommodation or autonomy. Two approaches, one of which is rights‐based and the other which focuses on resolving conflicts through democratic processes, often lead to inadequate resolutions. The identity approach is shown to provide a more helpful approach that does not founder on the problem of incommensurability. The chapter compares the three approaches in relation to conflicts about sexist membership rules in Indigenous communities, and in relation to polygamy.
Courtney Lewis
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781469648590
- eISBN:
- 9781469648613
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469648590.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
By 2009, reverberations of economic crisis spread from the United States around the globe. As corporations across the United States folded, however, small businesses on the Qualla Boundary of the ...
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By 2009, reverberations of economic crisis spread from the United States around the globe. As corporations across the United States folded, however, small businesses on the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) continued to thrive. In this rich ethnographic study, Courtney Lewis reveals the critical roles small businesses such as these play for Indigenous nations. The EBCI has an especially long history of incorporated, citizen-owned businesses located on their lands. When many people think of Indigenous-owned businesses, they stop with prominent casino gaming operations or natural-resource intensive enterprises. But on the Qualla Boundary today, Indigenous entrepreneurship and economic independence extends to art galleries, restaurants, a bookstore, a funeral parlor, and more.
Lewis’s fieldwork followed these businesses through the Great Recession and against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding EBCI-owned casino. Lewis's keen observations reveal how Eastern Band small business owners have contributed to an economic sovereignty that empowers and sustains their nation both culturally and politically.Less
By 2009, reverberations of economic crisis spread from the United States around the globe. As corporations across the United States folded, however, small businesses on the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) continued to thrive. In this rich ethnographic study, Courtney Lewis reveals the critical roles small businesses such as these play for Indigenous nations. The EBCI has an especially long history of incorporated, citizen-owned businesses located on their lands. When many people think of Indigenous-owned businesses, they stop with prominent casino gaming operations or natural-resource intensive enterprises. But on the Qualla Boundary today, Indigenous entrepreneurship and economic independence extends to art galleries, restaurants, a bookstore, a funeral parlor, and more.
Lewis’s fieldwork followed these businesses through the Great Recession and against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding EBCI-owned casino. Lewis's keen observations reveal how Eastern Band small business owners have contributed to an economic sovereignty that empowers and sustains their nation both culturally and politically.
Jennifer Birch and Victor D. Thompson (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781683400462
- eISBN:
- 9781683400684
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9781683400462.001.0001
- Subject:
- Archaeology, Historical Archaeology
The emergence of village-communities profoundly transformed social organization in every part of the world where such societies developed. Contributors to The Archaeology of Villages in Eastern North ...
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The emergence of village-communities profoundly transformed social organization in every part of the world where such societies developed. Contributors to The Archaeology of Villages in Eastern North America employ archaeological and historical evidence to explore the development of villages among eastern North American indigenous societies of the deep and recent past. Rich data sets from archaeology and contemporary social theory are employed to document the physical attributes of villages, the structural organization and aggregation of such entities, what it means to be a villager, cosmological and ritual systems, and how villages were entangled with one another in regional networks. The result is a volume which highlights the similarities and differences in the historical trajectories of village formation and development in eastern North America, as well as the larger processes by which villages have the power to affect large-scale social transformations.Less
The emergence of village-communities profoundly transformed social organization in every part of the world where such societies developed. Contributors to The Archaeology of Villages in Eastern North America employ archaeological and historical evidence to explore the development of villages among eastern North American indigenous societies of the deep and recent past. Rich data sets from archaeology and contemporary social theory are employed to document the physical attributes of villages, the structural organization and aggregation of such entities, what it means to be a villager, cosmological and ritual systems, and how villages were entangled with one another in regional networks. The result is a volume which highlights the similarities and differences in the historical trajectories of village formation and development in eastern North America, as well as the larger processes by which villages have the power to affect large-scale social transformations.
Margaret Florey and Nikolaus P. Himmelmann
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199544547
- eISBN:
- 9780191720260
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199544547.003.0007
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics
This chapter discusses an innovative workshop program which has been developed and piloted to train a new generation of Indonesian linguists. It explores the goals and methods of the program, and the ...
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This chapter discusses an innovative workshop program which has been developed and piloted to train a new generation of Indonesian linguists. It explores the goals and methods of the program, and the various challenges which participants are facing in their communities. More broadly, the authors examine ways in which contemporary linguistic fieldwork practice could contribute towards language maintenance activities by training Indigenous linguists and language activists to work on the documentation and maintenance of their own languages.Less
This chapter discusses an innovative workshop program which has been developed and piloted to train a new generation of Indonesian linguists. It explores the goals and methods of the program, and the various challenges which participants are facing in their communities. More broadly, the authors examine ways in which contemporary linguistic fieldwork practice could contribute towards language maintenance activities by training Indigenous linguists and language activists to work on the documentation and maintenance of their own languages.
