Oberlin College

Fall 2005

Anthropology 210

Indigenous Peoples of Latin America

Course Description:

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to modern historical, ethnohistorical and anthropological approaches to the indigenous populations of Latin America. The course will focus on the ongoing process of conflict and accommodation that has characterized the relationship between the native peoples of the New World and those of the Old World. These and other themes will be traced historically (from pre-Columbian times to the present) and regionally, focusing on 4 areas - 1) Central Mexico 2) Central America 3) the Andes 4) the Amazon. Students will learn both about the ancient civilizations that inhabited these regions as well as about the modern struggles waged by their descendants in the present. In the modern era we will study indigenous social movements around land claims, natural resources, economic development, cultural recognition and human rights.

Assignments and Grading:

Students will be evaluated on the basis of: 1) class attendance/ participation - 20% 2) Native Profiles Presentation - 20% 3) two essays, 5 pages � 10% each 4) Blackboard Participation� 20% �5) final paper, 10 pages � 20%.�

Attendance/Participation:

Students are expected to come to class having read the selections for that day.� Students are expected to knowledgably participate in class discussions.� Students who have more than two unexcused absences will not be eligible for an "A" or "A-" grade in the class.� Students who have more than 4 unexcused absences will not be eligible for a "B+" or "B" grade.� This rule applies above and beyond the weight of absences in the overall attendance/participation grade.� Students are responsible for all assignments, instructions, lectures notes etc. that they miss during an absence.� Absences will only be excused when students have so requested/notified IN ADVANCE of the class session in question.� Students may communicate with the instructor about missed classes by e-mail, phone message or in person.� These are examples of absences that will be excused: 1) emergency medical treatment 2) serious/contagious illness.� These are examples of absences that will not be excused 1) travel plans 2) medical visits that are not emergencies and can be rescheduled.

Essays:� Students will write 2 essays 5-6 pages in length during the semester.� They will be turned in by e-mail at midnight on the day that they are due.� No late papers will be accepted and it will be assumed that e-mail messages never become lost.� If you wish to confirm receipt of your paper then you must "cc" to yourself a copy of the file that you send to the instructor.� The message that you send to yourself (which indicates that your instructor was the recipient) will serve as your receipt.� All files must be sent as attached documents in Microsoft Word or in .rtf format (using any other word processing program).� Choose one among the following essay questions.� Students may propose their own essay question contingent on the approval of the instructor.

a) Compare and contrast the development and use of systems of racial classification between Latin America and the United States.

b)� The belief that the native inhabitants of the New World were passive victims that easily capitulated to European domination is commonly held in the Americas.� Write an essay in which you counter this notion using evidence from both the colonial and republican (post-independence) periods.� Describe and document the different forms and manifestations (not just armed rebellions) that Indian resistance has taken.

c)� How and why has the use of the Indian and Black racial categories appeared and disappeared in different places in the Americas?

a)� �In many countries, indigenous communities must legally establish their legitimacy through the rhetoric of cultural continuity in order to gain official recognition, protection, and access to resources including shared lands.� Ironically, the notion of uniformly shared culture rooted in a particular place has been abandoned by the discipline [of Anthropology] �� (in Warren and Jackson, �Introduction�, pg. 8).

Many anthropologists feel that there is a conflict between modern theoretical approaches in the field (�anti-essentialism�, �deconstruction�, �hybridity� etc.) and the modern goal of serving as advocates for indigenous communities.� What are these modern theoretical approaches and goals replacing and why have these perceived to be inadequate?� Using examples from the readings and lectures describe this conflict.� How have anthropologists attempted to resolve this conflict?

b)� Many of the authors that we have read have insisted the racism and racial classification in Latin America must be understood in relation to both class and gender. Using examples from lectures and readings, what is the nature of the relationship between class, gender and race in Latin America?

Native Profiles Group Presentations:� Students will be divided into teams of 3. �Each team will conduct research on a particular indigenous group or issue that is represented in the anthropological literature.� Each group will make a 20 minute presentation to the class on this group.� In their presentation students will be expected to find and display pictures, artifacts, videos, audio recording and other kinds of media. �The presentation must 1) provide a general profile of the group or issue in question and 2) relate the group or issue to some of the main themes of the class.� Groups must choose a topic and submit to the instructor a substantial list of sources at least two days prior to the presentation.

Final Paper:� � Write an original research paper (10 pages) on the following topic and turn it in via e-mail by December 20 at 11AM.� Describe a particular threat to indigenous peoples in Latin America.� How are indigenous peoples and others publicizing this threat?� What is being done to address the problem? What could be done?� What role are anthropologists playing?� What role should they play?

Paper Grading:� The papers will be evaluated on the basis of 1) clarity of argument and writing 2) effective use of sources 3) ability to make insightful connections between the subject at hand and the major themes and questions of the class.

