Archaeologies of Us and Them: Debating History, Heritage and Indigeneity [1° ed.] 1138188913, 9781138188914

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Archaeologies of “Us” and “Them”

Archaeologies of “Us” and “Them” explores the concept of indigeneity within the field of archaeology and heritage and in particular examines the shifts in power that occur when ‘we’ define ‘the other’ by categorizing ‘them’ as indigenous. Recognizing the complex and shifting distinctions between indigenous and non-indigenous pasts and presents, this volume gives a nuanced analysis of the underlying definitions, concepts and ethics associated with this field in order to explore Indigenous archaeology as a theoretical, ethical and political concept. Indigenous archaeology is an increasingly important topic discussed worldwide, and as such critical analyses must be applied to debates which are often surrounded by political correctness and consensus views. Drawing on an international range of global case studies, this timely and sensitive collection significantly contributes to the development of archaeological critical theory. Charlotta Hillerdal is Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Anna Karlström is Lecturer and Researcher in Heritage Studies at the Department of Art History, Uppsala University, Sweden. Carl-Gösta Ojala is Researcher in Archaeology at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University, Sweden.

Routledge Studies in Archaeology For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com

19 Archaeology’s Visual Culture Digging and Desire Roger Balm 20 Marking the Land Hunter-Gatherer Creation of Meaning in Their Environment Edited by William A Lovis and Robert Whallon 21 The Archaeology of Human-Environment Interactions Strategies for Investigating Anthropogenic Landscapes, Dynamic Environments, and Climate Change in the Human Past Edited by Daniel Contreras 22 Life of the Trade Events and Happenings in Niumi’s Atlantic Center By Liza Gijanto 23 Exploring the Materiality of Food ‘Stuffs’ Transformations, Symbolic Consumption and Embodiment(s) Edited by Louise Steel and Katharina Zinn 24 Archaeologies of “Us” and “Them” Debating History, Heritage and Indigeneity Edited by Charlotta Hillerdal, Anna Karlström and Carl-Gösta Ojala 25 Balkan Dialogues Negotiating Identity between Prehistory and the Present Edited by Maja Gori and Maria Ivanova 26 Material Worlds Archaeology, Consumption, and the Road to Modernity Edited by Barbara J. Heath, Eleanor E. Breen, and Lori A. Lee

Archaeologies of “Us” and “Them” Debating History, Heritage and Indigeneity Edited by Charlotta Hillerdal, Anna Karlström and Carl-Gösta Ojala

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Charlotta Hillerdal, Anna Karlström and Carl-Gösta Ojala The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hillerdal, Charlotta, editor of compilation. | Karlström, Anna, editor of compilation. | Ojala, Carl-Gösta, editor of compilation. Title: Archaeologies of “us” and “them” : debating history, heritage and indigeneity / edited by Charlotta Hillerdal, Anna Karlström and Carl-Gösta Ojala. Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2017. | Series: Routledge studies in archaeology ; 24 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016035205 | ISBN 9781138188914 (hardback : alkaline paper) | ISBN 9781315641997 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Archaeology—Philosophy. | Archaeology—Moral and ethical aspects. | Archaeology—Social aspects. | Archaeology— Political aspects. | Indigenous peoples. | Cultural property. | Other (Philosophy) | Power (Social sciences) Classification: LCC CC72 .A66 2017 | DDC 930.1—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016035205 ISBN: 978-1-138-18891-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-64199-7 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of figuresviii Notes on contributorsx Forewordxvi LYNETTE RUSSELL

Introduction

1

CHARLOTTA HILLERDAL, ANNA KARLSTRÖM AND CARL-GÖSTA OJALA

PART I

Politics of indigeneity15 CHARLOTTA HILLERDAL

1 Collective rights and the construction of heritage

19

RONALD NIEZEN

2 Naming the indigenous

33

NICK SHEPHERD

3 Stakeholder in practice: “Us”, “Them” and the problem of expertise

38

TRINIDAD RICO

4 Extractive industries, corporate discourse and indigenous heritage

53

MELISSA F. BAIRD

5 Integrating the past in the present: archaeology as part of living Yup’ik heritage CHARLOTTA HILLERDAL

64

vi  Contents   6 Us and whom?: representations of indigenousness in the archaeological site of Avdat, Israel

80

CHEMI (MENACHEM) SHIFF

  7 The archaeological construction of aboriginality: the Inuit case

97

ROBERT MCGHEE

PART II

Spaces between “Us” and “Them”109 ANNA KARLSTRÖM

  8 Envisioning a different notion of “indigenous archaeology” from the perspective of Sub-Saharan Africa

113

PAUL J. LANE

  9 Who is indigenous?: migration theories and notions of indigeneity in Southern African archaeology

127

EDWARD MATENGA

10 Reading indigeneity without race: color, representation and uncertainty in photographic evidence

140

CELMARA POCOCK

11 How history controls the past: “discovering” the unconventional and underground history of Setauket, New York’s Native and African American community

159

CHRISTOPHER N. MATTHEWS

12 Bronze drums and the contestations of indigenous heritage in Laos

175

ANNA KARLSTRÖM

13 Indigeneity, knowledge and archaeology on both sides of the mirror

185

ALEJANDRO F. HABER

PART III

Heritage and indigenous rights195 CARL-GÖSTA OJALA

14 Culture, rights, indigeneity and intervention: addressing inequality in indigenous heritage protection and control GEORGE P. NICHOLAS

199

Contents vii 15 Archaeological heritage and Hokkaido Ainu: ethnicity and research ethics

218

HIROFUMI KATO

16 Power relations and the management of heritage in South Africa

233

NDUKUYAKHE NDLOVU

17 Performing “Indigenous” for international tourists who tour the rural poor

241

JOHN GIBLIN

18 Contested colonial history and heritage in Sápmi: archaeology, indigeneity and local communities in Northern Sweden

258

CARL-GÖSTA OJALA

19 Reindeer herding as heritage in the Kola Peninsula, northwestern Russia

272

VLADISLAVA VLADIMIROVA

Index294

Figures

  5.1 A local Yup’ik boy and a Scottish field school student investigate the earth at Nunalleq together in the 2010 excavation season   5.2 In dialogue with the past – Quinhagak boy contemplates wolf masks at the end of season ‘show-and-tell’ in 2013   6.1 Advertisement for the “Egged Tourism” company, taken at Avdat   6.2 The Avdat visitor center. The exhibition and souvenir shop are merged together.   6.3 One of the sculptures designed as caricatures by Dr. Renee Sivan   9.1 Diana’s Vow cave paintings, 30 km north of Rusape, Zimbabwe, show a variety of figures including humans, a dog and non-diagnostic figures   9.2 Shanje cave paintings, Matobo National Park and World Heritage, show a snake, human figures and kudu   9.3 Inange polychrome cave paintings, Matobo National Park and World Heritage, show giraffes and other animals, and non-diagnostic rectangles 10.1 Man spearing fish, Lindeman Island, c. 1931 10.2 Aboriginal performance, Palm Island, 1931 10.3 Tourists being transported to Great Barrier Reef Islands with unidentified Indigenous men in the background 10.4 Minnie Connolly, Claude Ponto and their two children, Teresa and Stanley, at Low Isles, 1928 11.1 Artifacts from the Jacob and Hannah Hart site in Setauket, New York 11.2 Ernest Hart cabin 11.3 Artifacts collected from the Ernest Hart cabin in Setauket, New York 12.1 One of the ancient Dong Son bronze drums recently found in Vilabouly district

73 74 85 86 87 130 131 132 148 148 149 151 168 170 170 179

Figures ix 14.1 Construction underway on Grace Islet, an ancestral burial ground, British Columbia, Canada 14.2 “Declaration on the Safeguarding of Indigenous Ancestral Burial Grounds as Sacred Sites and Cultural Landscapes” 18.1 Industrial landscapes in Sápmi. The iron ore mine in Kiruna, northern Sweden 18.2 The cemetery at the Nasafjäll silver mine, in northern Sweden 19.1 The Regional History Museum (kraevedcheskii muzei, Rus.) became the home of indigenous peoples’ culture 19.2 “Stylized” ethnic dance and music performances, created by conservatory-educated musicians, were institutionalized as indigenous culture, while indigenous economy was collectivized, reorganized and modernized 19.3 Reindeer herders do not want to be associated with “the Stone Age”, as one of them puts it 19.4 Reindeer herding is a culturally specific economic adaptation to an extraordinary natural environment

205 211 262 263 277

277 278 281

Notes on contributors

Melissa F. Baird is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Michigan Technological University in Michigan. Through the lens of resource frontiers, her research seeks to broaden our understanding of global heritage and environmental politics, especially how heritage intersects with indigenous rights and lands. John Giblin is Head of the Africa Section at the British Museum. Before taking up his current position, John was a Lecturer in Heritage Studies at the School of Social Sciences and Psychology, and a member of the Institute for Culture and Society, University of Western Sydney, Australia. John completed his PhD, Reconstructing the Past in Post-Genocide Rwanda: An Archaeological Contribution, at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, following which he undertook a postdoctoral fellowship concerning Post-Conflict Heritage in Western Great Lakes Africa at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg. Alejandro F. Haber is Titular Professor at the National University at Catamarca and Principal Researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technological Research, Argentina. He also teaches at other universities, both in Argentina and other countries. He has been conducting research in the same community, Antofalla, in the Atacama Plateau, during almost three decades. He is interested in researching the varied ways in which academic disciplines as archaeology codify coloniality, how Andean local theories may aid to think knowledge otherwise, and in un-disciplining archaeology as a no-methodological avenue towards decolonizing the politics of knowledge. Charlotta Hillerdal is Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Her areas of interest are archaeological theory, Indigenous Archaeology, and Viking Age Scandinavia and diaspora with a focus on identities and historicity. She has worked with Métis in Canada and in Yup’ik country in Alaska. Her PhD research in Uppsala resulted in the book People in Between: Ethnicity and Material Identity, a New Approach to Deconstructed Concepts (2009). Her recent publications

Notes on contributors xi include the co-edited (with Johannes Siapkas) volume Debating Archaeological Empiricism: The Ambiguity of Material Evidence (Routledge, 2015). Anna Karlström is Lecturer and Researcher in Heritage Studies at Uppsala University, Department of Art History. She has worked with archaeology, ethnography and museum studies in Southeast Asia in different research project since the late 1990s. Her research examines heritagization processes and relations between heritage and the sacred, and it addresses indigenous studies in relation to heritage and contemporary perspectives on archaeology with a specific focus on Southeast Asia and Australia. Her PhD thesis resulted in the book Preserving Impermanence: the creation of heritage in Vientiane, Laos (2009). Hirofumi Kato is a professor of archaeology at the Center for Ainu & Indigenous Studies, Hokkaido University, Japan. He is also an affiliate professor of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University, and a Visiting research fellow of the Oxford Center of Asian Archaeology, Art and Culture, University of Oxford. His main research interests are Indigenous archaeology, global cultural heritage issues, most notably repatriation of ancestral remains and culturally affiliated items of the Ainu, as well as Siberian prehistory and archaeology of the North. Since 2011, he has carried out archaeological excavations in Rebun Island (Hokkaido, Japan). Paul J. Lane is an archaeologist with over twenty-five years’ research experience in Africa. His main interests are in the historical ecology of African landscapes, the archaeology of colonial encounters, the materialization of memory, the organization and use of space and time in pre-industrial societies, maritime archaeology and the transition to farming in Africa. A former Director of the British Institute in Eastern Africa (1998–2006) and President of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists (2008–10), he is currently Professor of Global Archaeology at Uppsala University, where he coordinates the Marie Curie-Skłodowska Resilience in East African Landscapes Innovative Training Network. Edward Matenga is an independent research consultant in African Archaeology and Heritage and is based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He holds a PhD in Archaeology and Heritage from the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at Uppsala University (Sweden). Matenga has served in museums in Zimbabwe and for many years curated the Great Zimbabwe World Heritage Site and was its director from 1998 to 2004. His publication on The Soapstone Birds of Great Zimbabwe: Symbols of a Nation (1998) contributed immensely in the understanding of the worldview of Iron Age communities in Southern Africa. Matenga is a lecturer (part-time) in the Postgraduate Diploma Course in Heritage

xii  Notes on contributors and Museums, Department of Visual Arts, University of Pretoria (South Africa). Matenga is a member of International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), and Association of Southern African Professional Archaeologists (ASAPA). Christopher N. Matthews is a historical archaeologist and professor of anthropology at Montclair State University. His research interests are the archaeology of capitalism and race in the United States and the practice of community-based research. He is the author of two books, An Archaeology of History and Tradition and The Archaeology of American Capitalism and co-editor of Ethnographic Archaeologies: Reflections on Stakeholders and Archaeological Practice and The Archaeology of Race in the Northeast. Robert McGhee is an archaeologist who has worked in most regions of Arctic Canada, and in other regions of the circumpolar world. His research has focused on the history of the Inuit and of early European exploration, and has been reported in over 100 publications. He has authored several books on subjects related to Arctic history, most recently The Last Imaginary Place: a Human History of the Arctic World. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Arctic Institute of North America. Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu obtained his PhD from Newcastle University in the UK. He is currently a senior lecturer in archaeology in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Pretoria. He has over 15 years’ experience in heritage management in South Africa, having worked for both national and provincial heritage authorities in various capacities, and recently served on the boards of two heritage authorities. His research interests include South African rock-art, the transformation of South African archaeology and the management of Africa’s rich cultural heritage. George P. Nicholas is Professor of Archaeology at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Burnaby, British Columbia, and adjunct professor at Flinders University, Australia. He was the founding director of SFU’s Indigenous Archaeology Program in Kamloops (1991–2005), and has worked closely with the Secwepemc and other First Nations in British Columbia, and Indigenous groups worldwide. In 2013, he received the inaugural “Partnership Award” from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Nicholas’ research focuses on Indigenous peoples and archaeology, intellectual property issues relating to archaeology, the archaeology and human ecology of wetlands, and archaeological theory and practice. He was the director of the Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage (IPinCH) project (2008–2016), an international collaboration of over 50 scholars and 25 partnering organizations concerned with the theoretical, ethical, and practical implications of commodification, appropriation, and other flows of knowledge about heritage (www.sfu.ca/ipinch).

Notes on contributors xiii Ronald Niezen is the Katharine A. Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy in the Faculty of Law and the Department of Anthropology at McGill University. He holds a PhD from Cambridge University (1987), with a thesis on Islamic reform in West Africa. He has also conducted research in Aboriginal communities in northern Canada and on the international movement of indigenous peoples. His work on international indigenism has involved research in a variety of UN forums, including the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, the World Health Organization, and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. His books include: The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Difference (University of California Press, 2003), Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law (Cambridge University Press, 2010), Truth and Indignation: Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools (University of Toronto Press, 2013), and a co-edited volume (with Maria Sapinoli) Palaces of Hope: The Anthropology of Global Organizations (Cambridge University Press, in press). Carl-Gösta Ojala is a researcher in archaeology at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University, Sweden. His main research interests include Sámi history and archaeology, Russian and Soviet history and archaeology, and issues of heritage, identity, politics and research ethics. His PhD dissertation Sámi prehistories: The politics of archaeology and identity in northernmost Europe (2009) discusses Sámi prehistory and archaeology, and Sámi heritage management, including debates on cultural rights, repatriation and reburial. His current research focuses on early modern colonial history, exploitation of natural resources, industrialization and missionary activities, in Sápmi (the Sámi areas) and the collecting and commodification of Sámi material culture in the 17th and 18th centuries and its consequences in today’s society. Celmara Pocock is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology and Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. Her research interests include Aboriginal history and heritage, cultural heritage tourism, and senses of place. Her research on the Great Barrier Reef has been published in edited collections and journals. She was formerly Assistant Director of Indigenous Heritage for the Australian Heritage Commission and Head of Cultures and Histories at Queensland Museum. Trinidad Rico is Assistant Professor of Art History and Director of the Cultural Heritage and Preservation Studies program at Rutgers University and Honorary Lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology of University College London. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from Stanford University, an MA in Principles of Conservation from University College London, and a BA in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge. She is author of Constructing Destruction: Heritage Narratives in the Tsunami City (Routledge, 2016), and co-editor of Heritage Keywords: Rhetoric and

xiv  Notes on contributors Redescription in Cultural Heritage (University Press of Colorado, 2015) and Cultural Heritage in the Arabian Peninsula (Ashgate, 2014). Lynette Russell is an anthropological historian, and Director of the Monash University’s Indigenous Center in Melbourne, Australia. Originally trained in archaeology she now works across the disciplines of history, archaeology and anthropology. She is the author or editor of numerous books, including Roving Mariners: Aboriginal Whalers and Sealers, in the Southern Oceans 1790–1870 (2012 SUNY) and Governance and Victoria: Colonial History, Postcolonial Theory and the “Aboriginal Problem” (2015, Aboriginal History Press) and with Ian J. McNiven Appropriated Pasts: Archaeology and Indigenous People in Settler Colonies (2005, AltaMira Press). Nick Shepherd is Associate Professor of Archaeology and Heritage Studies at Aarhus University, and Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town. He was founding editor of the journal Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress. In 2004–5 he was based at Harvard University as a Mandela Fellow. In 2008 he was a Visiting Professor at Brown University, and in 2009 at the University of Basel. He has published widely on questions of archaeology and society in Africa, and on questions of public history and heritage. His books include the volume Desire Lines; Space, memory and identity in the post-apartheid city (Routledge, 2007), New South African Keywords (Jacana Media and Ohio University Press, 2008), After Ethics: Ancestral voices and post-disciplinary worlds in archaeology (Springer Press, 2014), and The Mirror in the Ground: Archaeology, photography and the making of a disciplinary archive (Center for Curating the Archive, 2015). Chemi (Menachem) Shiff is a PhD candidate at the PEC (Planning for the Environment with Communities) Lab in the department of Geography in Tel Aviv University. His research deals with the role of cultural heritage in Israeli society. It examines the integration of methods of conservation in neoliberal urban regeneration projects in ethnically mixed cities in Israel – how they reflect the ability of Israeli society to negotiate between contesting perceptions of authenticity, memory and identity? In addition to his research, Shiff is currently employed at Emek Shaveh, a Human Rights N.G.O, which focuses on the use of archaeology in the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. Vladislava Vladimirova is an anthropologist, currently a lecturer in Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University. Her major research interests are in the fields of ethnicity, indigenous rights and the state, economy and nature. She has conducted field studies among different indigenous groups in the North of Russia and Siberia. Her publications include the monograph Just labor: labor ethic in a post-Soviet reindeer herding community (2006), and different book chapters and articles, for instance “Transnational

Notes on contributors xv Indigenous Organizations, Liberal Multiculturalism and Narratives about ‘Indigenous Separatism’ in the Russian North” (in Russian, 2015), “‘It Is Not Our Reindeer but Our Politicians that Are Wild:’ Contests over Reindeer and Categories in the Kola Peninsula, Northwestern Russia” (2014), “‘We are Reindeer People, We Come from Reindeer:’ Reindeer Herding in Representations of the Sami in Russia” (2011), “Having the Cake and Eating It: Transformation of Reindeer Ownership in NW Russia” (2009).

Foreword

The city of Uppsala and its historic university, which was established in the fifteenth century, was the perfect location to bring together a wide array of scholars concerned with archaeological questions of ethics, politics, identity, power and explorations of the categories of the self, the Other and the Indigenous. Uppsala was the home of the great Carl Linnaeus, who developed the schema of taxonomy, which called for careful description, precise nomenclature and grand classifications. People, too, are categorized and classified into mutually exclusive groups: this is the “Other” to our “Us”, and, yet, we know that humankind is infinitely divisible: we are all members of multiple groups with an identity that is fluid. Within the discourse of Indigenous archaeology, these categories can be limiting and constrictive. At best, they are relational categories, mutually dependent and entangled. The papers that appear here take up the “Us” and “Them” debate across a wide range of geographic locations and time periods. The analysis of these dichotomies and the notions of identity and difference demonstrate that theorizing the boundaries of the individual and the collective is frequently more misleading than it is explanatory. These are important debates for archaeology, especially archaeology that involves descendant communities. The great cultural theorist Stuart Hall reminded us that ours is a world where “identity matters”, where being, becoming and belonging are cornerstones of who we are (Hall 1996). Recently, there has been a shift to thinking critically about others and ourselves, and, crucially, not reducing all others to the Other. The Other is homogenized and monolithic and invariably stands as oppositional. As the contributions in this volume demonstrate, debating the role of “Us” and “Them” in Indigenous archaeology moves to explorations of belonging and, by extension, the boundaries of belonging and identity, indicating that these can be exclusive as well as inclusive. As Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak identified in her highly influential and oftquoted essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” we cannot have either agency or subjectivity without a narrative of identity (Spivak 1994). Within Indigenous archaeology as a subset of archaeological practice, the complexities of the “Us” and “Them” binary can also be extended to the actual way in which we conceptualize the archaeological discipline itself. It

Foreword xvii is not simply a tension between Indigenous people and archaeologists over the basis for competing knowledge claims. Across North America, Europe, Africa and Oceania, it is now unsurprising to see Indigenous scholars undertake training in anthropology and archaeology. At the most basic level, these shifts in the practice of archaeology mean that the simple binaries of Aboriginal people and archaeologists (or “Them” and “Us”) no longer have currency. A new community-based archaeology has emerged, which sees Aboriginal people as the “owners” of their culture and archaeological research designs constructed in consultation with, and under the direction of, Indigenous communities. As a result, the categories of “Us” and “Them” have become destabilized and are increasingly replaced by the conceptually useful term “collaborators”. Recent research has emphasized this approach, and subsequent publications frequently include Indigenous perspectives. Thus, the differences between “Us” and “Them” within Indigenous archaeology are not nearly as pronounced as they once were. Lynette Russell

References Hall, S. 1996. “Who needs identity?” In Questions of Cultural Identity, edited by S. Hall, and P. Du Gay, 1–17. London: Sage. Spivak, G. C. 1994. “Can the subaltern speak?” In Colonial Discourse and PostColonial Theory: A Reader, edited by P. Williams, and L. Chrisman, 66–111. New York: Columbia University Press. Originally published in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by C. Nelson, and L. Grossberg, 271–313. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1988.