Rauna Kuokkanen
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- March 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190913281
- eISBN:
- 9780190913311
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190913281.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics, Political Theory
This book interrogates normative conceptions of Indigenous self-determination and the structures of Indigenous self-government institutions, arguing that Indigenous self-determination is not ...
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This book interrogates normative conceptions of Indigenous self-determination and the structures of Indigenous self-government institutions, arguing that Indigenous self-determination is not achievable without restructuring all relations of domination beyond that with the state; nor can it be secured in the absence of gender justice. It demonstrates that the current rights discourse and focus on Indigenous–state relations is limited in scope and fails to convey the full meaning of self-determination for Indigenous peoples. Besides settler colonialism and neoliberal capitalism, relations of domination include racism, sexism, homophobia, misogyny, and gender violence, including violence against women, queer, trans and gender-nonconforming persons, and structural violence. Drawing on extensive participant interviews in Canada, Greenland, and Scandinavia, this book theorizes Indigenous self-determination as a foundational value, informed by the norm of integrity. This norm has two interrelated dimensions: bodily integrity and integrity of the land, both of which are a sine qua non for Indigenous gender justice. Conceptualizing self-determination as a foundational value seeks to restructure all relations of domination, including the hierarchical relation between self-determination and gender created and maintained by international law, Indigenous political discourse, and Indigenous institutions. The book argues that the persistent separation of issues between self-determination/self-government and gender/social is a major obstacle in implementing, realizing, and exercising Indigenous self-determination. Restructuring relations of domination further entails examining the gender regimes present in existing Indigenous self-government institutions, interrogating the relationship between Indigenous self-determination and gender violence, and considering future visions of Indigenous self-determination, including rematriation of Indigenous governance and an independent statehood.Less
This book interrogates normative conceptions of Indigenous self-determination and the structures of Indigenous self-government institutions, arguing that Indigenous self-determination is not achievable without restructuring all relations of domination beyond that with the state; nor can it be secured in the absence of gender justice. It demonstrates that the current rights discourse and focus on Indigenous–state relations is limited in scope and fails to convey the full meaning of self-determination for Indigenous peoples. Besides settler colonialism and neoliberal capitalism, relations of domination include racism, sexism, homophobia, misogyny, and gender violence, including violence against women, queer, trans and gender-nonconforming persons, and structural violence. Drawing on extensive participant interviews in Canada, Greenland, and Scandinavia, this book theorizes Indigenous self-determination as a foundational value, informed by the norm of integrity. This norm has two interrelated dimensions: bodily integrity and integrity of the land, both of which are a sine qua non for Indigenous gender justice. Conceptualizing self-determination as a foundational value seeks to restructure all relations of domination, including the hierarchical relation between self-determination and gender created and maintained by international law, Indigenous political discourse, and Indigenous institutions. The book argues that the persistent separation of issues between self-determination/self-government and gender/social is a major obstacle in implementing, realizing, and exercising Indigenous self-determination. Restructuring relations of domination further entails examining the gender regimes present in existing Indigenous self-government institutions, interrogating the relationship between Indigenous self-determination and gender violence, and considering future visions of Indigenous self-determination, including rematriation of Indigenous governance and an independent statehood.
Michael D. McNally
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691190907
- eISBN:
- 9780691201511
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691190907.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
From North Dakota's Standing Rock encampments to Arizona's San Francisco Peaks, Native Americans have repeatedly asserted legal rights to religious freedom to protect their sacred places, practices, ...
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From North Dakota's Standing Rock encampments to Arizona's San Francisco Peaks, Native Americans have repeatedly asserted legal rights to religious freedom to protect their sacred places, practices, objects, knowledge, and ancestral remains. But these claims have met with little success in court because Native American communal traditions don't fit easily into modern Western definitions of religion. This book explores how, in response to this situation, Native peoples have creatively turned to other legal means to safeguard what matters to them. To articulate their claims, Native peoples have resourcefully used the languages of cultural resources under environmental and historic preservation law; of sovereignty under treaty-based federal Indian law; and, increasingly, of Indigenous rights under international human rights law. Along the way, Native nations still draw on the rhetorical power of religious freedom to gain legislative and regulatory successes beyond the First Amendment. This book casts new light on discussions of religious freedom, cultural resource management, and the vitality of Indigenous religions today.Less
From North Dakota's Standing Rock encampments to Arizona's San Francisco Peaks, Native Americans have repeatedly asserted legal rights to religious freedom to protect their sacred places, practices, objects, knowledge, and ancestral remains. But these claims have met with little success in court because Native American communal traditions don't fit easily into modern Western definitions of religion. This book explores how, in response to this situation, Native peoples have creatively turned to other legal means to safeguard what matters to them. To articulate their claims, Native peoples have resourcefully used the languages of cultural resources under environmental and historic preservation law; of sovereignty under treaty-based federal Indian law; and, increasingly, of Indigenous rights under international human rights law. Along the way, Native nations still draw on the rhetorical power of religious freedom to gain legislative and regulatory successes beyond the First Amendment. This book casts new light on discussions of religious freedom, cultural resource management, and the vitality of Indigenous religions today.