Response Questions on Blackboard:� Once per week students will write a three paragraph response to questions based on the readings.� These questions will be posted by the instructor on Blackboard.� The answers will be graded on a scale of 1-10.� Your responses should 1) respond directly to the question in an insightful manner and 2) demonstrate your understanding of the readings at hand.� You must make specific reference to the readings!� In addition, over the course of the semester students will also be expected to write 5 one paragraph responses to the postings of their fellow students.

Honor Code:� With the exception of Blackboard postings, students will write the Honor Pledge after each assignment: "I affirm that I have adhered to the Honor Code in this assignment."� It is assumed that all students are familiar with the Oberlin College honor code and honor system - http://www.oberlin.edu/students/student_pages/honor_code.html

Readings:

A. David Maybury-Lewis (ed.).� 2002. The Politics of Ethnicity: Indigenous Peoples in Latin American States.

B. Susan C. Stonich (ed.).� 2001.� Endangered Peoples of Latin America: Struggles to Survive and Thrive.�

C. Kay Warren and Jean Jackson. 2002. Indigenous Movements, Self-Representation, and the State in Latin America.

D. journal articles in .pdf format to be distributed via Blackboard

E. Internet sources that you can access via the WWW

F. Rigoberta Menchu, Elisabeth Burgos-Debray (Editor). 1984.� I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala

�

Week 1: Introduction � Anthropology and the Politics of Indigenous America

Tuesday (9/6):�� no readings

Thursday (9/8):�� B. Susan Stonich, "Introduction"

C. Kay Warren and Jean Jackson, �Introduction: Studying Indigenous Activism in Latin America�

D. Robin Wright, �Anthropological Presuppositions of Indigenous Advocacy�

Week 2: History, Conquest and Protest

Tuesday (9/13)�� B. Scott Robinson, "Villagers at the Edge of Mexico City"

D. Steve Stern, �Paradigms of Conquest: History, Historiography and Politics�; Francis Brooks, �Motecuzoma Xocoyotl, Hernan Cortes, and Bernal Diaz del Castillo: The Construction of an Arrest�

Thursday (9/15) �� B. Mar�a Cruz-Torres, "The Rural People of Mexico's Northwest Coast"

D. Ralph Bauer, ��EnCountering� Colonial Latin American Indian Chronicles: Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala�s History of the �New� World�; Ignacio Gallup-Diaz, �The Spanish Attempt to Colonize the Darien, 1735-1750�

Week 3: A Comparative Case: Indians of Ohio

Tuesday (9/20)�� D. Reginald Horsman, "American Indian Policy in the Old Northwest, 1783-1812"

E. http://worlddmc.ohiolink.edu/OMP/Subject?subject=american&pg=1 from Ohio Memory: An Online Scrapbook of Ohio History (read pages 1-4 of "Anerican Indians in Ohio", explore)

Thursday (9/22)�� D. Colin Calloway, "'We have Always Been the Frontier': The American Revolution in Shawnee Country"

E. http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/category.php?c=H from Ohio History Central (explore and read some of the entries referring to the native peoples of Ohio, read the entry on Fort Defiance, Fort Greenville, Battle of Fallen Timbers, Treaty with the Wyandot of 1785, Beaver Wars); http://www.wyandotte-nation.org/index.html from the contemporary Wyandotte Nation in Oklahoma (explore)

Week 4: Indian Identity: Who is Indigenous?

Tuesday (9/27)�� A. Paul Gelles, �Andean Culture, Indigenous Identity, and the State in Peru�

D. Les Field, �Who are the Indians?: Reconceptualizing Indigenous Identity, Resistance and the Role of Social Science in Latin America�

Thursday (9/29)�� A. Maria Clemencia Ramirez, �The Politics of Identity and Cultural Difference in the Colombian Amazon: Claiming Indigenous Rights in the Putumayo Region�

B. Peter Herlihy, "Indigenous and Ladino Peoples of the R�o Pl�tano Biosphere"

D. Jeffrey Gould, ��Vana Ilusion�: The Highlands Indians and the Myth of Nicaragua Mestiza, 1880-1925�

Week 5: Race and Mestizaje in Latin America

Tuesday (10/4))�� B. Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld, "The Otavale�os of the Ecuadorian Highlands"

D. Mary Weismantel, �Race Rape: White Masculinity in Andean Pishtaco Tales�; Marisol delaCadena, �Reconstructing Race: Racism, Culture and Mestizaje in Latin America�

Thursday (10/6)�� B. Paul Gelles, "The Quechua of the Peruvian Andes"

D. David Cahill, �Colour by Numbers: Racial and Ethnic Categories in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1532-1824�

Week 6 Africans and Americans

Tuesday (10/11)�� D. Norman Whitten and Rachel Corr, �Contesting the Images of Oppression: Indigenous Views of Blackness in the Americas�; Rhett Jones, �Black/Indian Relations: An Overview of the Scholarship�; Thomas Fiehrer, �Slaves and Freedmen in Colonial Central America: Rediscovering a Forgotten Black Past�

Thursday (10/13)�� B. Susan Stonich, "The English-Speaking Bay Islanders"

D. Juliet Hooker, "Indigenous Inclusion/Black Exclusion: Race Ethnicity and Multicultural Citizenship in Latin America; Peter Wade, �The Cultural Politics of Blackness in Colombia�

Week 7 Ecology and Environment

Tuesday (10/18)�� D. Beth Conklin and Laura Graham, �The Shifting Middle Ground: Amazonian Indians and Eco-Politics�

David Cleveland and Stephen Murray, �The World�s Crop Genetic Resources and the Rights of Indigenous Farmers�; Paul Sillitoe, �The Development of Indigenous Knowledge: A New Applied Anthropology�

Essay #1 due

Thursday (10/20)�� FREE DAY

FALL RECESS (10/22-10/31)

Week 8 Resistance and Rebellion: Case Study I � Amazonia (Kayapo Video)

Tuesday (11/1)�� GUEST SPEAKER

A. Jean Jackson, �Caught in the Crossfire: Colombia�s Indigenous Peoples during the 1990s�; Bartholomew Dean, "State Power and Indigenous Peoples in Peruvian Amazonia: A Lost Decade, 1990-2000."

B. Janet Chernela, "The Awa of Ecuador"

Thursday (11/3)�� A.� David Maybury-Lewis, "For Reasons of State: Paradoxes of Indigenist Policy in Brazil"

C. Laura Graham, �How Should an Indian Speak? Amazonian Indians and the Symbolic Politics of Language in the Global Public Sphere�; Terence Turner, �Representation, Polyphony, and the Contruction of Power in Kayapo Video�

Week 9 Resistance and Rebellion � Case Study II, Miskito, Kuna and Ng�be

Tuesday (11/8) B. David Dodds, "The Miskito of Honduras and Nicaragua"

D. Baron Pineda, "Creole Neighborhood or Miskito Community?� A Case Study of Identity Politics in a Mosquito Coast Land Dispute"

Thursday (11/10)�� A. James Howe, "The Kuna of Panama: Continuing Threats to Land and Autonomy"

B. John Bort and Philip Young, "The Ng�be of Western Panama"; James Howe, "The Kuna of Panama"

Week 10 Resistance and Rebellion: Case Study III � Mexico/Chiapas

Tuesday (11/15)�� A. Jerome Levi, �A New Dawn or a Cycle Restored? Regional Dynamics and Cultural Politics in Indigenous Mexico, 1978-2001�

�� D. Courtney Jung, �The Politics of Indigenous Identity: Neoliberalism, Cultural Rights and the Mexican Zapatistas�

Thursday (11/17)�� D. R Aida Hernandez Castillo, �Zapatismo and the Emergence of Indigenous Feminism�; Lynn Stephen, �The Construction of Indigenous Suspects: Militarization and the Gendered and Ethnic Dynamics of Human Rights Abuses in Southern Mexico�

Week 11 Resistance and Rebellion: Case Study III � Maya

Tuesday (11/22) �� B. James Loucky, "The Tz'utujil Maya of Guatemala"

C. Victor Montejo, �The Multiplicity of Mayan Voices: Mayan Leadership and the Politics of Self-Representation�; Kay Warren, �Voting Against Indigenous Rights in Guatemala: Lessons from the 1999 Referendum�

F. Rigoberta Mench� (first half of book)

Thursday (11/24)�� Thanksgiving

Week 12 Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the United States

Tuesday (11/29)�� D. Jack Forbes, �The Hispanic Spin: Party Politics and the Governmental Manipulation of Ethnic Identity�; Michael Kearney, �Transnational Oaxacan Indigenous Identity: The Case of Mixtecs and Zapotecs�

Thursday (12/01)�� D. Martha Menchaca, �Chicano Indianism: A Historical Account of Racial Repression in the United States�;

Essay #2 due

Week 13 Rights and Recognition

Tuesday (12/6)�� D. Dorothy Hodgson, �Introduction: Comparative Perspectives on the Indigenous Rights Movements in Africa and the Americas�; John Bowen, �Should We Have a Universal Concept of �Indigenous People�s� Rights?: Ethnicity and Essentialism in the 21^st Century�

Thursday (12/8)�� C. Alcida Rita Ramos, �Cutting through State and Class: Sources and Strategies of Self-Representation in Latin America�

D. Virginia Tilley, "New Help or New Hegemony: The Transnational Indigenous Peoples Movement and 'Being Indian' in El Salvador"

Week 14 Anthropology and Indigenous Peoples

Tuesday (12/13)�� D. Orin Starn, �Rethinking the Politics of Anthropology: The Case of the Andes�; Stefano Varese, �The Ethnopolitics of Indian Resistance in Latin America�

Thursday (12/15)�� D. Stephen Nugent, �Anthropology and Public Culture: The Yanomami, Science and Ethics�

F.� Rigoberta Mench�, (second half of book)

Final Paper due, Tuesday, December 20th, 11AM