Introduction Charlotta Hillerdal, Anna Karlström and ­Carl-Gösta Ojala

This volume contributes to the development of archaeological critical theory through the exploration of the concept of indigeneity and the power imbalance that occurs when “We” define “the Other” by categorizing “Them” as indigenous. Indigenous archaeology has become a hot topic over the last decades and has been widely debated. It has been conceived as a decolonizing practice, used as a tool to deconstruct Western method and theory. However, a politically correct consensus seems to be guarding the debate, and when indigenous archaeology and heritage are discussed there is a general lack of critical analysis of essential concepts used. Concepts of identity and indigeneity are relational, and can be viewed as positions, as marking difference and power in political reality as well as theoretical debate. Consequently, these concepts not only include those who could be categorized as indigenous, but also those who categorize. Such a conceptualization might force interpretation into a dichotomized discourse where a well-defined “Them” is contrasted against a normative “Us”. The postcolonial deconstruction thus runs the risk of re-establishing colonial structures, albeit under new labels. Although the field of indigenous heritage and archaeology is now wellestablished and its remit wholly accepted, there is a surprising absence of debate concerning underlying definitions, concepts and basic ethics associated with this field. Our principal aim in this volume is to rethink the concept of indigeneity within the fields of heritage and archaeology in order to challenge simplified categorizations of “Us” and “Them”, and emphasize the complexity of the relations between indigenous and non-indigenous pasts and presents. This will be achieved by exploring a diversity of perspectives (practical as well as theoretical) from researchers working in different contexts within the field of archaeology and heritage, and from different parts of the world, demonstrating diverging colonial experiences: North and South America, as well as Africa, Asia, Oceania and Europe. The chapters in this book analyze and debate the challenges and possibilities of the concept of indigeneity in relation to archaeology and heritage, from different perspectives, experiences, and standpoints, and attempt to reinterpret it as a theoretically, ethically and politically viable concept. We aspire

2  Hillerdal, Karlström and Ojala to revitalize a theoretical debate within a field that lately has mainly focused on the methodological and ethical aspects of its practice. Already at the outset of this book, we wish to emphasize that it is in no way our intention to deny or diminish the impact and importance of the field of Indigenous archaeology. We acknowledge the achievements, the new perspectives and sets of questions that approaches to Indigenous archaeology have brought to the field at large, as well as the critique and challenges that, in many ways, have inspired recent rethinking and a reorientation of the structure and practice of archaeology and heritage management. However, we believe there is a need for renewed critical discussions concerning the concept of indigeneity, its foundations and consequences in different contexts, as well as its relations with archaeological theory and practice. Indigenous archaeology as a phenomenon has grown in importance in recent decades. From being a small subfield in global archaeology that was particularly concerned with settler states such as the US, Canada and Australia, it has become a phenomenon which is referenced by archaeologists all over the world. Rather than a critique of Indigenous archaeology as such, this book takes the challenges posed by the field of Indigenous archaeology seriously and asks critical questions about the role of indigeneity in archaeology and heritage discourse. Indigenous archaeology is a critical concept – but it will cease to be so, if it is not continuously critically debated and ­analyzed, from different perspectives and by different groups of people. In this collection of texts, the central concept of indigenous appears both with a capital “I” and a lowercase “i”. Indigenous with a capital “I” has been adopted by many scholars in order to emphasize the significance of indigenous as an identity equaling the national, such as in “Indigenous peoples” and “Indigenous archaeology”. However, a capital “I” may also be perceived as overly homogenizing and polarizing, obscuring heterogeneity and entanglements. The lowercase “indigenous” usually reflects a more neutral meaning of the concept. In the volume there remains a certain ambiguity in the use of “Indigenous” and “indigenous”, which ultimately reflects the complexities of the issue. Questions of identity are often at the heart of archaeological studies, either more neutrally in an identification of the “people of the past”, or highlighted in linking a “people of the present” to a past (cf. Meskell 2002: 287). Group identities are constructed in relational processes of ascription and self-ascription pursuant to ideas of sameness and difference: “Meaning and identity must be constructed as projects, sometimes grounded, other times contingent, but always ongoing” (2002: 293). Accordingly, since Fredrik Barth’s (1969) influential contribution to the field, ethnicity is understood as a contextual and relational construct, defined through the identification of its borders towards “the Other” rather than through any objective characteristics. Thus, ethnicity is a product of defining an “Us” in opposition, or at least relation, to a “Them”, and criteria of belonging are in constant flux.

Introduction 3 Theoretically, “indigeneity” could be conceptualized in this way. However, there is a dissonance between theoretical conceptualization and on the ground practice that forces the indigenous into set frameworks, and thus essentializes indigenous identities. For example, if concepts are to work legally very clear cut criteria for inclusion and exclusion are needed (cf. Dahre 2010; Niezen 2003; see also Niezen, chapter 1). Thus, indigenous identities are circumscribed by external definitions and forced into a standstill. Paradoxically, however, legal frameworks are essential to protect the interests and rights of disadvantaged minority groups in many postcolonial states. The question remains, however: should archaeology lend itself to such processes of categorization and definition? In this volume, the authors – archaeologists, anthropologists and heritage researchers – debate critical issues relating to the concept of indigeneity and the creation, maintenance and representation of “Us” and “Them” in archaeology and heritage discourse. The authors come from a number of countries, including South Africa, Canada, Australia, Japan, Qatar, Scotland, England, Argentina, Zimbabwe, Israel, Sweden and the US, and discuss and present case studies covering many different geographical and historical contexts. The authors are indigenous as well as non-indigenous researchers – they themselves chose how they wished to be represented in relation to the fields of Indigenous studies and Indigenous archaeology. As already stated, the authors are researchers in different disciplines from many parts of the world. There are, of course, many other groups of people and stakeholders in the fields of archaeology and heritage. However, we have chosen this outline for the book in order to present and debate the diversity and complexity of archaeology and heritage research, and the political and ethical challenges that archaeologists and heritage researchers are facing. This volume, therefore, primarily reflects an academic perspective from within the disciplines of archaeology, anthropology and heritage studies. This is not to say that we view the inclusion of other voices in our disciplines as unimportant – on the contrary, this is a central issue which is raised and discussed by several of the contributors. Rather, we view this volume as a contribution – one contribution amongst the many others that have been written from other perspectives and with other voices and experiences – to the debates on archaeology, heritage and indigeneity, as well as on the conceptualization of identities and the creation of borders between cultures and people in archaeological research. As such, it poses a set of challenging questions, and hopes for future debates.

Indigenous archaeology Indigenous peoples in different parts of the world often share experiences of colonization, marginalization and discrimination, which form individual

4  Hillerdal, Karlström and Ojala and collective historical traumas. In this context, history and heritage often become contested and difficult. Furthermore, the colonialism experienced by indigenous groups is not only located in the past, but in many ways also in the present, as a continuing colonial situation – which actually constitutes one of the defining traits of contemporary indigenous experiences (cf. Byrd and Rothberg 2011). In many cases, indigenous communities (but also other local communities) have negative experiences of earlier research, including archaeological research, such as, for instance, disrespectful collecting of material culture, insensitive excavations and the plundering of graves and sacred sites. This situation also raises the issue of the creation and maintenance of “safe spaces” in dealing with the traumatic dimensions of history and heritage of which archaeologists and heritage workers need to be aware. In such contexts, archaeology and heritage management often become controversial, and archaeologists are forced to reconsider their own positions and responsibilities in relation to the groups which are affected by their research, as well as in relation to the structures and traditions of the academic world: Potential for conflict is at the core of Indigenous archaeology, since this involves working with a living heritage in which other people have rights and responsibilities. That Indigenous groups have their own values and priorities immediately creates a working situation of complex interactions and potentially competing agendas. (Smith and Wobst 2005a: 5) As a response to the challenges and demands from local and indigenous groups – and as a consequence of an archaeology which is no longer claiming the exclusive right to define and represent (pre)history – the field of Indigenous archaeology (written with a capital “I”) has developed. However, Indigenous archaeology is not a uniform and homogeneous field of archaeology: rather it is a complex, multifaceted and multilayered movement with many local branches, but also strong global connections, which aims to challenge, reorient and transform archaeological theory and practice. Indigenous archaeology has been promoted as a decolonizing practice and as a means of empowerment, self-determination and self-expression for indigenous groups in the fields of archaeology and heritage management. As such, it presents itself as an archaeology concerned with local knowledge, values, needs, interests and sensibilities. It aims to open up archaeology, promote indigenous voices and experiences, and wishes to make archaeology more representative, respectful and relevant to local and indigenous communities. In her article “Indigenous Archaeology as Decolonizing Practice”, Sonya Atalay advocates “a collaborative approach that blends the strengths of Western archaeological science with the knowledge and epistemologies of Indigenous peoples to create a set of theories and practices for an ethically

Introduction 5 informed study of the past, history, and heritage” (Atalay 2006: 301). She furthermore stresses that a decolonizing archaeology: must include topics such as the social construction of cultural heritage, concerns over revitalization of tradition and Indigenous knowledge, issues of ownership and authority, cultural and intellectual property, and the history and role of museums, collections and collecting. (Atalay 2006: 302) One way of understanding Indigenous archaeology is as “archaeology done by and for Indigenous peoples” (see Watkins 2005: 442; cf. Nicholas, chapter 14). However, Sonya Atalay has argued that “Indigenous archaeology is not only for and by Indigenous people but has wider implications and relevance outside of Indigenous communities”. In her view, “Indigenous archaeology provides a model for archaeological practice that can be applied globally as it calls for and provides a methodology for collaboration of descendent communities and stakeholders around the world” (Atalay 2006: 292). George Nicholas has also argued against keeping Indigenous archaeology separate from mainstream archaeology, which might lead to isolation, marginalization and potentially lower standards. He has suggested that: rather than working to develop Indigenous approaches to archaeology separate from others, we should be trying to incorporate them within the discipline. Failing to do so will limit significantly or marginalise the potential contributions of archaeology as a more representative and responsible discipline and constrain its continued intellectual growth. (Nicholas 2010: 233) In recent years, a number of important books dealing with issues of Indigenous archaeology have been published, in which examples of communitybased, collaborative archaeology and heritage projects from different parts of the world have been presented (see e.g. Atalay 2012; Atalay et al. 2014; Bruchac et al. 2010; Gnecco and Ayala 2011; Nicholas 2011; Phillips and Allen 2010; Smith and Wobst 2005b). Central themes concern representation and participation in archaeological research and heritage projects. Community-based and community-initiated approaches to archaeology can be seen as a way of decentering the researchers and the academic institutions. At the same time, it is also a way of centering the researcher as an activist working for change in the academy and in society (see e.g. Atalay et al. 2014; McGuire 2008; Stottman 2010). In many parts of the world, debates on repatriation of indigenous cultural heritage and reburial of indigenous human remains have been very important, and have pointed to the need for more discussions on indigenous self-determination and indigenous rights, as well as the need to address ethical issues in archaeology and heritage projects. There is a large body

6  Hillerdal, Karlström and Ojala of literature dealing with issues of repatriation, reburial, indigenous selfdetermination and archaeological ethics, which reflects different positions and values, as well as the complexities, in the debates (see, among many other works, Burke et al. 2008; Fforde et al. 2002; Gabriel and Dahl 2008; Jenkins 2011; Nilsson Stutz 2015; Ojala 2009; Scarre and Scarre 2006; Tythacott and Arvanitis 2014). The development of Indigenous archaeology has been related to a more general postcolonial critique of mainstream archaeology (cf. Gosden 2012; Lydon and Rizvi 2010; McNiven and Russell 2005; Preucel and Cipolla 2010). In particular, archaeology has been criticized by Indigenous scholars and activists as being part of “Western” colonial scientific theory and practice (see e.g. Smith 2012). The issue of the relationship between the academic discipline of archaeology and indigenous communities – and the possibilities and problems of expressing one’s own identity and belonging in academic research – is reflected in the experiences of Indigenous archaeologists working across the borders between indigenous and scientific communities (see e.g. personal accounts in Nicholas 2011). Ian McNiven has recently argued that the theoretical agenda of Indigenous archaeology has been very little articulated beyond practice and debates on research ethics and repatriation issues (McNiven 2016). In his view, setting a theoretical agenda for Indigenous archaeology requires challenging the dichotomies and dualisms that privilege Eurocentrism and Western perspectives in archaeology, and this would offer major opportunities for mainstream archaeology to reorient its Eurocentric focus and develop “more cross-culturally relevant and culturally nuanced and sensitive understandings of the past” (McNiven 2016: 27). Although many comments by archaeologists on the development of Indigenous archaeology have been rather positive, there have also been some more critical debates on the foundations and consequences of Indigenous archaeology. In an article in American Antiquity, Robert McGhee raised a number of critical issues concerning Indigenous archaeology as a scientific field (2008; cf. also discussion in his contribution in this volume). His arguments have been challenged by a number of researchers (see responses to his article in American Antiquity, e.g. Colwell-Chanthaphonh et al. 2010; Silliman 2010; cf. also the commentary by McGhee 2010). These debates also relate to more general critical discussions in anthropology on the concept of indigeneity (see e.g. Kuper 2003 with commentaries). We argue that the challenges posed within the field of Indigenous archaeology have relevance for archaeology and heritage debates at large, also in contexts where there are no recognized indigenous groups. Therefore, it is important to consider the issues raised by Indigenous archaeology and ask what roles the concept of indigeneity plays in contemporary archaeology and heritage discourse: what are the possibilities and problems for an archaeology concerned and engaged with the concept of indigeneity?

Introduction 7

Postcolonial legacies Critical discussions within contemporary archaeology and heritage discourse fall within the frames of the general critique against modernist and essentialist scientific ideals and colonial power structures. This critique is, of course, not new. It has existed over the last hundred years, and within academia since the mid-twentieth century as different ‘post’-isms, such as postmodernism, poststructuralism and postcolonialism. They all have components in common. Making visible and deconstructing the problem of representation is what mainly characterizes postcolonial theory. This is the conceptual space within which Indigenous archaeology moves. Or rather, Indigenous archaeology is a consequence of the postcolonial situation and of postcolonial thinking. Indigenous archaeology is a sphere where postcolonial theory has been used and is useful, because it pluralizes rather than singularizes. Central to Indigenous archaeology are issues of pluralism, identity, the subaltern and cultural hybridity, and a decentering of positions. Hence, the close relationship between postcolonial theory and Indigenous archaeology is seemingly obvious. However, over the last decade it has been questioned whether postcolonial theory is viable or not within indigenous studies and discourse in general (cf. Byrd and Rothberg 2011). Among indigenous theorists the main arguments why postcolonial theory fails indigenous people are that indigenous people still consider themselves colonized (Lawrence 2004), and that postcolonial research has developed within states that have gained independence and has little to do with the actual deconstruction of oppressive colonial systems. The same indigenous scholars, however, do agree that postcolonial theory makes the necessary deconstruction of negative images imposed on indigenous people possible, and reveals the racialized and gendered constructs of people and the nation. This questioning has also been put forward within archaeology. Through Indigenous archaeology alternative histories are being produced. Either they are just added and remain within the same structure that they set out to criticize, or they demand the destruction of one power structure – the Western one – to replace it with another. For example, Chris Gosden argued that postcolonial theory is in direct contradiction with regulations on repatriation (2012). On the one hand archaeology is an important political tool, but on the other archaeology is reproducing a worldview that reiterates a dichotomization of “Us” and “Them”, through, for example, regulations on repatriation. Furthermore, postcolonial theory works against essentialism, but within Indigenous archaeology both indigenous and non-­indigenous essentialize themselves to reinforce group identity to reach certain goals and oppose the impact of globalized cultures. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak introduced the term strategic essentialism already in the 1980s, in an attempt to come to terms with this inconsistency, and has developed it further in her later writings (cf. Spivak 1999). To better understand the proposed

8  Hillerdal, Karlström and Ojala discrepancy between postcolonial and indigenous we might also go back even further, to Aimé Césaire and the négritude movement (1955). The négritude concept emerged as an expression of protest against racism, a postcolonial critique and the first step towards a postcolonial theory. Similarly, when Indigenous archaeology was first introduced in the 1980s, it emerged as a reaction, an expression of protest, against the exclusion of voices from marginalized groups within archaeology. Alternative narratives about the past were included, and, as stated above, either just added to the unchanged structure or claiming to replace the “Grand narrative”. Now, advocating for a more radical postcolonial theory, where the postmodern hybrid is not enough – since it is a result of the merging of two (still) separate entities – means that we must be suspicious against the notion that there has ever been anything original or homogeneous at all. In this book, we aim at moving in this direction and reinforce positive convergences between postcolonial and indigenous by introducing ideas and concepts such as processes of unlearning (Matthews, chapter 11), un-disciplining archaeology (Haber, chapter 13), and (un-)disciplining the Indigenous and opening a third space (Shepherd, chapter 2).

“Us” and “Them” – dichotomies, categories and oppositions The chosen title for this volume, Archaeologies of “Us” and “Them”, reflects a dichotomy that has been, and still is, central to the discourse and conceptual understanding of indigenous peoples and their place in history, as well as in the present. By its very definition, “Indigenous” is imagined as a perpetual “Other”, an antipole to the “Western Self”. In the academic debate these antipoles can be translated into indigenous, or local, and archaeologist, or professional. Postmodern theories target such dichotomies and conceptual black boxes, emphasizing hybridity, entanglement and third spaces. This is the tradition within which postcolonial theory is located. However, it has become increasingly clear that dichotomies are not easily abolished, especially not in a sociopolitical reality which still holds them as real. Thus, a new dichotomy has developed – this time between theoretical conceptualization and grounded practice (cf. Bintliff and Pearce 2011). This is the space in which the Indigenous archaeologist finds him-/herself, linking theory with practice, and academic with local. The pragmatic response to this position is to work with what is there – ­collaborating in practice and negotiating on a local level, the risk being that when dichotomies are left uncritiqued they are re-enforced. Our sentiment is that Indigenous archaeology is now mature and strong enough to reenter the theoretical debate, armed with a strong argument based on practical experience. Archaeologists should dare to be radical not only in support of subaltern groups (e.g. Atalay et al. 2014), but also in criticism of the structures behind their alterity.

Introduction 9 Our world is more homogenous than it has ever been before. Communication and education are standardizing minds, as well as fashions and customs. It is in this context that the indigenous of today exist, and work, within a globally constructed framework. Indigeneity is a concept that is constantly reinforced and renegotiated in the contemporary world. As such it also reinforces the alterity of the indigenous in relation to the colonial, or mainstream, society. Alterity becomes a means of empowerment; “being Indigenous means thinking, speaking and acting with the conscious intent of regenerating one’s indigeneity” (Alfred and Corntassel 2005: 614). As Shepherd emphasizes in chapter 2, within this context, the indigenous exists both as a product of a colonialist discourse, and as a site of local resistance to the effects of capitalist globalization. In both senses it is a concept embedded in the modern, not outwith, or parallel to the modern world. This duality is hard for an essentializing ideology to handle. Indigenous is too often equated with ancient. Claims to primordiality, authenticity, inauthenticity and eventually evanescence are paired with an essential conceptualization of indigenous (cf. Baird, chapter 4). This image is not only present in the popular mind, but is part of the global notion of indigenous people. As suggested by Haber (chapter 13), indigenous is “the Other” to the national. It is also an image that is often adopted by indigenous groups themselves. Spurred by politically beneficial rhetoric, difference and originality are often promoted over similarity and mutuality, as exemplified by Niezen in chapter 1. Such strategic enhancement of certain characteristics to gain political recognition and power is what Spivak referred to as “strategic essentialism” (1996 [1985]: 215–17), a tactic of the subaltern to gain power within the dominating system. The collective consciousness of community – which is on its descriptive level in itself a rallying point for the subaltern sense of community, in this case the indigenous – creates the space in which the subaltern can unite to get its voice heard within a set political framework (1996 [1985]: 215–17). Perpetuating essential indigeneity, however politically beneficial at the time, remains problematic (cf. Canessa 2014). Recent debates claim that indigenous worldviews are not only epistemologically, but also ontologically different from the West (cf. Alberti et al. 2011). Thus, Indigenous and Western worldviews are not only diverging – they are incompatible. Such notions inform a stereotypical and homogenizing understanding of “Indigenous” as well as “Western” (which is usually the chosen opposition to indigenous). This is a simplification of the complex history that led up to the current political situation, and it also ignores the fact that “Indigenous” and “Western” have shared a world for the last few centuries at least (Lazarus 2011). Studies of how the colonizer and colonized shape each other, and the negotiation of identities, power and control of the shared spaces and in the forging of colonial landscapes have also been the foci of several recent studies (e.g. Ferris et al. 2014; Oliver 2013). Blurring the borders between colonizer and colonized, newcomer and native,

10  Hillerdal, Karlström and Ojala means that set categories are challenged on the ground, and the archaeological perspective reveals a complexity far beyond dichotomized categories and oppositional identities. The fact remains, however, that in our contemporary world indigenous groups are discriminated against. Indigenous pasts, as well as presents, have historically been appropriated by dominating colonial cultures: relocation, re-education, reduction and silencing have been the social reality of many native groups for generations. Taking control of one’s past, as well as reclaiming one’s heritage, is thus also a political act that to some extent needs an opposition. As such, heritage is intrinsically political (Nilsson Stutz 2015), and indigenous heritage issues rest on the intersection of past, present, history and politics (cf. Lazzari and Korstanje 2013). Archaeologists working with indigenous groups cannot avoid this political dimension of their work.

The structure of the book This book is the outcome of an international workshop that was held at Uppsala University, Sweden, 24–26 October 2013, and a session organized at the World Archaeological Congress in Jordan in January 2013. All of the authors participated in the workshop in Uppsala. We view this book as a contribution to an ongoing debate and hope that it will inspire continuing dialogue. The book consists of three parts: I – Politics of Indigeneity, II – Spaces Between “Us” and “Them”, and III – Heritage and Indigenous Rights. We have deliberately chosen not to organize the chapters geographically, but to use different criteria to emphasize the transnational character of many of the discussions concerning indigenous heritage and archaeology. We identified three themes central to the debates represented in this volume, but equally important in the overarching discourse. The themes are overlapping, and many of the chapters address all three of these themes to a certain degree, which highlights how integrated and complex these issues are.

Acknowledgements The workshop “Archaeologies of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ ”, which was arranged at Uppsala University in 2013, was supported financially by the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond), the Forum for Advanced Studies in Arts, Languages and Theology (SALT), the Faculty of Arts, and the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at Uppsala University, Birgit och Gad Rausings Stiftelse, and the Principals Interdisciplinary Fund at the University of Aberdeen. Language revision was supported financially by the Department of Art History/Section of Conservation, Uppsala University, and the Department of Archaeology, University

Introduction 11 of Aberdeen. We are most grateful to these institutions for their generous support. We are also very grateful to the M.A. and Ph.D. students who assisted with organizing the workshop in Uppsala in 2013: Amanda Norgren, Karin Ojala and Annie Strand. We would like to thank the World Archaeological Congress for support in organizing the session at the 7th Congress in Jordan in 2013. The editors also wish to thank Catherine Parnell for the language revision of the manuscript.

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12  Hillerdal, Karlström and Ojala Fforde, C., J. Hubert, and P. Turnbull, eds. 2002. The Dead and Their Possessions: Repatriation in Principle, Policy and Practice. London and New York: Routledge. Gabriel, M., and J. Dahl, eds. 2008. Utimut: Past Heritage – Future Partnerships: Discussions on Repatriation in the 21st Century. Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA). Gnecco, C., and P. Ayala. 2011. Indigenous Peoples and Archaeology in Latin America. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Gosden, C. 2012. “Post-colonial archaeology.” In Archaeological Theory Today (Second Edition), edited by I. Hodder, 251–66. Cambridge: Polity Press. Jenkins, T. 2011. Contesting Human Remains in Museum Collections: The Crisis of Cultural Authority. New York: Routledge. Kuper, A. 2003. “The return of the native.” Current Anthropology 44 (3): 389–95. Lawrence, B. 2004. ‘Real’ Indians and Others: Mixed-Blood Urban Native Peoples and Indigenous Nationhood. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Lazarus, N. 2011. “What postcolonial theory doesn’t say.” Race & Class 53 (1): 3–27. Lazzari, M., and A. Korstanje. 2013. “The past as lived space: Heritage places, reemergent aesthetics, and hopeful practices in NW Argentina.” Journal of Social Archaeology 13 (3): 394–419. Lydon, J., and U. Z. Rizvi, eds. 2010. Handbook of Postcolonial Archaeology. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. McGhee, R. 2008. “Aboriginalism and the problems of indigenous archaeology.” American Antiquity 73 (4): 579–97. McGhee, R. 2010. “Of Strawmen, Herrings, and frustrated expectations.” American Antiquity 75 (2): 239–43. McGuire, R. H. 2008. Archaeology as Political Action. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. McNiven, I. J. 2016. “Theoretical challenges of indigenous archaeology: Setting an agenda.” American Antiquity 81 (1): 27–41. McNiven, I. J., and L. Russell. 2005. Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Meskell, L. 2002. “The intersections of identity and politics in archaeology.” Annual Review of Anthropology 31: 279–301. Nicholas, G. 2010. “Seeking the end of indigenous archaeology.” In Bridging the Divide: Indigenous Communities and Archaeology into the 21st Century, edited by C. Phillips, and H. Allen, 233–52. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Nicholas, G., ed. 2011. Being and Becoming Indigenous Archaeologists. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Niezen, R. 2003. The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Nilsson Stutz, L. 2015. “Claims to the past: A critical view of the arguments driving repatriation of cultural heritage and their role in contemporary identity politics.” In Political Culture, Soft Interventions and Nation Building, edited by T. Jenkins, 52–77. London and New York: Routledge. Ojala, C. G. 2009. Sámi Prehistories: The Politics of Archaeology and Identity in Northernmost Europe. Uppsala: Uppsala University. Oliver, J. M. 2013. “Reflections on resistance: Agency, identity and being indigenous in colonial British Columbia.” In Historical Archaeologies of Cognition:

Introduction 13 Explorations into Faith, Hope and Charity, edited by J. Symonds, A. Badcock, and J. Oliver, 98–116. Sheffield: Equinox Publishing. Phillips, C., and H. Allen, eds. 2010. Bridging the Divide: Indigenous Communities and Archaeology into the 21st Century. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Preucel, R. W., and C. N. Cipolla. 2010. “Indigenous and postcolonial archaeologies.” In Archaeology and the Postcolonial Critique, edited by M. Liebmann, and U. Z. Rizvi, 129–40. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Scarre, C., and G. Scarre, eds. 2006. The Ethics of Archaeology: Philosophical Perspectives on Archaeological Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Silliman, S. W. 2010. “The value and diversity of indigenous archaeology: A response to McGhee.” American Antiquity 75 (2): 217–20. Smith, C., and H. M. Wobst. 2005a. “Decolonizing archaeological theory and practice.” In Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonizing Theory and Practice, edited by C. Smith, and H. M. Wobst, 5–16. Oxon and New York: Routledge. Smith, C., and H. M. Wobst, eds. 2005b. Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonizing Theory and Practice. Oxon and New York: Routledge. Smith, L. T. 2012. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (Second Edition). London and New York: Zed books. Spivak, G. C. 1996 [1985]. “Subaltern studies: Deconstructing historiography.” In The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, edited by D. Landry, and G. MacLean, 203–36. New York and London: Routledge. Spivak, G. C. 1999. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Stottman, M. J. 2010. Archaeologists as Activists: Can Archaeologists Change the World? Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press. Tythacott, L., and K. Arvanitis, eds. 2014. Museums and Restitution: New Practices, New Approaches. Farnham: Ashgate. Watkins, J. 2005. “Through wary eyes: Indigenous perspectives on archaeology.” Annual Review of Anthropology 34: 429–49.