Heather Martel
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780813066189
- eISBN:
- 9780813058399
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813066189.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
Deadly Virtue argues that the history of the French Calvinist attempt to colonize Florida in the 1560s is key to understanding the roots of American whiteness in sixteenth-century colonialism, ...
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Deadly Virtue argues that the history of the French Calvinist attempt to colonize Florida in the 1560s is key to understanding the roots of American whiteness in sixteenth-century colonialism, science, and Protestantism. The book places the history of Fort Caroline, Florida, into the context of Protestant colonialism and understandings of the body, emotion, and identity held in common by travelers throughout the early Atlantic world. Protestants envisioned finding a rich and powerful Indigenous king, converting him to Christianity, and then establishing a Protestant-Indigenous alliance to build an empire under Indigenous leadership that would compete with European monarchies. However, when the colony was wiped out by the Spanish, these Protestants took this as a condemnation from their god for this plan of collaborating with Indigenous people and developed separatist strategies for future Protestant colonial projects. By introducing the reader to the humoral model of the body, this book shows how race, gender, sexuality, and Christian morality came to intersect in modern understandings of whiteness.Less
Deadly Virtue argues that the history of the French Calvinist attempt to colonize Florida in the 1560s is key to understanding the roots of American whiteness in sixteenth-century colonialism, science, and Protestantism. The book places the history of Fort Caroline, Florida, into the context of Protestant colonialism and understandings of the body, emotion, and identity held in common by travelers throughout the early Atlantic world. Protestants envisioned finding a rich and powerful Indigenous king, converting him to Christianity, and then establishing a Protestant-Indigenous alliance to build an empire under Indigenous leadership that would compete with European monarchies. However, when the colony was wiped out by the Spanish, these Protestants took this as a condemnation from their god for this plan of collaborating with Indigenous people and developed separatist strategies for future Protestant colonial projects. By introducing the reader to the humoral model of the body, this book shows how race, gender, sexuality, and Christian morality came to intersect in modern understandings of whiteness.
Nicholas Copeland
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781501736056
- eISBN:
- 9781501736070
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501736056.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Political History
What forces hinder decolonization efforts on the neoliberal terrain? In the aftermath of a genocidal scorched earth campaign, Mayas in the town of San Pedro Necta encountered a formidable ...
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What forces hinder decolonization efforts on the neoliberal terrain? In the aftermath of a genocidal scorched earth campaign, Mayas in the town of San Pedro Necta encountered a formidable democracy-development machine designed to displace radical class politics into private market advancement and local, indigenous-led electoral politics. Sampedranos regarded neoliberal democracy and development not as empty, depoliticized forms or colonial impositions, but as hard-won victories that met immediate needs and echoed revolutionary and local struggles. This historical ethnography examines how these governmentalized spaces fell short, simultaneously enabling and disfiguring an ethnic resurgence that fractured in a dispiriting atmosphere of pessimism, self-interest, deception, and mistrust. These dynamics fueled authoritarian populism but also radical reimaginings of democracy and development from below. These findings shed new light on rural politics in Guatemala and across neoliberal and post-conflict settings.Less
What forces hinder decolonization efforts on the neoliberal terrain? In the aftermath of a genocidal scorched earth campaign, Mayas in the town of San Pedro Necta encountered a formidable democracy-development machine designed to displace radical class politics into private market advancement and local, indigenous-led electoral politics. Sampedranos regarded neoliberal democracy and development not as empty, depoliticized forms or colonial impositions, but as hard-won victories that met immediate needs and echoed revolutionary and local struggles. This historical ethnography examines how these governmentalized spaces fell short, simultaneously enabling and disfiguring an ethnic resurgence that fractured in a dispiriting atmosphere of pessimism, self-interest, deception, and mistrust. These dynamics fueled authoritarian populism but also radical reimaginings of democracy and development from below. These findings shed new light on rural politics in Guatemala and across neoliberal and post-conflict settings.