Part I

Politics of indigeneity Charlotta Hillerdal

Our globalized world is full of contradictions, conflicts, political differences, and communal struggles to be heard. On a global scale, social injustices and inequalities are vast, and economic, political, and even cultural domination are heavily biased in favor of the First World, or Western countries. This dominance can be traced back through the centuries to the colonial era, when the foundations for “Western” power dominance were laid. Consequently, addressing global inequalities is nearly impossible without a historic perspective and a self-reflecting critique of the system that has enabled them. Historic sciences have a social responsibility to partake in the critique, but should also turn their critical eye towards internal practices. Western science cannot pass unaltered through the postcolonial deconstruction. Memory, heritage, and even history are poignant tools in struggles for recognition. History is never neutral. The notion that archaeology is a concern for the past has long since been abandoned, and demands on the discipline have changed. Far gone is the time when scientists could distance themselves from the contemporary with claims of objectivity. Academics and professionals now aim to engage in a socially aware, relevant, and involved archaeology that has bearing for people outside academic ranks. The discipline is located in an intersection between past and present, where past communities and contemporary needs have to coexist. Past and present do not always merge seamlessly, and political uses of the past do not always sit comfortably with the discipline of archaeology. In some contexts, such as those of contested pasts, colonial encounters, and indigenous communities, this becomes more pronounced, and archaeologists find themselves having to navigate between ethical concerns and political claims, without compromising the historical data. Using a comparative approach, Ronald Niezen shows, with examples from the US and Bolivia, that when archaeology and history steps out of the political arena, paradoxically, legal claims for collective rights endorse the essential and unique. Promoting collective rights often involves a strategic and selective representation of justice claimants. The legal system cannot handle fuzzy categories and multiplicities, but is oriented towards the

16  Charlotta Hillerdal particular, identifiable, and “factual”, and thus difference is romanticized and given privilege when attached to those claims and claimants that can make a case for “authenticity” and the significant historical depth of their heritage. Hence, heritage becomes a strategic tool used in the continuity of collective rights, and the material remains of the past are reduced to cultural possessions in the service of political claims. Fixed identities, Nick Shepherd claims, can be forms of entrapment, referring to the fixed oppositional identities of disciplinary archaeology and indigenous, the Western Self and its Other. He advocates a third space – where academic and indigenous can meet on equal terms, emancipated from their respective assigned identities and previously dictated positions. He then asks the following: what happens when the Indigenous is the self? Or when neither Western self nor Indigenous Other describes the position of the archaeologist self? Trinidad Rico discusses the disciplinary control of discursive space. Despite the seemingly open-ended inclusion of the “Other’s”, i.e. the stakeholder’s, perspective on heritage work, the stakeholder is defined, included, and consulted within the framework set by the disciplinary expert and is given the position of the alternative (Other, or complementary) voice in the discourse – the indigenous suits the space prepared for it. Instead of inviting “the Other”, she argues, we should properly commit to alternative viewpoints by turning our gaze to ourselves – and reinvent “the Us”. Melissa Baird discusses the limiting discursive space that is prepared for the interaction between academic and indigenous, and shows how corporate bodies and companies can take over the discourse, positioning themselves as stakeholders and legitimate actors on the heritage stage, at the expense of local communities and indigenous space. Heritage scholars need to be critical of the simplistic dichotomization of cultural and natural heritage that tend to essentialize communities. Charlotta Hillerdal is critical of the set framework for indigenous discourse and discusses the limited possibilities to act without being set free from this framework. Indigenous, she claims, is a concept that is temporarily bound to the colonial; and if transplanted into precolonial time, it forces interpretation to conform to a linear and deterministic story outlined by the colonial. It is, she claims, the contemporary political importance of this concept that highlights it for archaeology, but this claim does not support its use in precolonial contexts. An act of destruction is the starting point for Chemi (Menachem) Shiff’s argument that the renegotiation of narrative structures from national to global has not benefited native populations, but rather enforced their exclusion from their own heritage. The UNESCO world heritage site of Avdat in Israel has become yet another step in the estrangement of the local Bedouin population from the archaeology of the site, where global heritage discourse and the internationalization of the site for tourists have marginalized the community with the closest connection to the site.

Politics of indigeneity 17 Robert McGhee argues that rather than relating to the status of indigenous people in a colonial setting, “Aboriginal” is a concept rooted in European ideas of the primitive, and that this hidden hierarchical structure still guides archaeological interpretations of native peoples, through an expectation of an authenticity located in originality and primordiality. Thus, by locating the native in the past, modern society has both forged the Aboriginal in the image of the primitive, and excluded it from the contemporary. Political uses of the past, and the contemporary use of the past as an argument in different power struggles, both emancipating and oppressive, are uniting themes in the chapters of this section. It is clear that there are no ready solutions but that we are in the middle of a debate, trying to formulate the relation between past and present, and the role that archaeology and heritage play in this debate.

1 Collective rights and the construction of heritage Ronald Niezen

In international law, there has emerged in recent decades a version of ethnic and indigenous politics of difference, sometimes associated with the concept of “third generation rights,” a category of human rights intended to define and defend the collective rights of peoples with distinct identities on the margins of states (Vasak 1977). The “first generation” human rights regime, which emerged in the aftermath of World War II, was oriented toward the protection of individuals from the abuses of states, and was motivated largely by the influence of the Holocaust on the (then) new regime of global governance. A further, “second generation” of human rights, largely an outcome of the civil rights movement, was concerned with securing conditions of equal opportunity for all people through the “difference-blind” rights, those often addressed through policies of affirmative action. Collective rights, sometimes known as the “third generation” of human rights, are comparatively new to the international scene, having become prominent in the human rights movement only during the past two or three decades as a global source of inspiration for social and political reform and collective identity. The logic of these third generation rights is simple: if human communities and societies are sources of the dignity and nurturance of individuals, then collective rights are a necessary central component of the human rights agenda. In effect, collective rights, by the very nature of human existence in society, can be seen as a way to further the rights of individuals. The idea of humanity as a rights-endowed social being is therefore at the foundation of a recent and emerging body of human rights instruments and initiatives oriented toward the security and survival of collective life through such things as self-determination, economic and social development, intergenerational transmission of language and – the issue that I will be discussing here – the right to participation in (and hence protection of) heritage. The use of heritage as a foundation for both evidence and claims of difference adds a new dimension to the field sometimes referred to as “postcolonialism in archaeology.” The postcolonial critiques applied to heritage studies consist mainly of writing new narratives of the colonial past and engaging in new relationships with the claimants of heritage. Steven Silliman (2010: 145), for example, in his study of the archaeological narratives

20  Ronald Niezen of indigenous North America, calls for “revisiting the ways that archaeologists think, write, dig, analyze, interpret, and present their information to colleagues, students, descendant communities, and the general public.” A central theme outlined in an introduction to postcolonial archaeology by Lyndon and Rizvi (2010: 23) emphasizes how the “discipline is shaped by colonial forces, tracing the intimate relationship between imperialism and forms of archaeological knowledge,” which can be overcome in part by the archaeological critique of colonialism and redressed through restitution, repatriation, and an ethic of engagement and participation in research. Focusing on colonial archaeology in the context of indigenous peoples, McNiven and Russell (2005: 232) call on the discipline to take on new methodologies applied to oral traditions and to engage in “partnership research,” an approach that respects the knowledge and agency of those living peoples whose past is being investigated. Postcolonial archaeology therefore seeks to underscore the self-determination and cultural creativity of marginalized actors and to put previously unrecognized indigenous knowledge in the foreground of interpretive efforts. It often happens, however, that indigenous knowledge and marginalized actors are recognized by postcolonial archaeology only within the realm of science and scholarship, with little attention given to how archaeological knowledge might apply to legal contests over recognition of distinctiveness and collective rights. The almost exclusive focus on archaeologists as responsible for both the abuses and reforms of professional practice leaves out of the picture those experts whose purpose is to produce knowledge and redress the wrongs of colonial and settler domination through legal process. This is a consequential oversight. Combined with collective rights claims, heritage becomes something quite different from mere inventories of knowledge and artefacts set aside for veneration and preservation. Through rights claims, the objects and knowledge that constitute heritage are simultaneously ends to be achieved – the qualities of collective life that are consensually considered integral to identity and security in the intergenerational transmission of knowledge – and strategic tools, those ideas and artefacts that are put forward as evidence of historical continuity of collective life in order to make stronger claims of distinct rights. It is important to recognize that heritage is not only protected by law but is also shaped by the limits of the law, which perceives and privileges only certain kinds of knowledge of the past. There are two basic ways in which legal processes based on collective rights rely or impinge upon archaeological knowledge: 1) judicial definitions of the foundation of rights claims, which tend toward specificity or “legal particularism”; and 2) the pursuit of rights claims through the compliance processes (I purposefully avoid the term “mechanism” here) of “soft law,” in particular the processes of securing claims through public justice lobbying. As I intend to show, each of these legal approaches to history and prehistory are in tension with both the rights claims of distinct peoples and the scientific aspirations of those

Collective rights 21 who pursue specialized, research-based knowledge about the products and production of the past. To understand legal approaches to heritage more clearly, let us begin with the more straightforward ideas about historic and prehistoric social belonging that follow from the judicial application of collective rights claims. When claims of culture, tradition, or heritage are settled by the action of a court, they tend toward narrow specificity, abstracted from anything that might be called a way of life or distinct society. I discuss several examples of this in The Rediscovered Self (Niezen 2009: chapter 4). Here, I demonstrate that Canadian Supreme Court decisions relating to Aboriginal culture have tended to be hostile to invention as an aspect of culture, thus overlooking innovations that took place after the arrival of settlers. Instead, the focus is on practices traceable to the time of contact, while being able to survive some inevitable discontinuity and elements of innovation. Hence, in R. v. Gladstone, a 1996 Supreme Court of Canada case concerning Aboriginal fishing rights, specifically in connection with the Heiltsuk practice of harvesting herring spawn on kelp, the court required the appellants to demonstrate that their attempt to sell herring spawn on kelp was an element of a practice, custom, or tradition integral to the distinctive culture of the Heiltsuk Band [at the time of contact with settlers]. (cited in Niezen 2009: 9) There is also an international dimension to this phenomenon of legal particularism. Cases that have appeared before the Human Rights Committee, for example, evince some of the same tendencies toward narrow specificity in the application of rights to customary practice or tradition. This can be illustrated by the case of Francis Hopu and Tepoaitu Bessert v. France, in which the committee was called upon to determine whether the construction of a luxury hotel complex on ancient burial grounds in Tahiti, French Polynesia, involved a violation of the human rights of the two claimants. The “authors” in this case, situating themselves as individuals in the community of indigenous Polynesians (collective claims were not admissible, according to the rules of the Committee), were pursuing fairly general claims of access to territory and subsistence; but the only instrument then available in support of such claims was the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, particularly Article 2, paragraph 1, concerning non-discrimination, and Article 27, concerning cultural protections. The Committee seemed to be sympathetic to the claimants, but it was unable to find evidence of discrimination (the indigenous Polynesians were in fact being treated as would any French citizens). It was then faced with the difficulty of defining culture, and found, as a partial solution, that the authors had been subject to interference of their rights to family and privacy. This forced the Committee to stretch the definition of “family” to include the remains of unidentified

22  Ronald Niezen ancestors: in other words, to interpret the connection between an ancient burial ground and living persons in such a way that a right to family would have been violated by the destruction of the site.1 Courts of any kind are therefore not the ideal sources to achieve recognition of the kind of rights associated with claims of territory and tradition. Heritage tends to be pulled apart by courts, with its individual components examined separately rather than situated in a wider context of collective life through history, including the interruptions and (re)inventions of colonial history. Even material artefacts tend to lack persuasive power in judicial settings. If anything, they invite more interrogation and a narrow focus on facts arising from the object at hand in response to matters of authenticity and continuity. At the same time, courts are unable to translate the historical or prehistorical intangibles of decision-making authority into contemporary aspirations for collective rights and recognition. The knowledge system at the foundation of decision-making is oriented toward particular, identifiable “facts” of history rather than the emotions and aspirations of collective rights in the present.

Expert knowledge and collective self-definition I want now to pay closer attention to another kind of connection between human rights and collective representation of heritage, one that thrives on emotion and that emerges out of activism that is oriented toward securing human rights compliance. In contrast to the restrictive, tightly focused approach of judiciaries, the human rights movement also encourages collective self-representation of distinctiveness. This occurs through law that is not justiciable, the realm of so-called “soft law.” Beyond the tightly focused application of justice in courts and judicial committees, the legal logic of human rights involves identifying those people or peoples that are vulnerable and in need of protection. Compelled by conditions of structural disadvantage, human rights have introduced to the world a body of rights-oriented knowledge that includes an understanding of the essence of humanity and the legitimate forms and categories of human belonging. The rise of human rights as a foundation for the rights of distinct peoples has gone together with ideas about who those beneficiaries of protection and efforts toward prosperity are or should be. This promotion of ideas about the beneficiaries of rights applies broadly to the elaboration of globally influential ideas about such things as childhood, gender, disability and, ultimately, humanity. The central questions that inspire these initiatives, even if they are not always articulated, are as follows: what is the essence of a category of rights holders that makes them worthy of the interventions intended to address their particular conditions of life? Also, when their rights are based on a distinct way of life, what are the most meaningful differences at the foundation of legal protection?

Collective rights 23 The first thing judicial institutions want to do when faced with the challenge of identifying a category of rights holders is to turn to “indicators” and expert knowledge in efforts to gather reliable, digestible information needed to answer basic questions about collective claimants with certainty (see Merry et al. 2015). First, the requirement of precision in identifying who is and is not a legitimate claimant calls for membership to be formally delimited through such instruments as census information, election rolls and identity cards: in other words, the arrangements of formal membership in a group, usually as required and arbitrated by states. Even the question of the meaningful differences to be protected are subject to the interpretations of experts, those professional historians, linguists, ethnographers, archaeologists and others who can use objective standards to interpret for those of us who are neither experts nor claimants of collective rights what exactly all the fuss is about: why things such as ancient burial grounds or harvesting herring spawn on kelp merit legal protection, and why certain objects, practices and territories mean so much to those who claim them as essential for their human dignity and survival. There is at the same time a powerful impetus toward self-definition inherent in the new regimes of collective human rights. The consolations of knowing one’s inner essence (or of knowing that it is immediately knowable) and of membership in a bounded nation derived through the rediscovery or construction of one’s history and prehistory are not just the privilege of the powerful, not just a top-down exercise of state judiciaries or institutions of global governance and their experts, but are increasingly being taken up by smaller social units, variously referred to as minority peoples, immigrants, communities, “micro-nations” or indigenous peoples. The legal processes of ethnic formalization and liberation that define distinct peoples call for a corresponding historical and, ideally, prehistorical self-definition, a process of intellectual reform to bring the past of a people into line with their present claims and acts of self-determination, grounded in research that enables cultural survival, self-knowledge and legal recognition. The collective rights movement that has arguably had the greatest presence and public visibility in human rights forums is variously referred to as the international movement of indigenous peoples or the Global Indigenous Movement (GIM). Here, legal processes commonly make use of publicity, lobbying and, less charitably, “spin” to influence a wide base of opinion. The activity surrounding the elaboration and implementation of the 2007 UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) epitomizes this development. As an instrument without a recognizable formal boundary of inclusion and exclusion – the UN functions without a formal “gatekeeper” definition of indigenous peoples – it immediately raises a basic subjective question concerning belonging within the category of the indigenous: who are we and what qualities do we possess that we can potentially take up effective inclusion in the rights network and body of laws relating to indigenous peoples?

24  Ronald Niezen Once again, despite the self-definition that is central to participation in the global indigenous movement, the objective, tangibility-preferring orientation of legal thought calls for the qualities of the potential claimants of distinct rights to be clearly identified, or in this case self-identified. Furthermore, it is this quality of self-identification that opens new possibilities for current aspirations to guide, even to infuse with emotion and world-­ reforming therapeutic intent the interpretation of the past. If the genius of a people is to be preserved and made available to humanity in the form of a contribution to World Heritage, steps must be taken to identify and inventory those aspects of difference that merit protection. One of the obstacles to creating a new or “updated” social identity is to imbue it with the legitimacy of timelessness, to make it convincingly appear as though the category of belonging and the behavior expected to go with it are stable, long established and supported by natural qualities of the human condition. Recovering the past in these circumstances is usually seen as a matter of great importance for future survival. It requires a sense of urgency and at the same time a delicate approach to piecing together constituent elements of culture that can only be understood as an intricate whole, sometimes barely visible through its internal complexities, tensions and differences.

Justice lobbying Rights-oriented collective representation becomes more complex when we include the dynamics of public justice lobbying. Often, in circumstances in which a claimant of collective rights is a people marginalized by states or large corporations, the only way to effect change in any protracted situation of conflict is to make a situation of injustice known to as wide a base of citizens and consumers as possible. But how does one achieve this? It requires cultivating a demonstrable ability to communicate with a base of popular support, to make one’s case heard and above all to change the attitudes of a significant portion of the public, at least to the extent that one is able to demonstrate an ability to influence public behavior, as evidenced in such things as a rise in demands for policy change in newspaper editorials and Web postings, donations of aid to particular organizations and a growth in campus activism – all the tangibles that indicate the presence of conviction in an unknowable audience. Evidence that this public influence has been effective comes when those in decision-making positions realize that political and material interests are at stake and that counter-lobbying and/or negotiation and compromise are needed to avoid significant loss of the bases of power. In the case of corporations, the ultimate cost of negative opinion might take the form of a loss of consumer trust and shareholder support; in the case of politicians, it manifests itself in a loss of electability. The behavior of states is influenced by human rights largely to the extent that the reputational costs that follow from an international recognition of

Collective rights 25 patterns of rights violations can in turn have consequences for national identity and the state’s influence in its international relations. Human rights in particular are given effect in the absence of formal mechanisms of enforcement by the “politics of shame,” in which public opinion has become one of the most important sources of leverage in bringing about state compliance with those obligations that are not otherwise judicially enforceable. The question for distinct collective rights claimants is how best to achieve this kind of pressure on states, such that concessions and compliance might follow. One precondition of distant compassion is credibility. Integrity, truthfulness and authenticity are demanded of those at the origins of appeals to sympathy. This means that the strategic goal of garnering public attention is often in tension with the need to cultivate sympathy, if necessary to use the distortions and artifices required to make one’s claim competitive. Standing out in the tacit rivalry for sympathy, increasing one’s ability to capture the attention of strangers, and ideally their moral conviction and will to action, calls for greater demonstrable suffering, more egregious injustice and heightened cultural virtue than is being communicated by rival claimants. An oppressed people must be simultaneously newsworthy and praiseworthy. Cultural representation under these circumstances calls for selective public representation. In particular, it calls for images or artefacts to be chosen with a view to their communicability, appeal and potential to evoke strong emotions in remote, largely abstract public audiences. Public compassion, it seems, is rarely unselfishly disinterested. Those who suffer, or more precisely those who are competing with other sufferers to be among the most prominent recipients of sympathy, must keep enough of themselves intact to have something broadly appealing left to give in return, at the very least the gift of accepting with gratitude the gifts of others, or some example of heroism through the struggle against adversity, or the wisdom of life made simple by deprivation or of life that is inherently simple by choice, or the wisdom of living close to nature, as manifested in the products and production of heritage. There is also an important temporal dimension to this selectivity, which relates to the effectiveness of collective claims of difference. This is a point that is essential for understanding the place of heritage in the pursuit of justice. Few people care about the collective genius of a people if it is shown to be a recent product. Legitimacy attaches to those claims and claimants that can make a case for “authenticity” and the significant historical depth of their heritage. Intergenerational transmission of knowledge into “time immemorial” translates more readily into interest, sympathy, activism and, ultimately, legal leverage and protection. Belonging to the regime of indigenous rights and the pursuit of claims within it calls for effectively communicating a people’s place in history and prehistory to public consumers of human rights and cultural difference.

26  Ronald Niezen

Deep indigeneity in the Bolivian presidential inauguration ceremonies The uses of heritage in rights claims comes out most clearly when we consider the connection between history and state power, especially in those modern states that have emerged from conditions of illegitimate domination. From a perspective of postcolonial liberation pursued by some who seek to establish a deepened knowledge of a people’s collective being, liberation should entail both the reconstitution of an oppressed community and, in the longer term, the application of its virtues to a correction of the lingering errors of the West. As sources of symbols of deep difference well suited to this emancipatory purpose, archaeological sites and artefacts can embody a critique of the West’s cultural imperialism and promote the hope that can be found in a recovery of indigenous virtues. We can see such ideological and political use of heritage very clearly in the discourse and symbolism of deep indigeneity promoted in Bolivia under the presidency of Evo Morales. His inauguration to a second term as president in January 2010 took place in the archaeological site of Tiwanaku, at the Temple of Kalasasaya, which became the backdrop for ideas and symbols that simultaneously emphasized a connection to a precolonial past and a form of primordial utopianism emphasizing the inspiration available to humanity from an enlightened pan-Andean indigenous civilization. A new ray of hope is emerging for those peoples who have never forgotten their ancestors, Morales said in his inaugural address, for those who know “how to live in complementarity, in solidarity, and especially in harmony with Mother Earth [Madre Tierra]” (Pressenza 2010). The energy of the Temple of Kalasasaya has inspired the indigenous peoples to struggle for their rights and for inclusion in the state. In a similar vein, the resistance to capitalism, for Morales, “has been a thousand-year long struggle for our ancestors” (Pressenza 2010).2 In this event, as observed in an online news report: Tiwanaku became the epicentre of national and international journalistic attention, with the presence of thousands of campesinos, representatives of indigenous peoples from different parts of the world, diplomats, new legislators, military and police authorities, there to witness the ancestral legitimacy [reconocimiento ancestral] of the Head of State.3 (Línea Capital 2010) The ancestral legitimacy invoked by online media (and perhaps even the media reporting itself) is the result of a cultivated effort to demonstrate a direct line of continuity with a prestigious past. In this case, the target audience appears to be both Bolivia’s electorate, in which some sectors might incline toward skepticism concerning the regime’s claims to represent a panAndean indigenous civilization and need to be persuaded otherwise, and an

Collective rights 27 international public, potentially convinced that Bolivia under an indigenous president is a (if not the) leading political and ideological force of the global indigenous movement. To both the domestic and international audiences, efforts to secure a demonstrable connection with the pre-­Columbian civilization of Tiwanaku are manifested in rituals and objects selected/invented with the intention of invoking age and ancestrality, producing in critical observers a jarring contrast with the high-modern instruments of state power. This inauguration ceremony in Bolivia is, of course, as much an example of the theater of the state as it is of the use of symbolism in the politics of indigenism. But in combining these two sources of ceremonial selfaffirmation, in showing how indigenous identity can be expressed in a highprofile use of state resources, it underscores the importance of symbolic continuity with the past to secure the legitimacy of present claims of collective rights. As with other uses of archaeology and history as sources of state legitimacy, the site at Tiwanaku was a reference point for the temporal depth of a pan-Andean civilization, with connection to a new state government’s claims and aspirations toward regional and global influence. This kind of theater of the state has become generalized to include a wide range of political aspirants, a development that has occurred through the public processes by which human rights claims are pursued. Those on the margins of states are called upon to make many of the same claims as states, or to take them further, to demonstrate superior collective wisdom and cultural virtue, as a condition for securing their recognition, rights and even their continued existence as a people. Archaeological knowledge is brought to bear in a wide range of circumstances to demonstrate the positive, durable and appealing accomplishments of collective rights claimants, in the informal “soft law” processes of securing rights through popular persuasion. These circumstances are an unrecognized source of the postcolonial turn in archaeology, one that has taken place almost entirely outside the discipline, in public campaigns for justice and struggles over the evidentiary foundation of collective rights and legal recognition.

Kennewick man Heritage in the service of collective rights claims is not always so outwardly political but can be situated in a contest between, on the one hand, the perceived need to overcome the intellectual tutelage and paternalism of a dominant society while rediscovering and ennobling indigenous selfknowledge and, on the other hand, the professional demand for rigor and critical scrutiny in the production of knowledge, and occasionally the political action that follows from it. Scientific imperatives, in other words, are sometimes at odds with the combined knowledge claims and rights claims of those who find in their heritage an enabling source of cultural survival and self-knowledge.

28  Ronald Niezen A clear example of knowledge in the service of collective rights and identity can be seen in one of the most controversial archaeological finds in the era of collective rights: Kennewick Man. Part of the appeal of this story seemed to be that Kennewick Man, by virtue of the remains’ deeply prehistorical 9000 BP carbon dating, represented a European version of North American primordial origins, the idea of a long-standing relationship with the land, ecological wisdom and a secure sense of place. The “media frenzy” that initially followed the discovery seemed to derive from a popular readiness to rewrite the prehistory of the Americas, using this one skeleton as grounds for giving “Europeans” a primary place in the continent’s earliest settlement (Niezen 2009: 157–61). The story was kept alive well past the time of Kennewick Man’s initial discovery by a dispute over ownership and control of the remains. The US Army Corps of Engineers, which officially controls the Columbia River shoreline where the remains were discovered, acting on the “inadvertent discoveries” provision (104 Stat. 3051d) of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), announced its intention to return the remains to a coalition of five Native American tribes in the area: the Colville, the Nez Perce, the Yakama, the Umatilla, and the Wanapum Band, basing its decision on nothing more than the tribes’ oral traditions and their geographical proximity to the site. This decision set in motion a high-profile dispute when a group of eight scientists specializing in Paleoindian archaeology and biology filed an injunction in federal court to stop the repatriation process, arguing that the evidence for assigning a cultural affiliation to Kennewick Man was lacking and more could be known only by subjecting the remains to scientific analysis. After almost a year of court arguments, federal magistrate John Jelderks stopped the repatriation process and ordered relocation of the remains to the University of Washington’s Burke Museum, to be followed by implementation of a study plan laid out by the US Department of the Interior. Joseph Powell, a member of the study team that subsequently took on the task of assigning a cultural affiliation to the Kennewick skeleton, did not agree with any of the racial categorizations of the remains: “Our statistical analyses found a greater probability that the skeleton was most similar to East Asian populations, especially those . . . sometimes referred to as Eurasians.” Furthermore, The Kennewick Man’s teeth and skull were not like any Native American sample for which we had cranial or dental data. In fact, like most other ancient skeletons from North and South America, the “Ancient One” looked nothing like someone from a prehistoric, historic or living Native American population. (Powell 2005: 11) Powell concluded from this that racial correspondence between prehistoric and contemporary populations is largely futile and misleading, relying as it

Collective rights 29 does on an assumption of the immutability of dominant skeletal features in human populations. From the vantage point of the kind of scientific analysis offered by the US Department of the Interior study team, it becomes easier to see the points of disjuncture with the truth claims of those tribal representatives with collective rights interests. Systematic, peer-reviewed study was soon pitted against the knowledge systems and assertions of those who saw Kennewick Man as an ancestor and a connection to a harmonious prehistoric way of life. Armand Minthorn, representing the Umatilla Indian Reservation as chair of the tribe’s Cultural Resources Commission, reported in an Internet publication that, “We knew in our heart that this one is an ancestor” (Confederated Tribes 2000). Elsewhere, he rejected the scientific project of furthering knowledge both for the global human community and for those who sense a more personal connection to the remains: Some scientists say that if this individual is not studied further, we, as Indians will be destroying evidence of our own history. We already know our history. It is passed on to us through our elders and through our religious practices. (Minthorn 1996) The Kennewick saga was further complicated by the fact that personal attachment to the remains was claimed by another group, the Asatru Folk Assembly, a neo-pagan religious organization from California that sought unfettered access to the Kennewick discovery site to perform ceremonies and to worship the northern European god Odin (Powell 2005: 9). Their feeling of affiliation with the remains seemed to be driven by the initial description of the Kennewick remains as “Caucasoid” and by a dating result which would situate Kennewick Man in a time that they saw as the golden age of pagan Europe. The archaeological justification for analytically grounding interpretations of the past in the material record and the methods of science ultimately comes down to the universal value of knowledge for human benefit and the scientific tradition of emphasizing a tendency toward error inherent in all forms of personal conviction. Paleoarchaeology in particular has more difficulty accepting people’s beliefs about themselves and their origins as evidence because the material they work with is widely separated in time from living populations, and it therefore cannot grant “Native peoples the semiotic sovereignty to speak for themselves, as subjects and not objects: to provide their own equally valued notion of history, time, space, and ancestry” (Crawford 2000: 232–3). Even though archaeologists might often want to accommodate Indigenous knowledge claims, there are some in the discipline who give priority to maintaining unfettered access to its data and refuse to jeopardize the authority of expertise and professionalism that ensures that access (Smith 2004: 31).

30  Ronald Niezen

Therapeutic history Postcolonial archaeology tends to take indigenous or subaltern knowledge as given – it simply has to be seen, recognized, given agency, included in partnerships and given a new standing in projects of digging and discovery (see Nicholas and Smith 2011; Wilcox 2009). The influence of legal claims on knowledge, however, complicates matters and makes the course of postcolonial reform in archaeology far from simple and direct. There is a particular logic to the interpretation of archaeological data through the filter of collective rights: the legal process of self-definition calls for a corresponding process of intellectual transformation to bring the history and prehistory of a people in line with current claims, aspirations and acts of self-determination. The result is a form of therapeutic history and prehistory that finds comfort in an essentialized connection to the past – and that derives legal leverage from broadly appealing emotional persuasion and expressions of hope. An otherwise disjunctive combination of therapeutic and political aspiration can be given specificity and plausibility by anchorage to material manifestations of the past. To those who consider this process of self-definition at a remove from the immediate engagements of advocacy, there might be something troubling about this combination of historical healing with the political uses of heritage. Is it a duty of scholarship to seek alignment with the knowledge and aspirations of those marginalized peoples with whom one (ideally) collaborates, an alignment in which one is sometimes called upon to work within alternative, professionally illegitimate systems of knowledge? Or is it still possible, as Kirsten Anker (2014: 59) proposes, to respectfully expose “the ways in which peoples’ own attempts toward liberation are complicit with their oppression”? Following on from this possibility, there may be a place for an approach to heritage that begins with the ideas and institutions that give it legal meaning and that at the same time sets limits on and imposes preferences for, collective identity. Taken together, these observations demonstrate that the consequences of promoting collective human rights extend into the foundations of knowledge. Law has a uniquely powerful capacity to create entities out of abstractions. Rather than interpret human life of the past in context, its material remnants have been assigned ownership as symbolic limited goods in the service of political destinies. Urgency is brought to bear on efforts to protect and preserve the cultural heritage of distinct peoples, to record for posterity an unbroken chain that extends beyond the inherited remembrance of origins. If these peoples do indeed represent cultural virtue and new hope for a perfect (or at least perfected) world, then their rights claims must be the focus of our concern, the injustices from which they suffer addressed, their territory mapped and defended, their culture saved from outside influence and their distinct status recognized. This simple connection between public expectations of cultural continuity and the legitimacy

Collective rights 31 of rights claims might explain why, more than ever before, archaeological heritage serves the efforts and imaginations of those who seek to add concreteness, specificity and depth to a sense of belonging, who share in the essence of what it means to collectively be and become a distinct people or a nation.

Notes 1 Human Rights Committee: Francis Hopu and Tepoaitu Bessert v. France. Communication No. 549/1993, UN DOC CCPR/C/51/D/549/1993 (30 June 1994). http://www.bayefsky.com/pdf/119_france549.pdf. 2 I draw attention here to the egregious historical error Morales commits in claiming a thousand-year struggle with capitalism. This is consistent with other symbolic efforts in the inauguration ceremony to underscore the temporal depth of claims of pan-Andean indigeneity (Pressenza 2010). 3 Tiwanaku se convirtió en el epicentro de la atención periodística nacional e internacional, con la presencia de miles de campesinos, representantes indígenas de diferentes partes del mundo, diplomáticos, nuevos legisladores, autoridades militares y policiales para presenciar el reconocimiento ancestral al Jefe de Estado. My translation. Línea Capital, Ceremonia ancestral: Evo Morales recibió mando simbólico en Tiwanaku. 22 January 2010. http://lineacapital.com. ar/?noticia=48305. Accessed 5 January 2013.

References Anker, K. 2014. Declarations of Interdependence: A Legal Pluralist Approach to Indigenous Rights. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. 2000. “Ancient One/ Kennewick Man: Ancient One Determined to Be Culturally Affiliated with Five Tribes,” Press statement, 25 September. Accessed January 22, 2007. http:/www. umatilla.nsn.us/kman6.html. Crawford, S. 2000. “(Re)constructing bodies: Semiotic sovereignty and the debate over Kennewick Man.” In Repatriation Reader: Who Owns American Indian Remains, edited by D. Mihesuah, 211–36. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Línea Capital. 2010. “Ceremonia ancestral: Evo Morales recibió mando simbólico en Tiwanaku,” 22 January. Accessed January 5, 2013. http://lineacapital.com. ar/?noticia=48305. Lyndon, J., and U. Rizvi, eds. 2010. Handbook of Postcolonial Archaeology. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. McNiven, I., and L. Russell. 2005. Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Merry, S. E., K. Davis, and B. Kingsbury, eds. 2015. The Quiet Power of Indicators: Measuring Governance, Corruption, and Rule of Law. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Minthorn, A. 1996. “Ancient One/Kennewick Man: Human Remains Should be Reburied,” Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Accessed January 22, 2007. http:/www.umatilla.nsn.us/kman6.html. Nicholas, G., and C. Smith. 2011. Being and Becoming Indigenous Archaeologists. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

32  Ronald Niezen Niezen, R. 2009. The Rediscovered Self: Indigenous Identity and Cultural Justice. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Powell, J. 2005. The First Americans: Race, Evolution, and the Origin of Native Americans. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Pressenza. 2010. “Morales: Today in Tiwanaku, a New Ray of Hope Is Born for Humanity and a New Bolivian State,” 21 January. Accessed January 5, 2013. http://www.pressenza.com/2010/01/moralesx-today-in-tiwanakux-a-new-ray-ofhope-is-born-for-humanity-and-a-new-bolivian-state/. Silliman, S. 2010. “Writing new archaeological narratives: Indigenous North America.” In Handbook of Postcolonial Archaeology, edited by J. Lydon, and U. Rizvi, 145–63. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Smith, L. 2004. Archaeological Theory and the Politics of Cultural Heritage. London and New York: Routledge. Vasak, K. 1977. “Human Rights: A thirty-year struggle: The sustained efforts to give force of law to the universal declaration of Human Rights.” UNESCO Courier. November 30, 11, Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Wilcox, M. 2009. The Pueblo Revolt and the Mythology of Conquest: An Indigenous Archaeology of Contact. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

2 Naming the indigenous Nick Shepherd

In this paper, I try to outline a contemporary discourse on the indigenous; that is to say, the manner in which notions of the indigenous circulate in contemporary discussions in archaeology, and more broadly. I base many of my remarks on my experience with an organization called the World Archaeological Congress (WAC). I sat on the executive committee of WAC for a number of years, and from 2005 to 2012 I was editor of the WAC journal, Archaeologies. The notion of the indigenous has been important to WAC as a foil to hegemonic conceptions of the discipline and as a basis for articulating alternative forms of practice. Standard usage within WAC involves the capitalization of the “I” in “Indigenous”, and from this point on in my paper I shall follow this convention. The constitution of WAC, written in the mid-1980s, accords specific rights to what are called “Indigenous representatives”, and documents such as the “WAC First Code of Ethics” and the “Vermillion Accord” have played a significant role in Indigenous struggles around repatriation and restitution. More generally within WAC, the notion of the Indigenous is at once valorized as a site of subaltern consciousness and conceived in essentialized terms as denoting rooted, timeless “peoples”, whose thoughts and existence exist as the irreducible Other of disciplinary knowledge and Western science. In other words, the Indigenous is admitted to the discipline, but as a minor term, appearing under the sign of culture/tradition, whereas archaeology appears under the sign of science/knowledge. Practice in relation to the Indigenous becomes a matter of “respect” for differences coded as “cultural differences”, rather than political, economic or epistemic differences, and in which archaeological knowledge is the final arbiter of the truth and meaning of these encounters. As shorthand for this epistemic stance, we might say that it is about bringing the Indigenous into the space of the discipline (or disciplining the Indigenous). So, what would another form of practice look like, one which might be described as “bringing the discipline into the space of the Indigenous”? Better still, what would be involved in opening a third space in which the discipline and the Indigenous might encounter each other, free of the epistemic qualifiers of either the discipline (essentialized science) or the Indigenous (essentialized identity)? What would be involved

34  Nick Shepherd in conceptualizing such a space? How do we think the Indigenous from the perspective of a decolonial archaeology? A starting point in my own conceptualization of the Indigenous is the recognition that it exists in a double sense: first, as a product of colonialist discourse, in which it appears as an inverted image of the Western self, and second, as a site of local refusal and resistance to the effects of late-capitalist globalization. As regards the first point: modernity stages itself as a moment of historical rupture, such that everything which precedes it, or lies outside its borders, becomes something else (the pre-modern, the non-modern). For modernity to appear new and extraordinary, phenomena and states that lie outside its borders need to appear static, timeless and ruled by tradition. From this perspective, the notion of the Indigenous only makes sense in as far as it exists as the inverse of something else: the universal, the cosmopolitan, the traveled, the hybrid, the settler. Moreover, it becomes a way of naming territories and ways of life in the Global South (or the periphery). Modernity is never described as being indigenous to Europe (or to the West); its sign is the universal. If the Western self is conceived as universal, “at home in the world”, free to travel and roam, remaining everywhere the same (identical), bringing the West to the world and the world to the West, then the Indigenous is conceived as rooted, tied to a particular time and place. At the same time, the Indigenous is tied to a particular bundle of concepts, chief among which are notions of primordialism, timelessness and isolation. The Western self is in time (in history); in fact, it is the principal agent and motivating force of history, conceived teleologically as the story of the transformation and completion of the Western self. The Indigenous stands outside time/history. From this perspective, the Indigenous is only authentic to the extent that it exists as the Other of the Western self: the greater the distance (cultural, temporal or spatial), the better. For the Indigenous, the task becomes the baffling and paradoxical one of articulating a contemporary self that exists outside of history, even as histories of colonialism and modernity have intervened so decisively to construct the present juncture. A further characteristic of the category of the Indigenous conceived within colonialist discourse is its radically homogenizing nature. Out of the multiplicity of ways of life, logics, material cultures and all of the richness, density and diversity of life in the Global South, it distills a single category: the Indigenous. For modernity, life-before and life-outside is only worth contemplating as an anachronism, a singularity whose meaning is its own obsolescence. The capitalization of the “I” in Indigenous perfectly captures this ambivalent status. Ostensibly a marker of respect, it also reifies the concept of the Indigenous, setting it apart as a category, outside the rules of historical time and even of grammar. All of this is by way of saying that the notion of the Indigenous exists as the product of a particular episteme, Western knowledge, as a way of naming alterity/difference from within the logic of that episteme. To the extent that there exist ways of life and logics that are impenetrable to the modern

Naming the indigenous 35 gaze, and to the extent that radical alterity is experienced as threatening, the notion of the Indigenous interpolates (or domesticates) alterity/difference, placing it under the sign of culture/tradition and the exotic. In so doing, it trims it of its radical potential, cancels the epistemic challenge presented by local thought and logics which exist outside the purview of Western knowledge and nullifies the critique of Western lives contained in local socialities and ecologies. As a form of shorthand, we might say: Indigenousness eats alterity. But that is not all: the notion of the Indigenous exists in a second, indispensable sense in the postcolonial postmodern, and it is to this that I now turn. Late-capitalist globalization defines itself through its penetrative powers, its ability to reach into the most distant territories, the furthest outposts of life and imagination. Led by capital in its relentless search for new resources and new investment opportunities, this appropriative/extractive logic enfolds local knowledges, territories and ways of life. At the same time, it prompts myriad local resistances, as groups, communities and social movements mobilize against these effects. One of these forms of mobilization takes place under the sign of the Indigenous. Indeed, an adjunct of the contemporary phase of globalization – its other face, if you will – has been the growth of the Indigenous Movement, in which the resources of culture/ identity/tradition are mobilized to resist the destructive effects of globalization. Resistance is aimed at both the political/economic consequences of late-capitalist globalization and its epistemic consequence: the imposition of a single logic, namely the logic of capital. Framed in Indigenous (or more broadly, in ethnic) terms, such struggles frequently involve subaltern groupings: that is, collectives who have themselves been sidelined by the (postcolonial) state or who bear the costs of globalization without enjoying its fruits. A defining feature of such struggles is their backward/forward-looking nature. Framed in primordialist terms as mobilizations of culture/tradition, they are firmly situated in the postcolonial postmodern, as sets of struggles around rights, resources, representation and restitution. Such struggles are directed at the (postcolonial) state, as well as at global and local elites, and transnational agencies, interests and corporations. As strategic mobilization of culture/tradition, they involve forms of contemporary ethnogenesis and the (re)invention of tradition (Comaroff and Comaroff 2009). To the extent that they are framed as responses to late-capitalist globalization, and to the extent that they are phenomena of the postcolonial postmodern, they are correctly understood as part of the landscape of modernity itself rather than its Other; in other words, as alternative modernities or counter modernities. The materiality of archaeological sites, sacred sites and remains in the ground, including human remains, become powerful points of organization and mobilization in struggles against property developers, mining activities, encroaching dams, unwanted infrastructure and agri-business. This is a response to late-capitalist globalization played in a different key, organized as a set of performative responses involving resonant materialities, the

36  Nick Shepherd significations of landscape and the intercession of the ancestors. The very characteristics invested in the notion of the Indigenous in its foundation (primordialism, timelessness, isolation) become points around which to articulate a resistant response to globalization. The double nature of the Indigenous comes to the fore as a residual category of the Western self and as an attempt to name ways of life and logics which exist outside of the frame of Western knowledge and global/modern experience, albeit from within the logic of globalization and modernity itself. Even as it subjects difference to an alien logic (in which it figures as Otherness), it retains, as it were, the pressure and possibility of alterity (of a resistant logic). In this double and ambiguous play, one might ask: are these forms of resistance that escape (or evade) the logic of globalization and modernity? Or, in accepting the sign of the Indigenous, do they operate from within the logic of globalization and modernity? Or (as seems likely), are they both of these things? The challenge, as I have set it out here, is to think the Indigenous outside of the triangulation of three dominant discourses: colonial ethnography (alterity as Otherness), nativism/essentialism (the Other as self) and developmentalism (the Other as project). This involves understanding the Indigenous as transforming historical phenomena. It also involves understanding the complex nature of its address: situated in the (postcolonial postmodern) present, drawing on the materials of pastness (culture/identity/tradition), addressed to possible futures. The particular ambivalence of the notion of the Indigenous derives from its attempt to name that which exists outside of the logic and experience of colonialism and modernity, within the terms of that same logic. It takes alterity (dense, polysemous, unknowable) and reframes it as Otherness (an inverted image of the Western self). Framed in these terms, the challenge presented by notions of the Indigenous is both more complex and more embracing than that conceived by WAC. At the core of the notion of the Indigenous is an epistemic challenge to the discipline of archaeology, the challenge of “worlds differently known” (Escobar 2007, 2008). How do we recognize local, subaltern and fugitive knowledges of deep time and the gone past as knowledge in its own right, and not as its Other (tradition/ belief/superstition)? Rather than accepting the binary between Western self and Indigenous Other as a basis for a disciplinary project in archaeology, we should rather ask: What happens when the Indigenous is the self? Or when neither Western self nor Indigenous Other describes the position of the archaeologist self? How are we differently invested in locality? What happens when the localities from where we write are not built in binary opposition but in difference; when the sense of doubleness of living in the border constitutes us both as inhabitants and as knowers? Above all, we need to recognize the doubleness of the idea of the Indigenous. Ways of life and identities named as Indigenous are neither one thing nor the other, but both together, strung between the poles of accommodation and resistance. Rather than being reified as a historical special case, it joins a number of other actually or potentially resistant forms. The notion

Naming the indigenous 37 of the Indigenous speaks to our own idealism in imagining that we might find inherently or necessarily resistant formulations, “pure” lives and fossil social formations. At the same time, it is reassuring in that it seems marginal, regressive, not fully of this world. As with so much in the postcolonial postmodern, the chief characteristic of the notion of the Indigenous is its availability, as much to development agencies, transnational capital and local elites (including Indigenous elites) as to Zapatistas, Maya movement activists and San land claimants. Understanding the terms on which it becomes available, as well as the possibilities and limitations of a politics that derive from it, forms the basis for an intellectual project and a decolonial politics.

References Comaroff, J. L., and J. Comaroff. 2009. Ethnicity Inc. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. Escobar, A. 2007. “Worlds and knowledges otherwise: The Latin American modernity/coloniality research program.” Cultural Studies 21 (2): 179–210. Escobar, A. 2008. Territories of Difference: Place, Movements, Life, Redes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

3 Stakeholder in practice “Us”, “Them” and the problem of expertise Trinidad Rico

The focus of heritage studies has convincingly shifted from material culture to a more sophisticated focus on heritage subjects. This term is selected intentionally to take into consideration several meanings of the word: subject as a field of study (heritage preservation; heritage studies) and subject as a person, a citizen or a member of a group (heritage actors or agents). In line with the latter, Paola Filippucci proposes that the object of preservation practices, “heritage”, has been convincingly redefined as a field concerned first and foremost with people, shaped by a diverse range of social practices, processes and experiences. (Filippucci 2009: 320) Therefore, as anthropological concerns and methods play a more central role in heritage studies in order to tackle the centrality of people, the complex relationship between people and heritage value takes center stage. Contemporary concerns in heritage theory and practice are not simply about how people use heritage but also about how we create the subjects of study in geographically, historically and politically situated ways. The concept of the “stakeholder” as a vehicle was incorporated in heritage management precisely for the purpose of “peopling” heritage, with positive implications for the way in which heritage is defined, constructed and managed. However, when applied, the concept presents clear challenges that are seldom, if ever, considered. Calls for participatory models of heritage management (e.g. Harrison 2013) acknowledge that not everyone has the access and the ability required to shape heritage practices and decisions. In fact, the issues surrounding access and ability with regard to heritage are as varied as heritage contexts. But also, inherent to heritage as a construct are firm dichotomies of “Us” and “Them”: a separation between knowledge producers and knowledge consumers, a separation between the public and the state, and a separation between experts and non-experts. These dichotomies, and perhaps the latter one in particular, should be seen as responsible for the identification and inclusion of indigenous voices amongst recognized expert voices. Indigenous voices are part of alternative models that hold “other” forms of local

Stakeholder in practice 39 expertise, but often this does not enjoy the same weight as classical disciplinary expertise in the preservation of cultural heritage. This tension has also been discussed as a struggle that emerges between authority (the academic) and authenticity (the community) in the race for the control and promotion of values in the public sphere (Shackel 2009: ix). However, throughout this chapter I aim to problematize the role of a “local expert”, a form of stakeholder who blurs this distinction, and I refer to this type of expert as an indigenous expert, who may or may not identify as a disciplinary expert.