Edwin Bryant
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195137774
- eISBN:
- 9780199834044
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195137779.003.0013
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
The various attempts made to date Sanskrit texts (the Veda) are examined in the context that if the Ŗgveda (the earliest of the texts) is at least a millennium older than its commonly accepted date, ...
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The various attempts made to date Sanskrit texts (the Veda) are examined in the context that if the Ŗgveda (the earliest of the texts) is at least a millennium older than its commonly accepted date, then the possibility of Dravidian and/or Munda and/or unknown linguistic influences on Vedic Sanskrit being the result of the speakers of these languages intruding on an Indo-Aryan-speaking area after the other languages had already left, as opposed to vice versa, becomes a much more serious consideration. Moreover, the relationship between Vedic and Proto-Indo-European would need to be reconsidered, and any proposal associating the overland trajectory of the Indo-Aryans with the Andronovo culture, a southern Iranian route, or any Post-Harappan culture in the subcontinent, loses value. For these and other reasons, a much older date for the Veda is foundational to the Indigenous Aryanist position; if by contrast, the oldest strata of the Ŗgveda cannot be far removed from the conventionally accepted date of 1200 or 1500 B.C.E., then the Indigenous Aryanist case loses cogency. The chapter examines the dating of Proto-Indo-European first, before going on to look at the dating of the Veda itself, paying special attention to astronomy and its bearing on Vedic chronology. The author concludes that none of the evidence presented so far in the book convincingly settles the debate, and that the only evidence that could do this with any degree of certainty would be the decipherment of the script from the Indus Valley civilization.Less
The various attempts made to date Sanskrit texts (the Veda) are examined in the context that if the Ŗgveda (the earliest of the texts) is at least a millennium older than its commonly accepted date, then the possibility of Dravidian and/or Munda and/or unknown linguistic influences on Vedic Sanskrit being the result of the speakers of these languages intruding on an Indo-Aryan-speaking area after the other languages had already left, as opposed to vice versa, becomes a much more serious consideration. Moreover, the relationship between Vedic and Proto-Indo-European would need to be reconsidered, and any proposal associating the overland trajectory of the Indo-Aryans with the Andronovo culture, a southern Iranian route, or any Post-Harappan culture in the subcontinent, loses value. For these and other reasons, a much older date for the Veda is foundational to the Indigenous Aryanist position; if by contrast, the oldest strata of the Ŗgveda cannot be far removed from the conventionally accepted date of 1200 or 1500 B.C.E., then the Indigenous Aryanist case loses cogency. The chapter examines the dating of Proto-Indo-European first, before going on to look at the dating of the Veda itself, paying special attention to astronomy and its bearing on Vedic chronology. The author concludes that none of the evidence presented so far in the book convincingly settles the debate, and that the only evidence that could do this with any degree of certainty would be the decipherment of the script from the Indus Valley civilization.
Edwin Bryant
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195137774
- eISBN:
- 9780199834044
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195137779.003.0014
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
This final chapter discusses some of the more modern ideological underpinnings of the Indo-Aryan origin debate in India as different forces compete over the construction of national identity. Other ...
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This final chapter discusses some of the more modern ideological underpinnings of the Indo-Aryan origin debate in India as different forces compete over the construction of national identity. Other concerns motivating some of the participants on both sides of the Indigenous Aryan debate are also considered, showing how the same theme of Aryan origins has been used to support a variety of agendas on the Indian subcontinent. It is suggested that although the promotion of Indigenous Aryanism is undoubtedly extremely important to notions of identity and to the politics of legitimacy among certain Hindu nationalists, such concerns are not representative of all the scholars who have supported this point of view. Unfortunately, however, the whole Indigenous Aryan position is often simplistically stereotyped and conveniently demonized, both in India and in the West, as a discourse exclusively determined by such agendas. This bypasses other concerns also motivating such reconsideration of history: the desire of many Indian scholars to reclaim control over the reconstruction of the religious and cultural history of their country from the legacy of imperial and colonial scholarship. The manifold concerns that the author perceives as motivating Indigenous Aryanists to undertake a reconsideration of this issue are discussed, and it is argued that although there are doubtlessly nationalistic and, in some quarters, communal agendas lurking behind some of this scholarship, a principal feature is anticolonial/imperial.Less
This final chapter discusses some of the more modern ideological underpinnings of the Indo-Aryan origin debate in India as different forces compete over the construction of national identity. Other concerns motivating some of the participants on both sides of the Indigenous Aryan debate are also considered, showing how the same theme of Aryan origins has been used to support a variety of agendas on the Indian subcontinent. It is suggested that although the promotion of Indigenous Aryanism is undoubtedly extremely important to notions of identity and to the politics of legitimacy among certain Hindu nationalists, such concerns are not representative of all the scholars who have supported this point of view. Unfortunately, however, the whole Indigenous Aryan position is often simplistically stereotyped and conveniently demonized, both in India and in the West, as a discourse exclusively determined by such agendas. This bypasses other concerns also motivating such reconsideration of history: the desire of many Indian scholars to reclaim control over the reconstruction of the religious and cultural history of their country from the legacy of imperial and colonial scholarship. The manifold concerns that the author perceives as motivating Indigenous Aryanists to undertake a reconsideration of this issue are discussed, and it is argued that although there are doubtlessly nationalistic and, in some quarters, communal agendas lurking behind some of this scholarship, a principal feature is anticolonial/imperial.