The difference between the text and the practice The authority and usefulness of “other” voices in heritage management have been identified overtly through value-based assessments which were proposed as an analytical tool in conservation and heritage management (Mason and Avrami 2002: 5). A recognition of the different and coexisting values attributed to heritage constructs by different members of society (Ashworth et al. 2007) and of the role of practices in the conservation of heritage value (Truscott and Young 2000) allowed non-expert-driven voices the opportunity to lead the conservation process towards a more inclusionary field (Byrne et al. 2003). As heritage work is encouraged to integrate local voices in order to gain credibility in a postcolonial global scene, indigenous voices are approached through two typical structured frameworks: stakeholder consultation and capacity-building, which imagine and promote specific imaginations of “other” voices and attitudes to them. These are essentially distinct iterations of an intention to include alternative voices in heritage management, yet award said voices very different degrees of agency. While the former identifies alternative voices as a form of valid expertise to be considered and ideally included in heritage decision-making, the latter positions alternative voices as voices that are able and willing to receive a form of expertise that they do not possess, and which is presumably needed, compatible with and preferred by indigenous actors. The distinction between these two forms of inclusion is conspicuous, but it is a distinction that can be blurred strategically for the purpose of controlling the degree of inclusion of alternative voices in heritage management. Considering that the field of heritage studies draws on expertise from a range of disciplines, there is growing acknowledgement that heritage constructs “can be described as the result of the production of texts” (Sørensen and Carman 2012: 6) through which these different disciplines communicate and negotiate “best practices” to each other and to the public. While the principles of value-based assessment and management have become a lingua franca of heritage value-based approaches through these texts, the real challenge remains the creation of practices that can embody these principles and distinguish between the different types of inclusionary models in heritage practice and what each model is intended to do. In order to avoid

40  Trinidad Rico making a purely theoretical point, I would like to qualify this challenge with a brief autoethnographic vignette that exemplifies these concerns. During a month-long field season of a heritage project in South Africa, a group of participants from South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique and Tanzania toured around different rock-art sites of Mapungubwe National Park to be taught about issues of tourist management and stewardship in situ. During a break one afternoon, a participant who was also an employee of South African National Parks (SANParks), expressed concern over the name of the rock shelter under which we were resting, “Alfred’s Rock”. Rock-art shelters were named in this area by the surveyor who originally mapped the sites in Mapungubwe, which at the time were an ensemble of privately owned farms. But this particular participant was passionately concerned with discussing a new African name for this site, in line with other sites that were part of the training course in the area, for example “Thombo-la-tholo” and “Thudwa”. At the time, the instructors for the training course discouraged this conversation according to the schedule, discussions that morning were supposed to be dedicated to issues of conservation of the rock paintings at these sites. However, in a nation where a large number of sites were in the process of being renamed their “original” African names, the politics of toponymy could be seen as a key conponent to ensure the sustainable conservation of this particular site. In hindsight, the implications of that moment should not have been taken lightly. An unscheduled local voice was making itself heard through young South African professionals taking ownership of their heritage debate in a way that made sense to them, an avenue of discussion that could be rightly placed at the core of their engagement with their past and present landscape. However appropriate it would have been to welcome this detour at the time, an encounter displaced by the distance of our expert institutions, the strict structure of engagement with indigenous voices was not able to accommodate a shift in the direction of our conversation. The challenge is due to the multiple roles held by this particular heritage subject: the members of this group were selected for capacity-building training in heritage management, rather than as agents in stakeholder consultation. It was clear, however, that they saw themselves as indigenous stakeholders as well. As a result of this exchange, indigenous voices were silenced by what appeared to be a technicality within heritage management. In fact, this experience suggested that there was no clear understanding amongst the institutional experts present at the time of how the operationalization of a categorical distinction would affect the credibility of the project in terms of the institution’s support of indigenous modes of heritage preservation. Ironically, the process of consultation of stakeholders is one of the key elements of a value-based assessment that is espoused and promoted by institutions such as this one. In fact, there was a stakeholder meeting scheduled to take place closer to the end of the workshop, where other stakeholders were

Stakeholder in practice 41 invited to our premises to watch a presentation on the research remit of the institution and to speak about the management and future of these very same sites. But our course participants, who were also indigenous stakeholders, were unequivocally admitted to the course as experts-in-process and not as indigenous voices. The introduction of the course had, perhaps as a warning about the role that these local professionals were to take, included an overview of !kung phonetics, a type of knowledge integral to the identity of most of our participants rather than an intellectual subject of discussion. I draw on this experience reflexively and critically to raise two questions. First, who is invited to act as a stakeholder in heritage management, and, second, how does stakeholder consultation happen outside of scheduled stakeholder consultation meetings? Since the encounter described here would suggest that there is a time and a place to voice a rightfully indigenous voice, and someone is in control of that time and place, the unspoken rules of convenience for the manifestation of the stakeholder role should be further revealed and examined. I argue that it would appear that when indigenous voices are induced into expert roles and languages through capacity-­building – the process of formation of non-disciplinary experts into disciplinary experts – there might be an expectation that the indigenous voice be relinquished. What this experience suggests is that, contrary to formative texts that promote the inclusion of alternative voices, a failure to perform the required dialogue in practice reveals the awkward boundaries that may be implicit in guidelines and policy across heritage management when addressing marginalized voices. This is particularly true when heritage subjects blur the line between subjects selected for consultation and subjects selected for the promotion of specific heritage preservation agendas and methodologies (an example of what Byrne [1991] refers to as ideology transfer). This conundrum also raises a series of familiar concerns in postcolonial heritage studies: how are the dynamics of different types of stakeholders negotiated, and by whom? What characterizes local, foreign or expert stakeholders in different contexts? And, in addition to these unresolved tensions within heritage, we need to ask what happens when they intersect or migrate conceptually. Also, in consideration of all of the above, is there a place – and is it adequately and fairly created – to accommodate indigenous agency through expertise within postcolonial heritage management?

Where does indigeneity live in heritage practice? The emergence and legitimization of alternative voices in heritage management is not easy to identify in policy and practice. In part, the challenge originates in the way that alternative values in general have been presented and made explicit in various forms. Firmly located in a growing awareness of “the Other”, its values and rights with regard to heritage value, early heritage approaches identified the public, in opposition to the state, as a monolithic audience (Carman and Sorensen 2012: 15). It has been argued that this duality was established in the nineteenth century, accompanied by

42  Trinidad Rico the development of two forms of engagement with the past – an audience and a professional practitioner. This dichotomy defined a tension between knowledge producers and consumers, a topic that would dominate heritage debates towards the end of the twentieth century (Carman and Sorensen 2012: 15). This tension is best seen through the historical struggle that heritage studies has undergone in reconciling an articulated “Western” approach to heritage with “non-Western” social systems and values, a key debate in the discipline since the 1980s (Byrne 1991; Harrison 2013; Smith 2006). In the early days of this debate, postcolonial critics asked: “if, in the postmodern world there can be alternative histories why can’t there be alternative heritages and alternative models of heritage management?” (Byrne 1991: 273). Although heritage preservation and management had been formalized through various local and international structures, it was around this time that the homogeneity observed around the world regardless of locally diverse circumstances became a matter of concern (Cleere 1989). This uniformity was seen as the product of a dominant Western perception of the past and its relics, which had spread through colonial ventures (Carman and Sørensen 2012; Harrison 2013; Smith 2006; amongst others). From this point on, the identification, protection and promotion of alternative values became paramount in some schools of heritage studies, with a notable influence on the way that practitioners and policy developers at local and international levels incorporated indigenous voices in their work. Heritage texts The formalization of the concept of an indigenous voice in the mobilization of heritage values draws attention to texts and guidelines that define the stakeholder as an entity with a role to play in heritage management. A significant challenge for the effective identification of a concern for the inclusion of all voices in heritage is that supporters of the dominant heritage paradigm would argue that local voices were always included in global frameworks for heritage management and conservation, since, they argue, universal values enjoy universal application and relevance without exception. Therefore, concerns with war and destruction (Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, UNESCO 1954), ownership and territory (Convention on the Means of Prohibiting the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, UNESCO 1964), and, in general, an appreciation of cultural diversity through aesthetics (Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, UNESCO 1972) became formalized through these documents as universal concerns that are meant to embed all voices, indigenous ones included, despite having clear roots in specific historical and geographical contexts and concerns. The transition towards more inclusive practices in heritage studies during the latter part of the twentieth century is exemplified in the contrasting discourses of two seminal texts for the history of conservation: one is

Stakeholder in practice 43 the principle promoted in the “Venice Charter” (ICOMOS 1964), whose debates surround the question of authenticity and reconstruction with a predominant position given to expert views (Matero et al. 1998), and the other is the “Burra Charter” (Australia ICOMOS 1981), which promotes a recognition of the value of indigenous interpretations and interventions in heritage. Since the creation of the Burra Charter, the complexity of the concept of heritage value has been progressively demystified in standards of practice, with an aim of decentralizing expertise by separating the assessment of significance from the process of decision-making in heritage management. However, it has been argued that despite these productive changes the promotion of value-based approaches is not without obstacles. In particular, the observed tendency of heritage professionals to promote the Burra Charter model as a universally accepted model is a reminder of how often the heritage discourse gravitates towards standardization of methodologies and towards a reliance of universal applications, disconnecting, in doing so, the process of knowledge-making from practice in the work of heritage (Byrne et al. 2003: 6, 11). More recently, the construction of stakeholders as a category in heritage has become more entangled in identity politics. This rhetorical and conceptual turn is made evident in the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (UNESCO 2001), which recognizes a need for participation in democratic frameworks and a move away from the expert and expert audiences as the sole stakeholders. This was aptly followed by the recognition of non-­ material engagements with heritage value (The Convention on the Protection of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO 2003), and accompanied by a series of conversations with potential impacts on heritage management, such as the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (UNESCO 2005) and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNESCO 2007). Nevertheless, the agency of indigenous voices may be shrouded by a predominantly institutional and global scale of approach to the safeguarding of indigenous heritage resources, as can be extracted from the language and aims of the earlier Recommendations on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore (UNESCO 1989). It is clear that charters, conventions and similarly formative documents for the work of heritage management may be useful for the expression of principles and ideals but less so for providing practical guidance on methodological approaches that are able to realize these ideals. As a result, the impact of these texts is limited, in as much as they recommend attitudes to non-disciplinary stakeholders, but leave specific institutions and experts to navigate their disciplinary and personal biases – that overall steer towards traditional connoisseurship – on their own. Heritage practice Many experts in heritage studies and approaches would argue that at the core of the principles of conservation lies an assessment of conceptual

44  Trinidad Rico significance that is obtained through consultation and discussion (e.g. Pye 2001: 109–10). And yet, the idea of a small subfield or, perhaps more accurately, a field of resistance of indigenous conservation, is relatively recent. It has also been argued that the field of conservation of cultural heritage nonetheless demonstrates a persistent attachment to older paradigms (Meskell 2002: 568), suggesting that there are certain foundations of heritage practices that are epistemologically attached to an expert-led regime. With origins in craftsmanship and connoisseurship, the twentieth century saw this discipline turn towards increasingly scientific channels of authority, which emphasized the contributions of material science and the scientific basis for the design and use of treatments. It was only in the late twentieth century that conservation became more holistic in its approaches, acknowledging the need to work closely with the public and provide more open access to its objects of study (Pye 2001). The practice of inclusivity in heritage projects has proved to be challenging. A trademark publication of the Getty Conservation Institute, Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage: Research Report (De la Torre 2002), proposes guidelines to redress a traditional marginalization of local and, in particular, non-expert voices. Through this approach, stakeholder consultation alongside a development of heritage value typologies are proposed for the development of a standardized approach that enables the ranking of often conflicting values (Mason 2002: 5) and, therefore, managing said conflict when applicable. Facing the challenge of defining who is and is not a stakeholder, Randall Mason, in the same edited volume, describes a distinction between inside and outside stakeholders. This distinction stems from the notion that some stakeholders are already “at the table” where values are identified, assessed and ranked, and where decisions are made, while other legitimate stakeholders are not present. This is recognized as perhaps the most challenging obstacle in stakeholder consultation. How do these absent stakeholders materialize and, more importantly, agree to join the proverbial table? The way this challenge has been addressed in this model, however, is problematic on two counts. First, there is an assumption that the stakeholder already exists, has awareness of its role and has made itself known, available and willing to participate in this exchange. This is where the inside/outside metaphor begins to lose credibility due to its lack of complexity. The model requires the stakeholder to recognize the existence (and therefore, authority) of the consultation process (the “table”) and the role and intentions of the host to facilitate this communication. In fact, this encounter has been oversimplified in part by the lack of acknowledgement that not all forms and places for communication are equal. As I discussed earlier, the mediation of conversations with stakeholders is intimately tied to the formalization of the context for this exchange. The “table”, in practice, may not be the best place to establish communication to start with.

Stakeholder in practice 45 Second, an expectation of a state of harmony amongst different stakeholders is utopic in the way that it has been imagined in abstract managerial terms that are used throughout these texts, and, therefore, presumed to be conducive to a deliberative democratic process. Mason explains that “the views of experts, citizens, communities, governments, and other stakeholders can be voiced and compared more effectively” (Mason 2002: 9). However, while this puts all heritage values and voices on the same level for the purposes of conducting a fair evaluation, to paraphrase George Orwell, some voices are more equal than others. As the model retains the heritage expert playing a dual role as a stakeholder and a coordinator of the comparative process, the implications for an ethical implementation of the principles of representativity that are aspired to in this model are not optimistic. What needs to be considered first and foremost is that the voice of the indigenous non-expert cannot but become unnecessarily smothered by voices that have typically held more power in the decision-making arena. This is not, therefore, neutral ground. Moreover, the model relies on the ability of the disciplinary expert as a stakeholder to be aware of and navigate a historical and contemporary burden that reinforces a dominant role and voice in heritage discussions and decisions. Accordingly, a democratically informed comparative framework, in the shape that is proposed and circulated today, fails to reconcile its aims: while it claims to support the cause of marginalized stakeholders, it maintains a tendency to standardize and hierarchize heritage values. A strong loyalty to expert authority in this model may be the reason many of these institutional methodologies are not recognized in the literature as being particularly postcolonial in their approach to alternative and marginalized voices (i.e. Carman and Sørensen 2012). Despite claiming to move away from a normative art historical view which privileges artistic and historical values over others, the proposed approach can be said to remain firmly expert-driven, as the conversation takes place deep in the territory of expert languages and priorities. With value-based assessment as the most inclusive methodology proposed within conservation and heritage thus far, questions that should be asked moving forward are familiar: who compares and legitimizes an exercise of hierarchy-making in heritage practices? Are currently proposed methodologies within heritage work adequately rising to the challenge? In contrast, simple methodologies that aim to involve marginalized stakeholders have also included map-making exercises, questionnaires, interviews and, more recently, participatory culture platforms. These promote the principle that the creation of and support for a dialogue among different stakeholders involves shared learning through creative confrontation of experts and non-expert users (Lisitzin 2005). However, more sophisticated approaches espouse an ethnographic engagement with the construction of heritage value that is able to document and reveal the contextual processes and the transitional nature of the socially mediated moment that is heritage valuation (e.g. Meskell 2011; Rico 2016). I would

46  Trinidad Rico argue that these approaches are better equipped to acknowledge a need to understand heritage and the effects of its management in the longer term (cf. Hodder 2003).

Relationship-building: an indigenous heritage practice The seemingly insurmountable challenge of representing indigenous voices, and in particular representing them by using the stakeholder as a vehicle, is integral to the critical future of heritage studies and its proposed methodologies. As already discussed, the inability of expert voices to relinquish their influential position in the space of representation, that is, stakeholder consultation, contributes to the ongoing marginalization of non-expert voices. In order to challenge the strong undertones of Western imperialism and ideology transfer inherent in heritage studies (Byrne 1991), indigenous approaches to heritage assessment and management have convincingly mobilized the loaded role of expertise in productive dialectic ways. Involvements with the stakeholder are increasingly recognized as educational encounters for both parties involved, making the modes of transmission of knowledge through institutional and academic channels come under more scrutiny. But, failing to dominate methodologies, the process of stakeholder legitimization is still a part of cultural heritage management that operates within a methodological framework ruled by improvisation and informality (cf. Appadurai 1996). On the other hand, the way that indigenous voices have been predominantly approached in heritage debates as part of an “alternative”, or “other”, non-dominant worldscape relegates local voices to the margins, enforcing the idea that the validity of indigenous voices is measured only in relation to a perception of normality as a point of reference. This is problematic, but so is the study of alterity. There has been a clear recognition of the way in which heritage practices and their regimes generate alterity. It has been argued, for example, that “the local” is defined in such a way that it can be better managed, constructed by heritage regimes through global communities and organizations (Hodder 2003: 63). In this sense, the stakeholder should only be seen as an institutionally framed analytical category that is complex, shifting, and geographically and spatially sophisticated. Yet, it remains conveniently a category that is vaguely defined and ambiguous. In discussions of an ethnographic turn for archaeology, Quetzil Castañeda and Christopher Matthews add that in order to define and understand stakeholders, we must “define more concretely what is actually at stake” in archaeological research and dissemination (2008: 7). Within archaeology, Charlotte Damm suggested that we engage in this definition through a negotiation of research questions and methods to support a mutually agreed upon agenda that incorporates oral traditions with scientific facts (Damm 2005: 80–4), while Larry Zimmerman argued for an “ethnocritical archaeology” that looks for “dialogical models where cultural

Stakeholder in practice 47 differences are explored and where interpretations are negotiated” thr­ ough interchange and transculturation (Zimmermann 1997: 55). A fertile environment for indigenous and “other” voices is enabled in archaeology with the advent of interpretive and post-processual archaeologies that recognize and act upon the way that archaeology works for different agendas (Trigger 1984), aiming to recognize and move away from the colonial legacy of the discipline (Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Ferguson 2006: 159). Postprocessual archaeology is praised not only for changing the epistemological field of discourse but also for opening up the discipline to more players and more voices, making valid new subject matters in doing so (Meskell 1998). However, this theoretical and methodological turn in archaeology has also been criticized for failing to meet its own aims, perpetuating a “Western” position of dominance and maintaining its isolation from society (Hamilakis 2004: 293; Shepherd 2002: 80; Smith 1994; Watkins 2003), an observation that highlights the vulnerability of projects of inclusivity. Among heritage practices, there are a number of debates and case studies that align with this postmodern turn, defining an ethnographic heritage field that tackles this intellectual and social environment (Clavir 2001). These efforts begin with an acknowledgement of the existence of an “unofficial heritage”, a broad range of practices that are represented using the language of heritage, but are not recognized by official forms of legislation (Harrison 2010: 8–9; Harrison 2013: 15). An “ethnographic conservation” describes a methodology inspired by ethnography, in which the exchange of knowledge is negotiated by and benefits both parties, under the premise of constructing shared knowledge. For example, Miriam Clavir successfully constructs this debate at the intersection of museums, conservation practice and First Nations (Clavir 2001, 2002) in order to compare and contrast the value of heritage from both perspectives: that of experts (museum conservators) and that of marginalized voices (First Nations in Canada). An ethnographic approach also considers that cultures have long used their own methods for preserving their cultural heritage (Kreps 2006), and engages with that diversity of positionalities, challenging the widespread assumption that “non-Western” peoples are not concerned with the care and long-term preservation of their cultural heritage, which has long been used to justify their collection and retention in “Western” museums under “Western” approaches (Kreps 2006: 458). Christina Kreps’s promotion of an ethnographic approach aims to empower “nonWestern” models of museum studies and curatorial practices as having value in their own right, as unique cultural expressions and as examples of cultural diversity. Decolonizing conservation practices is therefore not simply a matter of acknowledging the role that heritage conservation has played within the colonial enterprise, but rather recognizing that conservation work in itself affects people’s lives, and then engaging in processes of participatory

48  Trinidad Rico conservation (Sully 2008). It has been argued that the way to build a more productive relationship with the stakeholder requires the interdisciplinary involvement of ethnographers and other specialists in heritage management projects (Hodder 2003: 64). Ethnography, with an interest in learning from the subaltern rather than speaking for them (Young 1990: 167), has been sought as a way to involve and evaluate archaeological and heritage management projects (Hodder 2003: 64). In this capacity, it has been increasingly tested as a way to create the spaces for dialogue that are needed to engage with marginalized stakeholders on their own terms and value systems (i.e. Breglia 2006; Castañeda and Matthews 2008; Hancock 2008; Meskell 2011). Moving forward, the promotion of an “ethnographic conservation” has implications for embracing specific principles in the development of methodologies. On a general level, an ethnographic sensibility recommends that professionals are sensitive to or aware of different worldviews (Moses 1992: 3), in order to facilitate the identification and translation of concepts of preventive conservation as they are interpreted and put into practice by indigenous groups and, not least, ward off misinterpretations that have not taken account of indigenous concerns in the long-term preservation of material culture. A hands-on approach of this nature calls for carrying out consultations that involve not only traditional stakeholder communities but also entities which carry authority according to these communities, such as the spirit world. For example, in the restoration efforts of the statue of Ta Reach in Angkor Wat, Simon Warrack describes such a process of consultation (Warrack 2011), whereby the statue itself was consulted through a medium at every step of the process of restoration. It is a case study that demonstrates how cultural sensitivity can be prioritized in the work of preservation. These emerging efforts are a reminder that the focus of heritage studies is on debates about preservation, but it should not center on the preservation of things and practices but rather the preservation of authorities and voices.

Conclusion The aim of the discussion in this chapter is to point out what many in critical heritage studies already know in practice: there is a habit in heritagerelated disciplines of making recommendations for including alternative and marginalized voices, but less of an interest in, ability to, and track record of putting these intentions into practice through dedicated and reflexive methodologies that sideline our own privileged expertise. In consideration of the existence of policies that may be disguised as methodologies (which could more cynically be described as “postcolonial PR”), this brief discussion considers the ways in which the stakeholder is put to work for the aims of a cultural heritage preservation and management mission that remains, nonetheless, globalizing. While these efforts have attempted to find ways to navigate productively this challenge, I have argued that an established

Stakeholder in practice 49 rhetoric of “Us” and “Them” is enhanced through the use of the concept of stakeholder, which is incidentally used tacitly but uncritically to refer to a non-expert voice. As the stakeholder concept is operationalized uncritically, therefore, a conflict of positionality inherent in the idea of management of heritage values is echoed without resolution. Is it possible, credible and even ethical to relate to “the Other” from different standpoints as is convenient to the discipline, especially given the expert’s role in defining these contexts for interaction? Should we preserve a deliberative model that asks disciplinary experts to share a space with non-disciplinary experts, preserving top-down dynamics that are rooted in a darker past of heritage management? This challenge is an opportunity to question the role that a promotion of specific methodologies in heritage suggests about the direction that the discipline is taking. I propose we look more closely at how the methods that we use inform or shape the idea of stakeholder and our heritage subjects in general. Failure to take the discipline down a methodologically reflexive and critical path, the non-disciplinary expert will continue to have a voice, but this voice will be deemed in need of significant editing, and perhaps translating, in order to make sense and fall in line with the established vocabularies used in dominant heritage methodologies. I suggest that the momentum of this trajectory comes from a refusal to relinquish authority in heritage expertise, a trend that appears to be widespread in all heritage-related disciplines and practices. For that reason, a commitment to alternative viewpoints and modes of engagement with heritage subjects is not simply about reinventing the stakeholder to include more of “Them”, but rather to reinvent “Us”.

References Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Ashworth, G. J., B. Graham, and J. E. Turnbridge, eds. 2007. Pluralising Pasts: Heritage, Identity ad Place in Multicultural Societies. London: Pluto Press. Australia ICOMOS. 1981. The Burra Charter: The Australia ICOMOS Charter for the Conservation of Places of Cultural Significance. Burwood, Australia: Deakin University. Breglia, L. 2006. Monumental Ambivalence: The Politics of Heritage. Austin: University of Texas Press. Byrne, D. 1991. “Western hegemony in archaeological heritage management.” History and Anthropology 5 (2): 269–76. Byrne, D., H. Brayshaw, and T. Ireland. 2003. Social Significance: A Discussion Paper. Hurtsville, Australia: National Parks and Wildlife Service. Carman, J., and M. L. S. Sørensen. 2012. “Heritage studies: An outline.” In Heritage Studies: Methods and Approaches, edited by M. L. S. Sørensen, and J. Carman, 11–28. Abingdon: Routledge. Castañeda, Q. E., and C. N. Matthews. 2008. “Introduction: Ethnography and the social construction of archaeology.” In Ethnographic Archaeologies, edited by Q. E. Castañeda, and C. N. Matthews, 1–23. Lanham: Altamira Press.

50  Trinidad Rico Clavir, M. L. 2001. “The future of ethnographic conservation: A Canadian perspective.” In The British Museum Occasional Paper. Vol. 145, edited by A. Oddy, and S. Smith, 57–60. London: British Museum. Clavir, M. L. 2002. Preserving What Is Valued: Museums, Conservation and First Nations. Vancouver, Canada: UBC Press. Cleere, H. 1989. “Introduction: The rationale of archaeological heritage management.” In Archaeological Heritage Management in the Modern World, edited by H. Cleere, 1–19. London: Unwin Hyman. Colwell-Chanthaphonh, C., and T. J. Ferguson. 2006. “Rethinking abandonment in archaeological contexts.” The SAA Archaeological Record 6 (1): 37–41. Damm, C. 2005. “Archaeology, ethno-history and oral traditions: Approaches to the indigenous past.” Norwegian Archaeological Review 38 (2): 73–87. de la Torre, M., ed. 2002. Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage: Research Report. Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute. Filippucci, P. 2009. “Heritage and methodology: A view from social anthropology.” In Heritage Studies: Methods and Approaches, edited by M. L. S. Sørensen, and J. Carman, 319–25. London: Routledge. Hamilakis, Y. 2004. “Archaeology and the politics of pedagogy.” World Archaeology 36 (2): 287–309. Hancock, M. E. 2008. The Politics of Heritage from Madras to Chennai. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Harrison, R. 2010. “What is Heritage?” In Understanding the Politics of Heritage, edited by R. Harrison, 5–42. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Harrison, R. 2013. Heritage: Critical Approaches. London: Routledge. Hodder, I. 2003. “Archaeological reflexivity and the ‘local’ voice.” Anthropological Quarterly 76 (1): 55–69. ICOMOS. 1964. “The Venice Charter: International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites Second International Congress of Architects and Technicians of Historic Buildings.” http://www.icomos.org/charters/ venice_e.pdf. Kreps, C. F. 2006. “Non-western models of museums and curation in cross-cultural perspective.” In A Companion to Museum Studies, edited by S. Macdonald, 457– 72. Oxford: Blackwell. Lisitzin K. 2005. “Building shared perspectives in heritage management.” City & Time 1 (3): 29–36. Mason, R. 2002. “Assessing values in conservation planning: Methodological issues and choices.” In Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage: Research Report, edited by M. de la Torre, 5–30. Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute. Mason, R., and E. Avrami. 2002. “Heritage values and challenges of conservation planning.” In Management Planning for Archaeological Sites: An International Workshop Organized by the Getty Conservation Institute, edited by J. M. Teutonico, and G. Palumbo, 13–26. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Conservation Institute. Matero, F., K. K. L. Fong, E. Del Bono, M. Goodman, E. Kopelson, L. McVey, J. Sloop, and C. Turton. 1998. “Archaeological site conservation and management, an appraisal of recent trends.” Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 2: 129–42. Meskell, L. 1998. “Introduction: Archaeology matters.” In Archaeology Under Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, edited by L. Meskell, 1–12. London and New York: Routledge.

Stakeholder in practice 51 Meskell, L. 2002. “Negative heritage and past mastering in archaeology.” Anthropological Quarterly 75 (3): 557–74. Meskell, L. 2011. The Nature of Heritage: The New South Africa. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. Moses, J. 1992. “Indigenous perspectives on conservation.” International Institute for Conservation, Canadian Group 17 (3): 1–4. Pye, E. M. 2001. Caring for the Past: Issues in Conservation for Archaeology and Museums. London: James and James. Rico, T. 2016. Constructing Destruction: Heritage Narratives in the Tsunami City. UCL Institute of Archaeology Critical Cultural Heritage Series. New York and Abingdon: Routledge. Shackel, P. A. 2009. “Foreword.” In Ethnographies and Archaeologies: Iterations of the Past, edited by L. Mortensen, and J. Hollowell, ix–x. Tampa: University Press of Florida. Shepherd, N. 2002. “Heading south, looking north: Why we need a post-colonial archaeology.” Archaeological Dialogues 9 (2): 74–82. Smith, L. 1994. “Heritage management as postprocessual archaeology?” Antiquity 68: 300–9. Smith, L. 2006. Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge. Sørensen, M. L. S., and J. Carman, eds. 2012. Heritage Studies: Methods and Approaches. Abingdon: Routledge. Sully, D. 2008. Decolonizing Conservation: Caring for Maori Meeting Houses outside New Zealand. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Trigger, B. G. 1984. “Alternative archaeologies: Nationalist, colonialist, imperialist.” Man 19: 355–70. Truscott, M., and D. Young. 2000. “Revising the Burra Charter.” Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 4 (2): 101–16. UNESCO. 1954. “Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.” http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0008/000824/082464mb.pdf. UNESCO. 1964. “Recommendation on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.” http:// unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001145/114581f.pdf#page=149. UNESCO. 1972. “Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.” http://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/. UNESCO. 1989. “Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore.” http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0008/000846/084696e.pdf# page=242. UNESCO. 2001. “Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.” http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/en/proclamation-of-masterpieces00103. UNESCO. 2003. “Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage.” http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/en/convention. UNESCO. 2005. “Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.” http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001429/142919e.pdf. UNESCO. 2007. “World Heritage Center: Global Strategy.” http://whc.unesco.org/ en/globalstrategy/. Warrack, S. 2011. “Learning from local leaders: Working together toward the conservation of living heritage at Angkor Wat, Cambodia.” Change Over Time 1 (1): 34–51.

52  Trinidad Rico Watkins, J. 2003. “Beyond the margin.” American Antiquity 68 (2): 273–85. Young, I. M. 1990. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Zimmermann, L. J. 1997. “Remythologizing the relationship between Indians and Archaeologists.” In Native Americans and Archaeologists, Stepping Stones to Common Ground, edited by N. Swindler, K. Dongoske, R. Anyon, and A. Downer, 44–56. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

4 Extractive industries, corporate discourse and indigenous heritage Melissa F. Baird

On my way to the conference in Uppsala, Sweden, I read an essay in the Lufthansa in-flight magazine entitled “Humanities Archives” that reviewed British photographer Jimmy Nelson’s book Before They Pass Away. Nelson focused his large-plate field camera on those who “live in close harmony with nature.” The article portrays Nelson as a man with a moral task: to capture the “lives and traditions of the last surviving tribes who have managed to preserve their traditional ways and customs within our increasingly globalized world” (Herbst 2013: 51). One image caught my attention. Presented in sepia tones and monochromatic grays, it shows three Mongolian Kazakh falconers on horseback wearing thick-belted overcoats and fox-fur hats that are traditional in the region. The photograph is arresting. It is also clearly staged. When I worked throughout the Mongolian Altai in 2006, I talked informally with herders whose lives bear little resemblance to that depicted in Nelson’s photographs.1 They spoke to me of the loss of pastures and shrinking water sources and of the impact from visitors to the high mountain valleys. But they also talked about strong ties and connections to their culture and way of life in this high mountainous region. His book reminded me of some TED talks: devoid of real substance, but presenting some type of packaged “truth.” As I thought about the title of his book, and the power of the images therein, the words of Indigenous activist and scholar Winona LaDuke (1992: 3) came to mind: “We are still here.” Nelson’s book draws on unmediated constructions of identity that clearly serve to sell books. Why else would he (or his editors) choose a title that presents the demise of Indigenous peoples as certain?2 More troubling is that his portraits are compelling. The photographs are meant to evoke a response, and they share a lineage with nostalgic and romantic constructions that promise to provide “rare insights” into “vanishing” native cultures.3 But such representations are anything but neutral; they shape and provoke, as much as they define, discipline and (re)present. As Mohawk scholar and activist Audra Simpson (2011) reminds us, in the building of Empire, it was these types of constructions through which Indigenous peoples were known. Not surprisingly, such imagery and discourse focus almost exclusively on physicality, aesthetics and difference. In many ways, these representations

54  Melissa F. Baird “dramatize the tension” and contribute to the process of transformation (Coombes 2003: 1). Or, more pointedly, representations map onto racial or ethnic stereotypes that work to reinforce the dominant culture’s position of power; the process of assimilation becomes easier, a natural course of events (see Wolfe 1999). I bring in Nelson’s portraits to draw a connection to how representations are developed by corporate bodies through what anthropologist Lindsay Weiss (2009) described as corporate heritage discourse.4 Specifically, corporate heritage discourse refers to the visual and cultural texts and images developed and promoted by corporations around heritage contexts. In this chapter, I explore some ways in which mining companies mobilize this discourse to position themselves as stakeholders and knowledge producers, and in some contexts are redefining heritage as a resource. I argue that the implications of these new literary corporate forms are many and heritage scholars (and others) should pay attention to them.

Enacting corporate heritage Corporate bodies have for some time developed initiatives to legitimize activities or demonstrate a company’s commitment to a social good. Termed corporate social responsibility (CSR), these activities comprise a suite of strategies that are commonly developed around a corporate conscience or citizenship (Shamir 2004; Welker 2009).5 Industries use CSR to legitimize economic development (Picard 1997; Rico 2008; Silverman 2011; Winter 2013), diffuse discussion on environmental impacts (see, e.g., Dobrin and Weisser 2002; Goggin 2013) and divert attention away from conflict (Luning 2012; Rajak 2011). In mining contexts, companies have engaged CSR campaigns to build capacity with communities (Evers et al. 2013; Luning 2012; Rajak 2011; Welker 2009), but also to deflect controversy. In an ethnographic study of mining practices in Madagascar, for example, Caroline Seagle (2009) demonstrated how Rio Tinto/QMM developed sustainability discourses that positioned the company as an environmental steward. Not only did the company develop a multimedia campaign that closely resembled and drew on imagery developed by the World Wildlife Fund, but it also focused attention on what they described as “unsustainable” practices by local communities (see Seagle 2009: 25). In this case, and in other contexts, we see how CSR rhetoric is deployed to reframe debates and reposition actors. Corporate heritage discourse is clearly an offshoot of corporate social responsibility strategies. But whereas CSR is developed to promote a company’s corporate conscience, corporate discourse may be developed to serve different goals. As Coombe and Baird (2015: 338) argued, this discourse “produces corporate literary forms that deploy a standardized array of rhetorical techniques . . . to serve as evidentiary legitimation of CSR principles.” In other words, they are developed around business interests and outcomes.

Extractive industries, corporate discourse and indigenous heritage 55 Mining companies, for example, have developed documents, reports and guides that define and promote their activities around heritage. Global mining giant Rio Tinto has been at the forefront of such initiatives. Their guide Why Cultural Heritage Matters, for example, presents their vision for engaging with Indigenous communities and serves as the go-to reference for all employees and affiliates who work with communities in cultural heritage contexts (Bradshaw et al. 2011: 3). The guide has been influential outside of company contexts and is cited by academics and discussed in professional venues (e.g., King 2012; Gillespie 2013). Corporate discourses are also increasingly developed to acknowledge or mediate contentious issues. The International Council on Mining and Metals, for example, a cohort of mining and metal industries, became partners with heritage bodies, such as UNESCO and IUCN (the World Conservation Union), and has developed position and strategy documents to address mining impacts in World Heritage contexts (see Coombe and Baird 2015). They developed discourse – articles, position statements, corporate publications, briefs and reports – and outlined strategies to address impacts on heritage sites. Although the language of community engagement, good governance and partnerships infuses the discussions, it is important to note that discussions define heritage around corporate-centered notions. At the forefront of all discussions are company interests and mitigating risk, such as “operational delays, legal challenges, reputational harm, lost opportunities, investor concern and employee dissatisfaction.”6 What is not yet understood is the extent to which these discourses shape heritage negotiations and outcomes or influence policy and opinion. We do know that resource industries increasingly draw on heritage to provide validation and recognition (see, e.g., Baird 2015; Coombe and Baird 2015; Weiss 2014). In the South African post-industrial landscape, for example, Weiss (2014: 22) has shown how the De Beers Mine appropriated the language of environmental sustainability and rights and repackaged colonial legacies into “celebratory and tourism-friendly tropes.” In this case, De Beers sponsored the designation of the Heritage Diamond Route – a “tourist-wildlife-conservation-cultural heritage network” that it uses as a touchstone to discuss its industrial past. In its retelling of history, De Beers cleverly displaces conversations about mining impacts and contemporary concerns. As Weiss (2014: 22) argued, the Diamond Route “circumvent[s] the sprawling township-scapes populated by former casual laborers, impoverished pensioners and shack-dwellers who continue to live in the shadows of the industrial landscapes.” In its enactment of corporate heritage, De Beers effectively washes out the histories and traumas of their industrial past and reframes conflict, human rights violations and environmental degradation in more user-friendly terms. However, heritage is also under threat in Aboriginal Australia, where mining and resource extraction are hard to separate from heritage negotiations

56  Melissa F. Baird (Altman 2003; Altman and Martin 2009; Baird 2015).7 Mining giants (i.e. Rio Tinto, Fortesecue Metals, Woodside LNG and BH Billiton) working in the Pilbara coastal region of Western Australia, for example, mobilize heritage to discuss their business practices and operations and in their negotiations for access to lands and resources (Baird 2013, 2015). Woodside LNG, for example, built Western Australia’s first and largest liquid natural gas project and draws on heritage in some discussions of its operations and Indigenous interests. Woodside is at the forefront of developing offshore and onshore facilities in culturally and environmentally sensitive areas. It has built an enormous infrastructure to support access to the significant gas deposits and to bring these to the Dampier Port on the Burrup Peninsula, the name for the part of the Dampier Archipelago once known as Dampier Island (Davidson 2011). The industrial area on the peninsula is known to include Aboriginal sacred sites, environmentally sensitive coastal resources, as well as an estimated 0.5–1 million petroglyphs (Mulvaney 2013). Western Australian governments have been supportive in developing the region’s heavy industry, while at the same time promoting the area’s heritage. The peninsula is on the Australian National Heritage List, and is under consideration for potential inclusion in the World Heritage List, and most recently the Minister for Environment announced the creation of Murujuga, Western Australia’s 100th national park, a community co-managed protected area on the footprint of land designated as non-industrial under a 2003 management plan between industry, government and native title holders the Burrup and Maitland Industrial Estates Agreement (BMIEA). The site has been the subject of heated debates between industries, local groups, rock-art scholars, environmental NGOs and some Aboriginal groups who protested the siting of an industrial estate on such a sensitive and culturally important area (Bednarik 2011; McDonald and Veth 2009). Murujuga National Park is jointly managed by the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) and the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation under a management plan developed “in consultation” with the community and prepared by a council comprised of traditional owners, DEC representatives and the Minister of Indigenous Affairs. The park was created, in part, to address critiques, as well as to mitigate the cultural and environmental heritage impacts of industry. During my visits in 2013 and 2014, it was clear that mining companies were tapping into heritage as an important part of their work with communities. Aboriginal and environmental heritage was promoted on signs, literature, pamphlets and industry websites, as well as informally in discussions with mining representatives. I am not speculating here about how heritage was mobilized within development discussions or in conversations with Aboriginal groups, but instead calling attention to how cultural heritage is being used as a starting point for discussions. In particular, I found that discourse serves as a framing document that positions industry in positive and neutral ways. Aboriginal owners do have a say in how the area is protected and managed, but at the

Extractive industries, corporate discourse and indigenous heritage 57 same time the majority of the peninsula is retained for industry. What we see is how economic interests and industry needs take precedence over culture and environment. As I have argued elsewhere (Baird 2013), I suspect that the heritage discourse is deflecting other conversations such as whether industry is compatible with environmental or social sustainability. Instead, I see the conversations focused more on celebrating heritage, without grappling with the impacts of how heritage is served in industrial contexts. At the same time, the huge industrial estate on the environmentally sensitive peninsula, as well as the impacts of industry on local communities, is not part of the discussion. The Murujuga Management Plan is part of the larger corpus of reports, working documents and management plans that can be viewed as negotiation documents. The reports are often the starting point for most conversations, negotiations and discussions between local communities and mining corporations. Although not always framed around heritage, they often overlap with discussions around cultural or natural heritage. At the Porgera Mine in Papua New Guinea, anthropologist Alex Golub (2014) showed how negotiations between the Ipili and the mining corporation Placer Dome were mediated through the development of the Porgera Mine Sustainability Report. The report was the result of nearly two years of negotiations that Golub (2014: 24) argued were “condensed into a single, authoritative, and anonymously voiced narrative.” The importance of the 20-page booklet cannot be underestimated: it served as a guide to operations and the environmental and social future of the valley and was used and circulated in all negotiations. The reports work in ways that depoliticize and sanitize negotiations and can be viewed as negotiation documents with local communities, landowners, workers, activists and contractors (see also Welker 2014). Global corporate discourse also draws on and creates historical myths. The politics and economics of mining in the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan provide a compelling example. The region underwent enormous transformations with the copper and iron rushes in the 1800s and the bust in the 1970s. The Keweenaw Peninsula in northern Michigan was central to “America’s first mineral land rush” of companies and workers excavating the peninsula’s vast copper deposits (Hoagland 2010: 1). In the southern region of the UP, vast iron ore deposits spawned industry, towns, ports and wealth. The heritage of mining in the UP maps on to ideas of “iron men” and company towns, independence and economic growth. Living in the former company town of Houghton, Michigan, I see firsthand the impact of industry in the frontiers and what happens when the mines leave: economic collapse, environmental degradation and social decay. The beauty of the Lake Superior watershed is marred by the impacts of global production and boom-bust cycles on local communities. The once-thriving company town, with its paternal promises of wealth, jobs and industry (see Hoagland 2010) was left with only promises, long-term economic struggles, disinvestment

58  Melissa F. Baird and urban decay. The region struggles with reconciling these realities with the nostalgic and long-held view that “mining is our history.” However, there is a resurgence of mining in the region. Mining jobs bring the promise of stability, good pay and participation in the economy. Kennecott Eagle Mine, originally developed by Kennecott, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, provides some context. The Eagle Mine, now owned by Lundin Mining Corporation of Toronto, is sited on Eagle Rock, an Ojibwa sacred site. In the time leading up to the development of the mine, there was a promotion of industrial development as a means of creating jobs. Rio Tinto sent representatives, held town meetings and seemed interested in what the community had to say, promoting the idea that “Your community is our community.”8 All along, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community has questioned the environmental impacts, especially the wastewater discharges and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s (MDEQ) idea of mitigation. The complicated discussions involve DEQ reports, mining permits, proposals and public reviews. Nevertheless, despite real evidence of issues with acid water drainage, the DEQ granted a permit in 2007, and the state of Michigan passed new mining regulations. Although the mine is opposed for environmental and cultural reasons, including that it is part of a sacred cultural landscape, the corporate discourse promotes the idea of mining heritage. Pointing to the promise of creating jobs, Rio Tinto, and then Lundin, use the belief that “mining is our heritage” as a touchstone for discussions. Interestingly, industry is mapping onto the well-developed heritage industry in the UP. Specifically, after the mines closed in the 1970s, the National Park Service, among other heritage groups, became a major industry in the UP. In the 1990s, for example, the Keweenaw National Historical Park was established to celebrate the mining heritage in the region. In the wake of mining, heritage organizations at national, state and local levels came in and developed a huge heritage network that taps into the mining history of the region. As a heritage industry, the region boasts copper mine museums, mining heritage museums, mine tours and a historic fort (to protect the region’s copper resources during the Civil War). Rio Tinto and Lundin draw on the idea of mining heritage, in many ways to draw attention away from opposition and contestation. Today, Lundin supports the development of the Iron Ore Heritage Trail, and has inserted the Eagle Mine as part of the heritage of the region.9 The rhetoric of economic development is seen along other resource frontiers, such as forestry, bioprospecting and seabed mining, and new areas opened up by climate change that intersect with heritage. In Utah, Alton Coal Development Company proposes to mine nearly 50 million tons of coal from a site only ten miles from Bryce Canyon. The rhetoric and discourses are connected to jobs for the community, and they position the company as a paternal presence, which cares for and is concerned about the region. In this case, the National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service

Extractive industries, corporate discourse and indigenous heritage 59 have recommended that the Department of Interior reject the coal lease, and tribal communities are actively opposing the mine.10

Discussion and conclusion Corporate heritage discourse significantly shapes and influences debates by positioning itself as a key knowledge producer. By taking the lead, industries frame the context of their mining interests at and around heritage sites. Industry inserts its agenda, analyzes data and becomes a key driver in the production of knowledge. In effect, the discourse frames, focuses and maps out the contours of the debate. At the same time, extractive industries are funding, producing and disseminating knowledge. Rio Tinto and ICMM, for example, fund academic research, work with government and international heritage agencies, develop and distribute white papers and promote their activities through social media. The project of deconstructing corporate discourse has its challenges. Clearly, extractive industries are easy targets. And as engineering students at my university remind me, these industries provide jobs and resources. Nevertheless, although opinions will vary widely, scholars need to explore the evolving intersections between heritage and industry and how industry shapes policy around heritage. Aboriginal scholar Marcia Langton (2012, 2013) argues that participation in the mining economy is the way toward poverty reduction and transforming Indigenous communities (see also Langton and Longbottom 2012). Without denying these possibilities, I want to think instead about how the discourse maps onto heritage. What I am pointing to is how discourse obscures power by limiting the discursive space and restricting forums for debate. Corporate discourse presents its vision of engagement and promotes its version of events. It focuses the message and only discloses information that serves its purpose: to persuade. Heritage is presented in ahistorical and apolitical ways, and what is whitewashed are issues of contested pasts and presents, land rights claims and environmental contexts. The guide Why Cultural Heritage Matters directs the conversation toward what Rio Tinto deems relevant. The case studies show Rio Tinto in action, consulting with Indigenous communities and being a good citizen, while, at the same time, distracting from contested pasts or contemporary concerns. Lundin Mining promotes the Iron Ore Heritage Trail in Michigan, without discussing whose “heritage is our history.” If it did address these issues, Lundin would have to discuss the vocal and active opposition to mining by the local bands. Heritage is taken up by industry and reframed as corporate discourse. These visions often obscure the real histories of a company and its role in social inequalities today. And, the very real environmental issues that mining and industry brings to communities are not even up for discussion. This is why we need to problematize the discourses of heritage. How, for example, is heritage mobilized as a political resource? Heritage scholars

60  Melissa F. Baird (and others) must pay careful attention to simplistic binaries of cultural and natural heritage, which when devoid of historical, economic, environmental or social contexts may be adopted and run the risk of essentializing communities. Binaries of natural or cultural heritage, without the larger historical or contested contexts, are simplistic. In some ways, the discourse fulfills a desire, a desire to be good citizens, to be constructive. Corporate discourse becomes a medium for presenting history, without discomfort and with its version of events: heritage is performed and industry is exempt from responsibility. How does one, then, make sense of the discourse? How is heritage operationalized and called upon to do work? One way to destabilize the discourse, to get a clearer view, is to undertake nuanced readings and on-the-ground analyses of how things are playing out. There are the claims by corporations, such as “heritage is our history,” “we mine for progress” and the lived realities. At the same time, we need to think about unpacking the text – and recognizing master narratives and how these are used and to what ends, thus providing a context for an active and informed audience. As the editors of this volume noted, rightly I think, “concepts of ethnicity and indigeneity are relational, and can be seen as positions, marking difference and power in political reality as well as theoretical debate.” That is why Jimmy Nelson’s book Before They Pass Away resonated with me. Like the book, the corporate heritage discourse does similar things: it contains, it manages, it packages heritage in nostalgic, ahistorical and apolitical ways. It presents its view of good governance and good relations that get to ignore the issues of violence, erasures of history and environmental impacts. More importantly, it presents these issues as resolved.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the organizers of the conference: Charlotta Hillerdal, Anna Karlström and Carl-Gösta Ojala. I also acknowledge the insights of my fellow presenters for engaging discussions and good company. I owe a particular debt to Lindsay Weiss, who has generously shared her insights and ideas and helped to shape my thinking on this topic. That said, any errors are my own.

Notes 1 I undertook an extensive archaeological survey of the cultural landscapes of the Altai Mountains in northwestern Mongolia in 2006. This region was part of an in-progress UNESCO cultural landscape nomination. 2 Not surprisingly, the response to Nelson’s book has been largely positive. One reviewer noted that the “fierce elegance of their clothing fully matches that of the stark landscape they inhabit.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/fash ion/photographer-jimmy-nelson-takes-images-from-the-edges-of-the-earth. html?_r=0).

Extractive industries, corporate discourse and indigenous heritage 61 3 Scholars have analyzed these cultural constructions and critiqued their validity (Deloria 1998; Gidley 2000; Zamir 2007). 4 I make a distinction between corporate discourse or corporate heritage discourse and Laurajane Smith’s (2006) concept of “authorized heritage discourse.” Authorized heritage discourse, according to Smith (2006: 4), is the idea that a “dominant Western discourse” surrounds heritage practices that “privilege expert values and knowledge about the past and its material manifestations.” Although AHD is clearly at play within corporate mobilizations of heritage, CHD refers to the specific strategies and products that are produced and created by corporate bodies in relation to natural and cultural heritage. In contrast, Smith recognizes heritage as a social practice. However, her analysis of the larger hegemonic discourse is useful in thinking about heritage policies and practices. 5 Marina Welker (2009: 145–6) provides a comprehensive overview of CSR, including its important features and the rise of CSR in the 1990s. 6 http://www.riotinto.com/ourcommitment/human-rights-4800.aspx [Date and time of access?] 7 A significant amount of literature exists that examines mining and Indigenous peoples in Australia (see, e.g., Cousins and Nieuwenhuysen 1984; Weiner and Glaskin 2007). 8 See http://savethewildup.org/2014/04/swup-president-to-mdeq-regulate-dont-facil iate/, last accessed 1 May, 2014. 9 See http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/591703/Many-areaagencies-benefit-from-Cliffs—Lundin-grants.html?nav=5003, last accessed 1 May, 2014. 10 See http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/agencies-urge-inte rior-to-reject-mining-near-national-park/2012/02/03/gIQA8YtBoQ_story.html, last accessed 20 April, 2014.

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62  Melissa F. Baird Davidson, R. 2011. “Into the Beehive: The Destruction of Burrup Rock Art.” The Monthly, February, 22. Deloria, P. J. 1998. Playing Indian. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Dobrin, S. I., and C. R. Weisser. 2002. Natural Discourse: Toward Ecocomposition. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Evers, S. J. T. M., G. Campbell, and M. Lambek. 2013 “Land competition and human-environment relations in Madagascar.” In Contest for Land in Madagascar: Environment, Ancestors and Development, edited by S. Evers, G. Campbell, and M. Lambek, 1–20. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Gidley, M. 2000. Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian, Incorporated. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gillespie, K. 2013. “Ethnomusicology and the mining industry: A case study from Lihir, Papua New Guinea.” Musicology Australia 35 (2): 178–90. Goggin, P. N. 2013. Environmental Rhetoric and Ecologies of Place. Vol. 16. New York: Routledge. Golub, A. 2014. Leviathans at the Gold Mine: Creating Indigenous and Corporate Actors in Papua New Guinea. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Herbst, G. 2013. “Humanities’ archive.” Lufthansa Magazin, October: 50–8. Hoagland, A. K. 2010. Mine Towns: Buildings for Workers in Michigan’s Copper Country. Minneapolis: Univeristy of Minnesota Press. King, T. F. 2012. “Rio Tinto Talks the Talk.” (Review article.) The Historic Environment 3 (2): 166–69. LaDuke, W. 1992. “We are still here: The 500 years celebration.” Race, Poverty and the Environment 3(3): 3–21. Langton, M. 2012. The Global Mining Boom and Indigenous People: Legal and Economic Dimensions. London and New York: Routledge. Langton, M. 2013. Boyer Lectures 2012: The Quiet Revolution: Indigenous People and the Resources Boom. Sydney: HarperCollins. Langton, M., and J. Longbottom, eds. 2012. Community Futures, Legal Architecture: Foundations for Indigenous Peoples in the Global Mining Boom. London and New York: Routledge. Luning, S. 2012. “Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for exploration: Consultants, companies and communities in processes of engagements.” Resources Policy 37 (2): 205–11. McDonald, J. O., and P. Veth. 2009. “Dampier archipelago petroglyphs: Archaeology, scientific values and national heritage listing.” Archaeology in Oceania 44 (1): 49–69. Mulvaney, K. 2013. “Half a century 40,000 years of culture: The industrialisation of the Pilbara.” Artlink 33 (4): 16. Picard, M. 1997. “Cultural tourism, nation-building, and regional culture: The making of a Balinese identity.” In Tourism, Ethnicity, and the State in Asian and Pacific Societies, edited by M. Picard and R. E. Wood, 181–214. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Rajak, D. 2011. In Good Company: An Anatomy of Corporate Social Responsibility. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Rico, T. 2008. “Negative heritage: The place of conflict in world heritage.” Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 10 (4): 344–52. Seagle, C. 2009. “Biodiversity for Whom? Local Experiences and Global Strategies of Land Use and Access Near the Rio Tinto/QMM Ilmenite Mine in Fort Dauphin, Southeast Madagascar.” Unpublished MSc. dissertation.

Extractive industries, corporate discourse and indigenous heritage 63 Shamir, R. 2004. “Between self-regulation and the Alien Tort claims act: On the contested concept of corporate social responsibility.” Law & Society Review 38 (4): 635–64. Silverman, H. 2011. “Border wars: The ongoing temple dispute between Thailand and Cambodia and UNESCO’s World Heritage list.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 17 (1): 1–21. Simpson, A. 2011. “On ethnographic refusal: Indigeneity, ‘voice’ and colonial citizenship.” Junctures: The Journal for Thematic Dialogue (9): 67–80. Smith, L. 2006. The Uses of Heritage. New York: Routledge. Weiner, J. F., and K. Glaskin, eds. 2007. Customary Land Tenure and Registration in Australia and Papua New Guinea: Anthropological Perspectives. Canberra: ANU E Press. Weiss, L. M. 2009. Fictive Capital and Economies of Desire: A Case Study of Illegal Diamond Buying and Apartheid Landscapes in 19th Century Southern Africa. New York: Columbia University. Weiss, L. M. 2014. “Informal settlements and urban heritage landscapes in South Africa.” Journal of Social Archaeology 14 (1): 3–25. Welker, M. 2009. “Corporate security begins in the community: Mining, the corporate social responsibility industry, and environmental advocacy in Indonesia.” Cultural Anthropology 24 (1): 142–79. Welker, M. 2014. Enacting the Corporation: An American Mining Firm in PostAuthoritarian Indonesia. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Winter, T. 2007. Post-Conflict Heritage, Postcolonial Tourism: Tourism, Politics and Development at Angkor. London and New York: Routledge. Winter, T. 2013. “Clarifying the critical in critical heritage studies.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 19 (6): 532–45. Wolfe, P. 1999. Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event. London: Cassell. Zamir, S. 2007. “Native agency and the making of the North American Indian: Alexander B. Upshaw and Edward S. Curtis.” The American Indian Quarterly 31 (4): 613–53.

5 Integrating the past in the present Archaeology as part of living Yup’ik heritage Charlotta Hillerdal In this chapter, I will argue that the indigenous has become a hegemonizing discourse, and that, in opposition to its formative years when it promoted a sense of liberation and progression, it has become stale and conformist. The reason behind this, I suggest, is that, despite its political success, indigeneity is still not a successful analytical concept, and, as long as indigeneity is coupled with postcolonial theory, archaeology will never evolve into the decolonizing practice that it aims to become. Additionally, there is no need for Indigenous archaeology to work as a theoretical discourse, and, as a practice, it would be better served by letting go of these ambitions. Alaskan Yup’ik peoples have been the subject of ethnographic research since the nineteenth century, when colonial appropriation of the north threatened traditional Yup’ik lifeways, and Western academics rushed to document the culture before it vanished. Over a century later, Yup’ik culture is still strong, but the communities are faced with different challenges stemming from political and social marginalization, which encourage a sense of dejection and apathy, especially among the younger generations. Re-engaging with traditional lifeways has proved to be a powerful way of strengthening a sense of self, and the last few decades have seen a cultural revitalization movement among Alaska Natives (cf. Clifford 2004: 8). Archaeology has hitherto not played a large role in this, but the ongoing excavation in the Native village of Quinhagak demonstrates how powerful the archaeological process and material can be. When conducted as a collaborative project, archaeology can work as a focal point for local engagement with the past, and the archaeology becomes part of the local history – living Yup’ik heritage, independent from a colonial narrative.

The indigenous and the postcolonial In its modern use, indigenous is a pragmatic concept, introduced in response to a particular need. It serves the purpose of naming a category of people that has been oppressed and diminished by colonial regimes, thus creating a common space for these people to act as a global political force. As such, the concept has been vastly successful, and it has decisively changed

Integrating the past in the present 65 the political impact of, as well as social situations for, a large number of peoples over the last few decades, and the changes are still taking place. Concurrently, it has highlighted the inequalities that still characterize social relationships in former colonial states, as well as political and academic structures. However, after initially bringing about dynamic transformations within the archaeological community (cf. Philips and Allen 2010), the indigenous theoretical discourse has now petered out to a homogenous chorus at best, and a stringent doctrine at worst (cf. Shepherd and Haber 2011). Indigenous archaeology has proved to be a much more effective concept on the ground than in theory. To paraphrase Lévi-Strauss, indigenous is not good to think with (1964). As Indigenous movements all over the world have accomplished so much, it may seem offensive to criticize the idea behind the concept, but we should keep in mind that “concepts that may work for political achievement are not necessarily thereby adequate for theoretical understanding” (Trigger and Dalley 2010: 58). In noting this, we should also bear in mind that indigenous is itself a Western and colonial construction, and despite its political success it still bears traces of being essentializing and othering, and, at the other end of the scale, particularistic and exclusionary. Indigenous and colonial are bound together in a reluctant marriage, and are even constituent counterparts – there can be no colonial without indigenous, and vice versa. Thus, indigenous will always imply a dualistic divide: an “Us” and a “Them”. Conceptually, they are locked in a set relationship, where the indigenous is always the stifled party in the colonial encounter. As such, indigenous is simultaneously too specific and too general to be useful as a theoretical analytical concept outside the colonial framework. If we accept indigenous to be a contemporary sociopolitical category working on the same level as, for example, national conceptualizations, then we can see that, like nations, it is a box whose contents constantly change. It functions loosely as a category for framing an arena for discussion (Indigenous archaeology), but cannot contain the specifics required for a theoretical concept. Equally, like nations, it is a category that is situated within the modern and does not have the longevity to give (pre)historic relevance to a model for archaeological analysis. Thus, as an overarching and generalizing theoretical “state of being”, it becomes an empty construction. There is no one way of being indigenous, no shared ancient root that unites the indigenous people of the world. Rather, Indigenous people are united by their common experience of colonial oppression. This experience, although shared in the fundamentals, has become manifest in different ways in different parts of the world, and, over time, has resulted in very different contemporary realities. The Indigenous movement has been strongest, and most influential, in North America and Australia. It has, therefore, been shaped to suit these political circumstances. The homogenization is problematic, as can be seen from debates from other parts of the world (e.g. Meskell and Musku Van

66  Charlotta Hillerdal Damme 2008), and has sometimes resulted in native groups conforming to criteria established within a North American context (cf. Pelican 2009). At the same time, their recognition and social and political rights are entirely dependent on state policies. Many descendant communities outside the colonial settler states struggle with the criteria set out for Indigenous archaeology. However, the success of the concept in the political realities of the US and Australia has made researchers from these countries reluctant to take on the critique. Archaeology is situated in a dialogue between the present and the past. That is to say, the contemporary will always set the archaeological agenda. Hence, the (hi)stories we produce will always be affected by the sociopolitical circumstances of today, but we need not adapt to them without objection. If we are to project such a contingent categorization as indigenous into the past, can it be done without projecting its counterpart? Are we not also projecting a future of dependency onto our precolonial interpretations? As McNiven recently noted (2016: 28–9), despite two decades of Indigenous archaeology projects, the subdiscipline still has not managed to define its theoretical framework. Maybe it is time for Indigenous archaeology to let go of the aspiration to define its own theory. Nicholas identifies the main sets of thoughts that have shaped Indigenous archaeology in Marxist theory, cultural relativism and feminist and postcolonial theory (2008: 1660). Postcolonial theory demands reflexivity, plurality, multivocality, critique and renegotiation. It dismantles colonial structures and gives voice to the subordinate. Noticeably, it does not require the dichotomy of indigenous and non-indigenous to be maintained, but instead points to hybridity and intersectionality. It will produce a more valid, important and meaningful narrative, or rather narratives, of the past. Indigenous archaeology can be seen as the champion of the postcolonial, and the forum that translates theory into practice (turning words into action), which is no mean feat. There is no need for Indigenous archaeology to “theorize” itself in diverging terms. The strength of Indigenous archaeology lies in its methodology, which over time has developed into a very convincing and solid foundation in practice. A methodology that, letting go of its ambition to be theoretical, instead emphasizes flexibility, perceptiveness and equity in collaboration (ColwellChanthaphonh and Ferguson 2008: 14), which can easily be transferred to any descendant community or indeed local community defined in other terms. The adoption of Indigenous archaeology is sometimes visualized as a watershed moment: the archaeological practice is polarized into being a choice between “an agent of colonialism [and] a vehicle of Native American Empowerment” (Colowell-Chanthaphonh 2009: 95). From a North American and Australian perspective, prehistoric archaeology will always be indigenous archaeology, in the sense that it will always be the archaeology of the native people of the lands, and therefore ignoring the postcolonial critique in this context will support the colonial by default. Thus,

Integrating the past in the present 67 postcolonial theory is, or should be, a crucial element of any archaeological analysis, as advocated by Nicholas in 2010. But the issue is often drawn out in large brush strokes and contrasting colors, mainly black and white: “There is no alternative to action . . . since a decision not to act is a decision to preserve the status quo” (Smith and Jackson 2006: 312). The debate is confrontational and leaves little room for the different shades of gray, blended colors and vague shapes of the postcolonial artist. Among many of its exponents, Indigenous archaeology, or community archaeology, is presented as an ethical choice rather than a scientific one, sometimes even the ethical choice (Atalay 2014). Atalay even goes so far as to say that archaeology produced for its own sake (i.e. the sake of advancing scientific knowledge) has no value if it is not serving the public and responding to the demands of (minority) communities (Atalay 2014). This, I think, is a statement that is completely situated in the American/Australian indigenous context, and is equally short-sighted. No matter how much “autonomy” Indigenous groups are given on paper, the political structure will not change. Indigenous people will continue to be the minority in American society, and, as such, by default, will have a weaker voice than the nonindigenous in a democratic society. Thus, in this context accommodating the minority will continue to be a valid claim. However, not all communities are good, and not all intra-academic discourses are futile, even morally. Equally, not all self-defined descendant communities should be allowed to set the archaeological agenda. If we lift our gaze from the “New World” where archaeology has been under the command of colonial structures and look to Europe, we will find a different narrative has formed the archaeological discipline – i.e. the national (e.g. Arnold 2015; Díaz-Andreu and Champion 1996; Kohl and Fawcett 1995, among others). The biggest challenge for European archaeology is to disentangle itself from the national (cf. Holtorf 2009). There are several examples where archaeologists and museum curators have actively opposed particularistic nationalist heritage constructions.1 An inclusive heritage is instead promoted – on terms very similar to the postcolonial; reflexivity, multivocality, dynamism and plurality (e.g. Hauptman 2015; Hauptman-Wahlgren and Svanberg 2008). In recent years, nationalistic and xenophobic voices have grown increasingly strong in Europe, and they all turn to the past to strengthen their arguments. As a European archaeologist, who for the last decade has been working for and with Indigenous groups, first in Canada and then in the US, I see it as my moral duty to contradict such narratives, and I find support for this in the postcolonial. The indigenous, on the other hand, takes me nowhere. While the amorphous “postcolonial” can cross boundaries and transcend into parallel discourses, “indigenous” is confined to its colonially defined “black box”. Maybe Indigenous archaeologists should be activists, as suggested by Atalay et al. (2014), but, if this is to be the case, we need to recognize that they are ideologists rather than theory builders. An activist archaeology has to

68  Charlotta Hillerdal let go of the wish to see both sides of the story: it is in the very nature of an “activist” to be one-sided. Those who fight on the barricades have no interest in seeing “the other side of the story”. In some cases, it might be desirable, and even necessary, but it can never be universal. Returning to North America, not even in this context is the indigenous crucial, or even constitutive. In the practice of everyday life, rather than resting on global indigenous criteria of definition, native identities are localized and defined on a smaller scale. Using south-western Alaska as an example: Yup’ik self-identification is virtually independent from being indigenous in anything but rhetoric, and notably in an international context. People identify first as Yup’ik, second as Eskimo, third as Alaska Native and last as Indigenous. Being Indigenous is a consequence of being Yup’ik – not the other way around.

Alaskan Yup’ik Coastal and northern Alaska is inhabited by Inuit, or Eskimo,2 peoples. Stretching from eastern Siberia to Greenland, theirs forms the largest uniform indigenous territory in the world. The largest cultural group in western Alaska is the Yup’ik: Bristol Bay, Nunivak Island and the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta form the central Yup’ik area. Historically, the Yupik are characterized as semi-sedentary hunters, relying largely on sea-mammal hunting and other resources from the sea, but also on fresh-water fishing, terrestrial game and gathering. Many Yup’ik communities still depend on their traditional forms of subsistence, as modern subsistence hunters and fishermen in an integrated system (Worl 1988: 321–2). The importance of subsistence practices goes beyond the practical: the subsistence economy and its connection to the land is often seen as the basis and essence of indigenous values and spirituality today (e.g. Worl 2010: 23). Due to its remoteness and adverse environment, Alaska was one of the last parts of the world to be touched by colonialism. Russian fur traders operated in the western isles regions in the mid-eighteenth century, and the southwestern coast was not explored until the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1867, following a decline in the Russian fur trade, Alaska was sold to the US and became the property of the federal government. Despite their late inclusion in the European world system, western Alaskan societies were severely altered from the time of contact. Trade, disease, Christian missions and schooling changed western Alaskan cultures, altering traditional ways of life, customs and practices. Although the colonial encounter was disruptive to Alaska Native communities, not least from a spiritual perspective, the “Western” lifestyle was not fully adopted until the 1950s (Chance 1984: 649). Ethnographic research has a strong tradition in Alaska. As early as Edward Nelson’s travels in the Bering Strait in the late nineteenth century (1877–81) for the Smithsonian Institution, the Yup’ik have been the focus of

Integrating the past in the present 69 ethnographic research. Collections of ethnographic material are substantial and found worldwide, and oral history, contemporary traditions, etc. are well documented (e.g. Fienup-Riordan 1990, 2005, 2007; Fienup-Riordan and Carmack 2011; Fienup-Riordan and Rearden 2012; Fitzhugh and Kaplan 1982). However, very little archaeological work has been carried out on Yup’ik culture. Historically, a root to the substantial ethnographic interest, as well as the noticeable lack of archaeological interest in recent Alaska Native history can be found in a shared colonial notion of the encounter with the “primitive”. The Alaska Natives were seen as “people without history” (Wolf 1982), and thus stagnant and slow to develop: ethnographic research would tell the story of their past as well as their present. Their future, on the other hand, was perspicuous. The Native cultures were doomed to extinction in their encounter with the “modern” (Mathews 2007; McGuire 1992). Thus, academic efforts were mobilized to record and collect what was possible before they were altered beyond recognition (e.g. Gordon 1906–1907). Despite the fact that centuries have passed since the first colonial encounter took place and Native cultures are now very much a part of the contemporary world, they are still professed to be threatened by extinction (e.g. Worl 1988: 325). In contemporary American society, indigenous communities of Alaska are marginalized and politically detached, and they bear the burden of this kind of marginalization in the usual form of economic problems, alcoholism and a high suicide rate among young people (e.g. Herne et al. 2014; Wolsko et al. 2006: 349). From a centralized perspective, the prospects in village communities are limited, and the opportunities for change are few. Alaskan Natives are amongst those with the lowest income, employment and education levels in the US (Martin and Hill 2009), and village economies are largely dependent on federal grants. There is a dissonance between mainstream American society and traditional Yup’ik culture, resulting in a fear of future cultural loss among the Yup’ik (e.g. Ilutsik 1999), and political marginalization reinforces these attitudes (cf. Wexler 2009: 5; Wolsko et al. 2006: 357). Over a century of intense evangelization, external governance, disruptive legislation and forceful assimilation policies make these sentiments very real. Over just a few generations, Yup’ik society has undergone profound changes, including a rejection of old beliefs and customs in favor of new Christian beliefs, abandonment of traditional education systems in favor of Euro-American schooling, and a reorganization of social space according to Western standards. This has prompted the question: “If we have changed so much, then who are we now?” (Ongtooguk and Dybdahl 2010: 28). Yup’ik people of today are fighting for their position as contemporary equals in a modern American society, to be recognized as a people with history and established as a people with a future. One way of reaching this understanding lies in the strengthening of cultural heritage (cf. Wolsko et al. 2007), and the increased historical and cultural insight that archaeology can produce. Archaeology,

70  Charlotta Hillerdal as a material link to the pre-contact past can be a very powerful medium for cultural revitalization, as seen in other parts of Alaska (cf. Pullar 1992). “The richness of Alaska’s history is a gift of knowledge that will benefit all of humanity. This is a time when the past will shape our future” (Johnson 2009: 399). The single unifying issue facing Indigenous Peoples everywhere is how to protect their territories and stop the “asset stripping” that robs them of their livelihoods and the foundation of their cultures. Without land and control of their assets, Indigenous Peoples are destined to remain the world’s poorest communities – with the worst health, highest mortality rate and shortest life span.3

A question of heritage In the totalitarian regime of Oceania, the past is eradicated, and the future unimaginable. The people of Landing Strip One have lost individuality as well as identity, and a large state apparatus puts considerable effort into making the past (even if it only happened yesterday) compatible with the present (Orwell 2003). History, Orwell shows us, is not neutral, but immensely powerful and intrinsically political; “Who controls the past . . . controls the future: who controls the present controls the past” (Orwell 2003: 40). In Alaska, the question of “who owns the past” (FitzGibbon 2005) has already been settled, at least for the circa 44 million acres claimed as Native lands. Under federal law, since 1971 the control of Native land has been decided through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) and under this act heritage and artefacts belonging to this land are given to the Native corporations (Pratt 2009: 4). However, the sense of ownership goes deeper than the control of the material remains, even though these often become the focal point in discussions. Fundamentally, it is a question of power relations – who is given control of history – and this is also where the real controversy lies. For centuries, this power has been claimed by archaeologists, historians and ethnographers from outwith the indigenous communities. With the aid of archaeologists, colonization proceeded beyond the colonial encounter, into pre-contact and prehistoric times. “Pasts created by archaeologists have been imposed on Indian pasts without a chance for debate” (Zimmerman 1997: 54). This is, in short, what the decolonizing practice (Atalay 2006) of Indigenous archaeology aims to rectify. Heritage is created in the intersection, and in an active dialogue, between past and present, and with a clear aim towards the future. Heritage can be seen as a resource and an asset for any descendant community, and the material, tangible heritage has a powerful evocative position in these relations. The representation of Yup’ik cultural heritage and history is now being reclaimed from missionaries, ethnographers and Western historians through

Integrating the past in the present 71 local museums, heritage centers, dance festivals, etc. (e.g. Crowell 2004; King 2009), where the Yup’ik themselves are allowed to present and produce their culture on their own terms. The belief in the healing powers of reconnecting with history is very strong: “[a]lcoholism, loss of respect for others, broken families and hopelessness come from losing that vital connection to cultural knowledge and identity” (Rearden 2010: 107). This ultimately means reclaiming one’s place in history, instead of being just the background of European explorations, and, by doing so, standing your ground in a contemporary society on an equal footing with Euro-American history. Archaeology has not played a big part in this, largely due to the lack of archaeological material. This lack can be explained by the limited interest from archaeological researchers into more recent indigenous history,4 paired with a general distrust of archaeologists as part of the non-native political establishment, but also the Yup’ik belief system that holds that ancient sites should be left undisturbed out of respect for the ancestors. However, lately, ancient Yup’ik sites have been disturbed by accelerated coastal erosion, the result of global climate change. This has led local Yup’ik Elders in the Native village of Quinhagak to re-evaluate their position and instigate an archaeological investigation at a site south of the village that is already affected by the erosion. The village of Quinhagak, and the local Native Corporation Qanirtuuq Inc. formed a partnership with the University of Aberdeen, UK, and, with consent from village Elders, a first season of excavation was undertaken in 2009. The site, a pre-contact village close to the old mouth of the Arolik River, was, at the suggestion of the village Elders, given the name Nunalleq: the Old Village. George: But the old village of Agaligmiut down the coast, down in that bay, many homes have eroded away. But at this time now, this past year, this has been the second year . . . [archaeologists] are digging in them, and they find things.  . . . Annie: When we went to AVCP [Association of Village Council Presidents], we saw that the people of Quinhagak were the only ones doing that. . . . Annie: Many things along the shore were lost, [eroded] into the ocean. We happened to catch a small amount (George Pleasant and Annie Cleveland in Fienup-Riordan 2013: 398) In a sense, archaeology has been given a blank slate and the opportunity to create a new research history based on community engagement and collaborative practices (cf. Colwell-Chanthaphonh et al. 2010).