Edwin Bryant
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195137774
- eISBN:
- 9780199834044
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195137779.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
The Indigenous Aryan debate can only be understood in the context of the history of the greater Indo-European homeland quest in Europe. The purpose of this chapter is to outline the most prominent ...
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The Indigenous Aryan debate can only be understood in the context of the history of the greater Indo-European homeland quest in Europe. The purpose of this chapter is to outline the most prominent features of this history that are most directly connected with the problems of Indo-Aryan origins. Indigenous Aryanists are almost universally suspicious of the motives surrounding the manner in which evidence was interpreted and construed by British and European scholars in the colonial period. It is important to excavate clearly the various biases that influenced the epistemes of the time before attempting to consider the evidence itself, so this chapter addresses some of the more blatant ideological and religious attitudes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the West that co-opted Aryan discourse in some form or fashion. Since there have been a number of studies focused on the general history of Indo-European Studies, it focuses on the aspects of this history that are of particular relevance to the Indian side of the family.Less
The Indigenous Aryan debate can only be understood in the context of the history of the greater Indo-European homeland quest in Europe. The purpose of this chapter is to outline the most prominent features of this history that are most directly connected with the problems of Indo-Aryan origins. Indigenous Aryanists are almost universally suspicious of the motives surrounding the manner in which evidence was interpreted and construed by British and European scholars in the colonial period. It is important to excavate clearly the various biases that influenced the epistemes of the time before attempting to consider the evidence itself, so this chapter addresses some of the more blatant ideological and religious attitudes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the West that co-opted Aryan discourse in some form or fashion. Since there have been a number of studies focused on the general history of Indo-European Studies, it focuses on the aspects of this history that are of particular relevance to the Indian side of the family.
Edwin Bryant
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195137774
- eISBN:
- 9780199834044
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195137779.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
This chapter starts the analysis of the actual data concerning Indo-Aryan origins. By the mid-nineteenth century, one of the few things regarding the homeland that Western Indo-European scholars did ...
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This chapter starts the analysis of the actual data concerning Indo-Aryan origins. By the mid-nineteenth century, one of the few things regarding the homeland that Western Indo-European scholars did agree on was that it could not have been India; wherever the original homeland might have been the Indo-Aryans at least must have come to the subcontinent from outside. While not the slightest bit concerned with the homeland obsession of European scholars in general, Indigenous Aryanists soon reacted to the corollary of the problem when it impinged on the origins of their own culture; it seemed unacceptable to consider that such an enormously speculative and seemingly inconclusive European undertaking should be entitled to make authoritative pronouncements on the early history of the Indian subcontinent. The first voices of opposition that attempted to utilize critical scholarship to counter the claim that the forefathers of the Vedic Indians hailed from outside the subcontinent are introduced. The initial objections concerned the philological evidence that had been brought forward as decisive by Western philologists. Since philology was a discipline that resonated with their own traditional Śruti epistemologies, and since it focused on texts in their own ancient language, Vedic Sanskrit, the philological evidence was the most easily accessible to Indigenous Aryan scrutiny; moreover, these texts that were suddenly of such interest to Western scholars happened to be their sacred ones and this fueled their concern.Less
This chapter starts the analysis of the actual data concerning Indo-Aryan origins. By the mid-nineteenth century, one of the few things regarding the homeland that Western Indo-European scholars did agree on was that it could not have been India; wherever the original homeland might have been the Indo-Aryans at least must have come to the subcontinent from outside. While not the slightest bit concerned with the homeland obsession of European scholars in general, Indigenous Aryanists soon reacted to the corollary of the problem when it impinged on the origins of their own culture; it seemed unacceptable to consider that such an enormously speculative and seemingly inconclusive European undertaking should be entitled to make authoritative pronouncements on the early history of the Indian subcontinent. The first voices of opposition that attempted to utilize critical scholarship to counter the claim that the forefathers of the Vedic Indians hailed from outside the subcontinent are introduced. The initial objections concerned the philological evidence that had been brought forward as decisive by Western philologists. Since philology was a discipline that resonated with their own traditional Śruti epistemologies, and since it focused on texts in their own ancient language, Vedic Sanskrit, the philological evidence was the most easily accessible to Indigenous Aryan scrutiny; moreover, these texts that were suddenly of such interest to Western scholars happened to be their sacred ones and this fueled their concern.
Edwin Bryant
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195137774
- eISBN:
- 9780199834044
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195137779.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
An analysis is made of the evidence for a non-Indo-Aryan linguistic substratum in Sanskrit texts, which has remained perhaps the principal and (in the author’s view) the most persuasive reason ...
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An analysis is made of the evidence for a non-Indo-Aryan linguistic substratum in Sanskrit texts, which has remained perhaps the principal and (in the author’s view) the most persuasive reason brought forward in support of the Aryan invasions and migrations. The issue here is: Do the Vedic texts preserve linguistic evidence of languages preceding the Indo-Aryan presence on the Indian subcontinent? This is an essential aspect of the debate, but one that has been mostly ignored by Indigenous Aryanists. The different sections of the chapter look at linguistic (syntactical) innovations in Sanskrit, the existence of “loanwords” ascribed to either Dravidian, Munda, and/or unknown origins, terms for flora in Indic languages, and place names and river names. Finally the possibility (first raised by Bloch) is explored that it was Dravidian that intruded into an Indo-Aryan speaking area and not vice versa.Less
An analysis is made of the evidence for a non-Indo-Aryan linguistic substratum in Sanskrit texts, which has remained perhaps the principal and (in the author’s view) the most persuasive reason brought forward in support of the Aryan invasions and migrations. The issue here is: Do the Vedic texts preserve linguistic evidence of languages preceding the Indo-Aryan presence on the Indian subcontinent? This is an essential aspect of the debate, but one that has been mostly ignored by Indigenous Aryanists. The different sections of the chapter look at linguistic (syntactical) innovations in Sanskrit, the existence of “loanwords” ascribed to either Dravidian, Munda, and/or unknown origins, terms for flora in Indic languages, and place names and river names. Finally the possibility (first raised by Bloch) is explored that it was Dravidian that intruded into an Indo-Aryan speaking area and not vice versa.
Kate Fullagar
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780300243062
- eISBN:
- 9780300249279
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300243062.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
Today, the portrait of the Pacific Islander, Mai, painted by Joshua Reynolds is world-renowned as a symbol of empire and of the eighteenth century. But Reynolds painted other visitors from the New ...
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Today, the portrait of the Pacific Islander, Mai, painted by Joshua Reynolds is world-renowned as a symbol of empire and of the eighteenth century. But Reynolds painted other visitors from the New World, now forgotten. One especially haunting portrait was of a Cherokee warrior called Ostenaco, who visited Britain a dozen years before Mai. This book is less about Reynolds’s portraits than the full, complicated, and richly illuminating lives behind them. It tells the whole life story of Mai, the refugee from Ra‘iatea who voyaged with James Cook to London in the 1770s and returned home again to seek vengeance on his neighboring Islanders. It traces, for the first time, the entire biography of Ostenaco, who grew up in the southern Appalachians, engaged with colonists throughout his adulthood, and became entangled with imperial politics in complex ways during the American Revolution. And it reveals the experiences of the painter who encountered both Indigenous visitors, Reynolds himself—an artist often celebrated as a founder of modern British art but rarely seen as a figure of empire. This book interweaves all three parallel and otherwise unconnected lives together, explaining their links but also exposing some of the extraordinary diversity of the eighteenth-century world. It shows that Indigenous people pushed back and shaped European expansion far more than is acknowledged. It also reveals how much more conflicted Britons were about their empire in this era than is assumed, even while they witnessed its reach into every corner of the globe.Less
Today, the portrait of the Pacific Islander, Mai, painted by Joshua Reynolds is world-renowned as a symbol of empire and of the eighteenth century. But Reynolds painted other visitors from the New World, now forgotten. One especially haunting portrait was of a Cherokee warrior called Ostenaco, who visited Britain a dozen years before Mai. This book is less about Reynolds’s portraits than the full, complicated, and richly illuminating lives behind them. It tells the whole life story of Mai, the refugee from Ra‘iatea who voyaged with James Cook to London in the 1770s and returned home again to seek vengeance on his neighboring Islanders. It traces, for the first time, the entire biography of Ostenaco, who grew up in the southern Appalachians, engaged with colonists throughout his adulthood, and became entangled with imperial politics in complex ways during the American Revolution. And it reveals the experiences of the painter who encountered both Indigenous visitors, Reynolds himself—an artist often celebrated as a founder of modern British art but rarely seen as a figure of empire. This book interweaves all three parallel and otherwise unconnected lives together, explaining their links but also exposing some of the extraordinary diversity of the eighteenth-century world. It shows that Indigenous people pushed back and shaped European expansion far more than is acknowledged. It also reveals how much more conflicted Britons were about their empire in this era than is assumed, even while they witnessed its reach into every corner of the globe.
Coll Thrush
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780300206302
- eISBN:
- 9780300224863
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300206302.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This book provides an imaginative retelling of London's history, framed through the experiences of Indigenous travelers who came to the city over the course of more than five centuries. London is ...
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This book provides an imaginative retelling of London's history, framed through the experiences of Indigenous travelers who came to the city over the course of more than five centuries. London is famed both as the ancient center of a former empire and as a modern metropolis of bewildering complexity and diversity. This book offers an imaginative vision of the city's past crafted from an almost entirely new perspective: that of Indigenous children, women, and men who traveled there, willingly or otherwise, from territories that became Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States, beginning in the sixteenth century. They included captives and diplomats, missionaries and shamans, poets and performers. Some, like the Powhatan noblewoman Pocahontas, are familiar; others, like an Odawa boy held as a prisoner of war, have almost been lost to history. In drawing together their stories and their diverse experiences with a changing urban culture, the book also illustrates how London learned to be a global, imperial city and how Indigenous people were central to that process.Less
This book provides an imaginative retelling of London's history, framed through the experiences of Indigenous travelers who came to the city over the course of more than five centuries. London is famed both as the ancient center of a former empire and as a modern metropolis of bewildering complexity and diversity. This book offers an imaginative vision of the city's past crafted from an almost entirely new perspective: that of Indigenous children, women, and men who traveled there, willingly or otherwise, from territories that became Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States, beginning in the sixteenth century. They included captives and diplomats, missionaries and shamans, poets and performers. Some, like the Powhatan noblewoman Pocahontas, are familiar; others, like an Odawa boy held as a prisoner of war, have almost been lost to history. In drawing together their stories and their diverse experiences with a changing urban culture, the book also illustrates how London learned to be a global, imperial city and how Indigenous people were central to that process.
Philipp Schorch and Conal McCarthy (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781526118196
- eISBN:
- 9781526142016
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526118196.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Global
What is the future of curatorial practice? How can the relationships between Indigenous people in the Pacific, collections in Euro-American institutions, and curatorial knowledge in museums globally ...
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What is the future of curatorial practice? How can the relationships between Indigenous people in the Pacific, collections in Euro-American institutions, and curatorial knowledge in museums globally be (re)conceptualised in reciprocal and symmetrical ways? Is there an ideal model, a ‘curatopia,’ whether in the form of a utopia or dystopia, which can enable the reinvention of ethnographic museums and address their difficult colonial legacies? This volume addresses these questions by considering the current state of the play in curatorial practice, reviewing the different models and approaches operating in different museums, galleries and cultural organisations around the world, and debating the emerging concerns, challenges, and opportunities. The subject areas range over native and tribal cultures, anthropology, art, history, migration and settler culture, among others. Topics covered include: contemporary curatorial theory, new museum trends, models and paradigms, the state of research and scholarship, the impact of new media, and current issues such as curatorial leadership, collecting and collection access and use, exhibition development, and community engagement. The volume is international in scope and covers three broad regions—Europe, North America and the Pacific. The contributors are leading and emerging scholars and practitioners in their respective fields, all of whom have worked in and with universities and museums, and are therefore perfectly placed to reshape the dialogue between academia and the professional museum world.Less
What is the future of curatorial practice? How can the relationships between Indigenous people in the Pacific, collections in Euro-American institutions, and curatorial knowledge in museums globally be (re)conceptualised in reciprocal and symmetrical ways? Is there an ideal model, a ‘curatopia,’ whether in the form of a utopia or dystopia, which can enable the reinvention of ethnographic museums and address their difficult colonial legacies? This volume addresses these questions by considering the current state of the play in curatorial practice, reviewing the different models and approaches operating in different museums, galleries and cultural organisations around the world, and debating the emerging concerns, challenges, and opportunities. The subject areas range over native and tribal cultures, anthropology, art, history, migration and settler culture, among others. Topics covered include: contemporary curatorial theory, new museum trends, models and paradigms, the state of research and scholarship, the impact of new media, and current issues such as curatorial leadership, collecting and collection access and use, exhibition development, and community engagement. The volume is international in scope and covers three broad regions—Europe, North America and the Pacific. The contributors are leading and emerging scholars and practitioners in their respective fields, all of whom have worked in and with universities and museums, and are therefore perfectly placed to reshape the dialogue between academia and the professional museum world.
Norie Neumark
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262036139
- eISBN:
- 9780262339834
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262036139.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
Moved by Aboriginal or Indigenous understandings of tracks, Norie Neumark’s Voicetracks seeks to deepen understandings of voice through listening to a variety of media and contemporary art works from ...
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Moved by Aboriginal or Indigenous understandings of tracks, Norie Neumark’s Voicetracks seeks to deepen understandings of voice through listening to a variety of media and contemporary art works from Australia, Europe, and the United States. The author aims to bring voice studies into conversation with new materialism to broaden thinking within both. Through a methodology based in listening, she brings theories of affect and carnal and situated knowledge into conversation with her examples and the theories she works with. Through her examples, Neumark engages with artists working with animal sounds and voices; voices of place, placed voices in installation works; voices of technology; and “unvoicing,” disturbances in the image/voice relationship and in the idea of what voice is. Neumark evokes both the literal—the actual voices within the works with which she engages—and the metaphorical—in a new materialist exploration of voice encompassing humans, animals, things, and assemblages. Not content with the often dry tone of academic writing, the author engages a “wayfaring” process that brings together theories from sound, animal, and posthuman studies in order to change the ways we think about and act with and within the assemblages of living creatures, things, places and histories around us. Finally, she considers ethics and politics, and describes how her own work has shaped her understandings and apprehensions of voice.Less
Moved by Aboriginal or Indigenous understandings of tracks, Norie Neumark’s Voicetracks seeks to deepen understandings of voice through listening to a variety of media and contemporary art works from Australia, Europe, and the United States. The author aims to bring voice studies into conversation with new materialism to broaden thinking within both. Through a methodology based in listening, she brings theories of affect and carnal and situated knowledge into conversation with her examples and the theories she works with. Through her examples, Neumark engages with artists working with animal sounds and voices; voices of place, placed voices in installation works; voices of technology; and “unvoicing,” disturbances in the image/voice relationship and in the idea of what voice is. Neumark evokes both the literal—the actual voices within the works with which she engages—and the metaphorical—in a new materialist exploration of voice encompassing humans, animals, things, and assemblages. Not content with the often dry tone of academic writing, the author engages a “wayfaring” process that brings together theories from sound, animal, and posthuman studies in order to change the ways we think about and act with and within the assemblages of living creatures, things, places and histories around us. Finally, she considers ethics and politics, and describes how her own work has shaped her understandings and apprehensions of voice.
Steven Wheatley
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199580910
- eISBN:
- 9780191723025
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199580910.003.0014
- Subject:
- Law, Comparative Law
This chapter focuses on the complexities that emerge in the system of global governance following the acceptance that indigenous peoples are ‘peoples’ with a right to self-government through ...
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This chapter focuses on the complexities that emerge in the system of global governance following the acceptance that indigenous peoples are ‘peoples’ with a right to self-government through (indigenous) law. The chapter proceeds as follows. It first provides an overview of the adoption of the UN Declaration and its status in international law, before examining the provisions on shared government and self-government. The Declaration reflects a condition of legal pluralism, and the chapter examines the meaning of the idea before considering its relevance beyond the state. It concludes on the need for a distinction to be made between normative pluralism and legal pluralism, and in doing so, develops a concept of law that applies to state law, international law, and the laws of indigenous peoples. The chapter then returns to the question of the conflict of law norms in conditions of global legal pluralism, complexity, uncertainty, and reasonable disagreement. It argues that legal orders should approach the question of the conflicts of laws from the perspective of democratic legitimacy. It questions whether it is appropriate to apply this ‘meta-perspective’ to the position of indigenous peoples, and concludes with a number of observations on the right of political participation for persons belonging to indigenous peoples in the fragmented system of global governance.Less
This chapter focuses on the complexities that emerge in the system of global governance following the acceptance that indigenous peoples are ‘peoples’ with a right to self-government through (indigenous) law. The chapter proceeds as follows. It first provides an overview of the adoption of the UN Declaration and its status in international law, before examining the provisions on shared government and self-government. The Declaration reflects a condition of legal pluralism, and the chapter examines the meaning of the idea before considering its relevance beyond the state. It concludes on the need for a distinction to be made between normative pluralism and legal pluralism, and in doing so, develops a concept of law that applies to state law, international law, and the laws of indigenous peoples. The chapter then returns to the question of the conflict of law norms in conditions of global legal pluralism, complexity, uncertainty, and reasonable disagreement. It argues that legal orders should approach the question of the conflicts of laws from the perspective of democratic legitimacy. It questions whether it is appropriate to apply this ‘meta-perspective’ to the position of indigenous peoples, and concludes with a number of observations on the right of political participation for persons belonging to indigenous peoples in the fragmented system of global governance.