72  Charlotta Hillerdal

Nunalleq For six excavation seasons, the Nunalleq project has continued as a community-based archaeological project fully integrated with the local indigenous descendant community of Quinhagak. The Nunalleq excavation is now the largest archaeological excavation undertaken in the area, and has yielded the largest collection of pre-contact Yup’ik artefacts in the world (Britton et al. 2013; Knecht 2014). The success of the project rests on mutual trust and continuous communication between archaeologists, village representatives, local Elders and the local community. The archaeological expertise brought by the academics is matched by local cultural knowledge by the Elders in the community. Fieldwork is undertaken in constant conversation between archaeologists and locals over artefacts, structures, local geography, traditions and practice. Archaeological practice, on- and off-site, aims to be inclusive: volunteers from the local community physically participate in the excavation process (Figure 5.1), and informal community workshops at the end of every field season give archaeologists and locals the opportunity to continue their conversations over artefacts. These events provide a further platform for the joint shaping of interpretation, combining academic and traditional ways of knowing, which are essential for disentangling the Yup’ik archaeological record (Figure 5.2). Through interactions with the tangible past, this process promises to both strengthen Yup’ik heritage and to shape a socially responsible, scientifically sound archaeological practice (cf. ColwellChanthaphonh and Ferguson 2008: 13–14). Archaeological material can work as a focal point for local engagement with history, culture and cultural expressions. In Quinhagak, we have seen how the archaeological material inspires a dialogue between past and present, material and memory – both metaphorically as feeding into histories about the past, and more concretely as in dialogues between generations and dialogues between cultural bearers and professionals. This dialogue has deepened and become more engaged over the years. As is often emphasized, a successful collaborative project is a long-term investment (i.e. Nicholas et al. 2008). In Nunalleq, art has been the forum through which this dialogue takes wings and transcends the boundaries between science, tradition, history, imagination, past and present. Local craftsmen and artists have found inspiration in the archaeological material, and take its expression to new places. Carvers and basket weavers take inspiration from the archaeological material, the artistic expressions and ancient techniques, and carry them from past to present and subsequently the future. This intangible part of tangible heritage is central for the reanimation of archaeological material that gives it spirit and matter to contemporary people. This spirit takes flight and expands far beyond the limits of excavation and material. Dancing is central to traditional Yup’ik culture (Barker et al. 2011; Fienup-Riordan and Meade 1996), and dancing has also become a focal point for the reappropriation of Yup’ik culture (King 2009). Since

Integrating the past in the present 73

Figure 5.1 A local Yup’ik boy and a Scottish field school student investigate the earth at Nunalleq together in the 2010 excavation season (Photo by author)

the archaeological excavation started in Quinhagak Alaska in 2009, it has sparked an engagement with traditional culture and history among the young people in the village, one of which took its expression in the formation of a dance group – the first traditional Yup’ik dancers in Quinhagak for

Figure 5.2 In dialogue with the past – Quinhagak boy contemplates wolf masks at the end of season ‘show-and-tell’ in 2013 (Photo by author)

Integrating the past in the present 75 over a century. In 2013, they performed at the Cama-i Dance Festival in the regional hub-city of Bethel (Evan 2013).5 Archaeological material, as a tangible link to the past, and the knowledge it produces, works as a reminder of ancestral presence, ancestral knowledge and past accomplishments. As such, the archaeological material can contribute to a strengthened sense of identity and makes you hold your cultural self in higher esteem. The archaeological material can evoke a sense of ownership and control of cultural heritage, and of historical presence in the present. Historical importance links to contemporary significance and a future that will count in the grand scheme of things. It is a privilege for any archaeologist to work in a context where the archaeological material has such importance, and to be allowed to contribute in some small way to a strengthened Yup’ik cultural heritage.

Conclusion The Nunalleq project has revealed Yup’ik archaeological heritage to be dynamic and powerful. It is an integrated and collaborative project, working with insights and guidelines that have been developed within Indigenous and community archaeology during the last few decades; a collaboration between equals, between people with different expertise and different backgrounds. Within the postcolonial framework of multivocality and plurality, different narratives can work together, sometimes in parallel, sometimes entangled and sometimes even intertwined without threatening each other. Both “scientific” and “Yup’ik” narratives are strong enough to carry contradictions, and dynamic enough to take color from each other. The power of archaeology lies with the archaeological material, not the archaeologists. Archaeologists are not, and should not be, “the activists” in a revitalization heritage movement. We are merely the facilitators or the tools, one little piece in the great mosaic that is living Yup’ik heritage. Throughout this project, it has become evident that archaeological remains and artefacts in Nunalleq and their fascinating tales have the ability to bring people, as well as stories, together. Local Yup’ik Elders and youngsters, experienced archaeologists as well as students on their first dig, together with people from all over the world, exchange knowledge and share experiences. The artefacts evoke the memories of some and arouse the curiosity of others. They inspire stories that would otherwise not have been told and cultural meetings which would not have taken place without them, as well as increasing our common understanding of a fascinating Yup’ik past independent of colonial practices.

Acknowledgements The fieldwork in Alaska has been carried out with the economic support of Qanirtuuq Inc. and the University of Aberdeen, a personal travel grant from

76  Charlotta Hillerdal the Carnegie Trust, UK, and a project grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), UK.

Notes 1 One telling example is the touring exhibition “We call them Vikings” by the Swedish History Museum [Historiska museet], where the overall message is a deconstruction of the nationalistic myth connected to the Viking era, one of the favorite “go-to” historic eras among Swedish nationalists and right-wing activists. 2 While “Inuit” is considered the politically correct ethnonym in Greenland and Canada, Alaska Natives self-identify as “Eskimo”, and this terminology will be used throughout this chapter. 3 http://www.firstpeoples.org/who-are-indigenous-peoples/the-indigenousmovement 4 Connected to a Western academic idea of Indigenous culture being stagnant and slow to develop – i.e. “people without history” (Wolf 1982). 5 For another view of the story, see Nunalleq: Bringing Back Our Past, a short film in which LKSD student film-makers explore the connection between the archaeological dig site and the resurgence of dance in their community: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=bctFhsxa47c.

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78  Charlotta Hillerdal Ilutsik, E. 1999. “Traditional Yup’ik knowledge – lessons for all of us.” Sharing Our Pathways 4 (4): 1, 8–11. Johnson, J. F. C. 2009. “Protecting the past for the future.” In Chasing the Dark: Perspectives on Place, History and Alaska Native Land Claims, edited by K. L. Pratt, 396–9. Anchorage: Bureau of Indian Affairs. King, A. 2009. Dance, Tradition and Power among Alaskan Eskimos: Full Research Report ESRC End of Award Report, RES-000–23–1545. Swindon: ESRC. Knecht, R. 2014. “Nunalleq: Rescuing an Eskimo village from the sea.” British Archaeology 136: 42–49. Kohl, P. L., and C. Fawcett. 1995. Nationalism, Politics, and the Practice of Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lévi-Strauss, C. 1964. Totemism. London: Merlin Press. LKSD Media. 2015. “Nunalleq: Bringing Back our Past.” Youtube Video. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=bctFhsxa47c. Martin, S., and A. Hill. 2009. “The changing economic status of Alaska Natives, 1970–2007.” Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage Web Notes. Note No. 5, July. Matthews, C. N. 2007. “History to prehistory: An archaeology of being Indian.” Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 3 (3): 271–95. McGuire, R. H. 1992. “Archaeology and the first Americans.” American Anthropologist 94 (4): 816–36. McNiven, I. J. 2016. “Theoretical challenges of indigenous archaeology: Setting an agenda.” American Antiquity 81 (1): 27–41. Meskell, L., and L. S. Masku Van Damme. 2008. “Heritage ethics and descendant communities.” In Collaboration in Archaeological Practice: Engaging Descendant Communities, edited by C. Colowell-Chanthaphonh, and T. J. Ferguson, 131–50. Lanham, NY: Altamira Press. Nelson, E. W. 1900. The Eskimo about Bering Strait. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Nicholas, G. P. 2008. “Native peoples and archaeology.” In Encyclopedia of Archaeology. Vol. 3, edited by D. M. Pearsall, 1660–9. New York: Academic Press. Nicholas, G. P. 2010. “Seeking the end of indigenous archaeology.” In Bridging the Divide: Indigenous Communities and Archaeology into the 21st Century, edited by C. Phillips, and H. Allen, 233–52. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Nicholas, G. P., and J. Watkins. 2014. “Indigenous archaeologies in archaeological theory.” In Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, edited by C. Smith, 3777–86. New York: Springer. Nicholas, G. P., J. R. Welch, and W. C. Yellowhorn. 2008. “Collaborative encounters.” In Collaboration in Archaeological Practice: Engaging Descendant Communities, edited by C. Colowell-Chanthaphonh, and T. J. Ferguson, 273–98. Lanham, New York: Altamira Press. Ongtooguk, P. C., and C. Dybdahl. 2010. “Native perspectives on Alaska’s history.” In Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska, edited by A. Crowell, R. Worl, P. C. Ongtooguk, and D. D. Biddison, 28–35. Washington: Smithsonian Books. Orwell, G. 2003 [1949]. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Penguin Books. Pelican, M. 2009. “Complexities of indigeneity and authochthony: An African example.” American Ethnologist 36 (1): 52–65.

Integrating the past in the present 79 Philips, C., and H. Allen. 2010. “Maintaining the dialogue: Cultural heritage and indigenous communities.” In Bridging the Divide: Indigenous Communities and Archaeology into the 21st Century, edited by C. Phillips, and H. Allen, 17–48. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Pratt, K. L. 2009. “A history of the ANCSA 14(h) (1) Program and significant reckoning points, 1975–2008.” In Chasing the Dark: Perspectives on Place, History and Alaska Native Land Claims, edited by K. L. Pratt, 396–9, 3–41. Anchorage: Bureau of Indian Affairs. Pullar, G. I. 1992. “Ethnic identity, cultural pride, and generations of baggage: A personal experience.” Arctic Anthropology 29 (2): 182–91. Rearden, A. A. 2010. “Yup’ik.” In Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska, edited by A. Crowell, R. Worl, P. C. Ongtooguk, and D. D. Biddison, 96–121. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books. Shepherd, N., and A. Haber. 2011. “What’s up with WAC? Archaeology and ‘engagement’ in a globalized world.” Public Archaeology 10 (2): 96–115. Smith, C., and G. Jackson. 2006. “Decolonizing indigenous archaeology: Developments from down under.” American Indian Quarterly 30: 311–49. Trigger, D. S. and C. Dalley. 2010. “Negotiating indigeneity: Culture, identity and politics.” Reviews in Anthropology 39 (1): 46–65. Wexler, L. 2009. “Identifying colonial discourses in Inupiat young people’s narratives as a way to understand the no future of Inupiat youth suicide.” American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research: The Journal of the National Center of American Indian and Alaska Native Programs, University of Colorado Denver 16 (1): 1–24. Wolf, E. 1982. Europe and the People without History. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press. Wolsko, C., C. Lardon, S. Hopkins, and E. Ruppert. 2006. “Conceptions of wellness among the Yup’ik of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta: The vitality of social and natural connection.” Ethnicity and Health 11 (4): 345–63. Wolsko, C., C. Lardon, G. V. Mohatt, and E. Orr. 2007. “Stress, coping, and wellbeing among the Yup’ik of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta: The role of enculturation and acculturation.” International Journal of Circumpolar Health 66 (1): 51–61. Worl, R. 1988. “Alaska natives today.” In Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska, edited by W. Fitzhugh, and A. Crowell, 319–25. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Worl, R. 2010. “The First Peoples of Alaska: A path to self-determination.” In Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska, edited by A. Crowell, R. Worl, P. C. Ongtooguk, and D. D. Biddison, 36–43. Washington DC: Smithsonian Books. Zimmerman, L. J. 1997. “Remythologizing the relationship between Indians and archaeologists.” In Native Americans and Archaeologists: Stepping Stones to Common Ground, edited by N. Swidler, K. E. Dongoske, R. Anyon, and A. S. Downer, 44–56. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

6 Us and whom? Representations of indigenousness in the archaeological site of Avdat, Israel Chemi (Menachem) Shiff In October 2009, the archaeological National Park of Avdat in the Israeli Negev desert was anonymously vandalized. Widely publicized in the media, the vandalism was depicted as the destruction of a heritage site of the utmost importance, and compared to the demolition of the ancient Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan, which were blown up in 2001 by the radical Muslim Taliban movement (Ilani 2009). Following the arrest of Bedouins suspected of committing the act in retaliation for the destruction of illegal buildings in their nearby home village, the Jewish regional council mayor, Shmuel Rifman, emphasized the urgency of commencing a battle against the Bedouins over control of the Negev lands (Tsuk 2009: 6). Ostensibly, Avdat is associated with the Nabataean culture that, at least in its early stages, was akin to the indigenous Bedouin lifestyle. It would have been natural, therefore, for the site to be regarded as a symbol of Bedouin heritage (Aslan 2007). Yet, instead, it has emerged as a Zionist symbol of the renewal of the Jewish settlement in the Negev. The tendency to associate Zionist values with Avdat is expressed both in the Israeli public discourse and in Israel’s archaeological scholarly discourse (Erickson-Gini 2010). In this chapter, I will examine the interaction between the changing scientific interpretations of Avdat’s archaeology and its social uses, analyzing the extent to which this interaction reflects the formation of inter-group discourse in Israeli society. To that end, I focus on two historical periods: the 1960s, when the archaeological excavations at the site had begun, and the mid-1990s, when significant transformations occurred both in the archaeological study of the site and in its presentation to the general public. Studies examining transformations in Israeli society’s uses of archaeology reveal a process of scientific professionalization that seemingly neutralized the previous use of archaeological research as a tool for the construction of a Zionist national ideology (Feige 2001). These changes reflect the growing dominance of neoliberal policies that promoted the privatization and commoditization of many aspects of society, including heritage sites (Baram 2007). However, other studies, delineating similar developments worldwide, argue that despite the shift toward a scientific outlook,

Us and whom? 81 significant interaction between the social and scientific uses of archaeological sites continues to exist (Stroulia and Sutton 2009). Furthermore, various studies point to the particular importance of sustaining a critical discourse regarding the interplay between archaeology as an academic discipline and its ideological uses, which, due to professionalization processes, have been blurred and obscured (Leone 2005). It is my claim that an examination of Avdat illustrates the continuing use of archaeology as an ideological and social tool. Paradoxically, the attempt to separate archaeology’s role as an academic tool from its use as an ideological one upholds the exclusion of indigenous minority groups, such as the Bedouins, from Israeli society’s mainstream discourse. This trend reveals Israeli society’s difficulty in moving away from the ideological construction of a homogenous national discourse toward a reality of multiple narratives. In a broader theoretical context, it is possible to describe this process through postcolonial approaches that critically challenge the power relations that create competing interpretations of identity and collective memory (Lilley 2006; Scham 2001).

Archaeological research in Avdat Avdat was first excavated in 1958 by Michael Avi-Yonah. However, after only six months in this position, Avi-Yonah resigned after being criticized for unprofessional management (Kletter 2006: 170–5). Avi-Yonah’s successor was his assistant and the de facto excavation manager, Avraham Negev (Eisenberg). Negev promptly became one of the seminal authorities associated with the academic research of Avdat and Nabataean culture. Whereas under Avi-Yonah’s direction the archaeological excavation focused on the restoration of churches in the city’s acropolis, under Negev’s management a complex urban scheme was uncovered. Together with his excavations at other Nabataean sites, the excavations at Avdat formed the basis for his understanding of the developmental stages of Nabataean culture. According to Negev, the development of Nabataean cities in the Negev reflected the transformation of Nabataean culture from its original nomadic phase, with loose central rule, to a kingdom with a complex social stratum, which cultivated a wide range of agricultural ventures in the desert climate (Negev 1979). Contrary to the opinion held by most scholars, Negev suggested that the Negev area, and foremost Avdat – due to its central location along the Incense Route1 – rather than the Transjordanian city of Petra, was the administrative, economic and military center of the Nabataean kingdom in its heyday (Negev 1976: 131). Over the years, Negev’s approach and methods have often been challenged. A number of critics called attention to the fact that, despite the inadequate level of professionalism of Avi-Yonah’s excavation, his findings played a key role in Negev’s dating of Avdat’s historical periods (Negev 1976). In addition, archaeologists complained that Negev did not systematically record

82  Chemi (Menachem) Shiff his excavations (Alon De Groot, pers. comm.; Elliott, 1996). Moreover, an examination of Negev’s publications indicates that throughout most of his career he mainly published interpretive syntheses (Negev 1976 1991). Only in 1997 did he publish his first excavation report summarizing his research at Avdat (Negev 1997). However, even that report is organized as a research synthesis rather than as a systematic presentation of the excavation’s stratigraphy and material finds. This professional ineptitude was interpreted as an often artificial attempt to harmoniously fit the material remains with sometimes unreliable historical writings (Elliott 1996). The criticism against Negev gathered momentum during the 1990s, following renewed excavations at Avdat. Utilizing new research paradigms, while making extensive use of innovative scientific tools (Avni et al. 2009; Goren and Fabian 2008), recent studies of Avdat have portrayed its development as a component of a highly intricate system of economic, political and social links in the ancient Orient, starting from the Hellenistic era and ending in the Islamic era (Bowersock 2003; Wenning 2007). The renewed excavations at Avdat undermined most of Negev’s conclusions regarding Avdat and the Nabataean kingdom in general (Erickson-Gini 2010; Fabian 2005). These studies joined a gradually expanding body of research dealing with different aspects of Nabataean culture in Jordan and the Arabian Peninsula (Graf and Sidebotham 2003; Macdonald 2003). The renewed excavations at Avdat, as well as other excavations conducted in the Negev and Transjordan, indicated that in the fourth century BC, during the Hellenistic period, a sedentary Nabataean kingdom developed in Transjordan, characterized by complex governing systems (Dolinka 2003: 1–11). This kingdom established several trade routes. Along these routes, several stations were set up, including Avdat, serving merchant convoys passing through the area (Erickson-Gini 2010: 36–8). Most importantly, these new studies established that the cultural, political and economic apex of the Negev cities were only reached following their integration into the economic and political system of the Roman Empire in AD 106, and later of the Byzantine Empire (Erickson-Gini 2010: 39). The renewed excavations at Avdat viewed the Negev as a part of the geographic and cultural frontier of the Roman and Byzantine Empires. According to this approach, the use of the term “Nabataean” in ancient sources does not necessarily refer to a particular ethnic group but rather to a geographic area (Macdonald 2003: 39). Accordingly, the development of the Nabataean kingdom should be viewed as derived from the rising influence of the Roman and later Byzantine Empires in the Southern Levant. Based on the continuation of Nabataean cultural attributes – such as the continued use of Nabataean names in dedicatory inscriptions (Graf 2007: 183) – across the Negev, Transjordan and the Sinai Peninsula, it may be concluded that the Nabataeans were a part of a cultural expanse of Arab nomadic peoples inhabiting the periphery of the Roman Empire and depending on it for their prosperity.

Us and whom? 83 Thus, while Negev attempted to uncover evidence supporting an independent Nabataean existence in the Negev, more recent research has examined the region as a periphery that was dependent on the economic prosperity of the Roman and Byzantine urban centers. These methods presumably mark a new stage in the conventional paradigms of Israeli research, whereby archaeological interpretations are based on more neutral scientific methods and studies, independent of the ideological considerations to which Israeli archaeological research had been attached in its earlier stages.

Changes in Avdat’s public presentation During Israel’s early years of statehood, the ideological aspiration to “bloom the desert” comprised the attempt to create a collective Jewish identity capable of bridging the economic and cultural gaps between the groups forming Israeli society (Zerubavel 2009). The meanings attached to Avdat during the 1960s reflect this attempt. On the one hand, Avdat reflected Israeli society’s desire to emulate Western societies, with a well-established middle class based on individualistic values (Harrison 1992; Ud 1960). On the other hand, Avdat expressed the nascent Israeli society’s attempt to maintain its collectivistic pioneering nature, as part of an ongoing endeavor to physically and symbolically appropriate state territories for the benefit of the Zionist narrative. Following the establishment of the National Park of Avdat in 1959, tour guides depicted Avdat as an example of the Nabataeans’ ability to form an independent and thriving kingdom while overcoming the desert’s hardships. In effect, Avdat’s Nabataean and Byzantine inhabitants were presented as the spiritual ancestors of the new Israeli settlements established during those years (Sheleg 1998: 148–61). A prominent example of this Zionist educational effort to symbolically shape the physical expanse of the Negev desert was by presenting Avdat’s past in journalistic reports and advertisements. Articles often distinguished between the period in which the Nabataeans were a nomadic tribe and the period in which they became a sedentary “civilized” nation (Gabai 1966). Thus, Avdat was portrayed as representing the process of rebirth that the Jewish people went through in the early twentieth century. In addition, these articles clearly differentiated between the Jewish and Arab indigenous sectors, such as the Bedouins in the Negev. The latter were delineated as a society whose character and organization resembled the original Nabataean society yet failed to “evolve” into civilized society (Pundak 1962). The depiction of Avdat as representing the Western ideals of pioneering and progress was reinforced in advertisements and the branding of products, in accordance with the images of the Israeli modern-day culture of consumption (Klein 2000; Ramello and Silva 2006). It is possible to discern between two representations of Avdat. The first described Avdat as a symbol of Israel’s success in populating the Negev. In these advertisements, the

84  Chemi (Menachem) Shiff touristic project at the site was presented as proof that, while in the past Avdat served as a symbol of the success of ancient cultures such as Rome and Byzantium, now it symbolized the authentic expression of the full control of the Negev by Israel (Figure 6.1). A second presentation made use of Negev’s conclusions that the prosperity of the Nabataeans was due to their ability to produce and trade in agricultural products (Negev 1979: 245–9). For example, the Carmel Mizrahi wine company launched a range of wines named after Avdat, as a tribute to the wine industry supposedly developed by the Nabataeans (Davar 1961). Ostensibly, the public presentation of Avdat changed dramatically during the 1990s – a period characterized by an intensification of social privatization processes that changed the face of Israeli society. Concurrently, a global process of privatization transformed many national symbols, including archaeological heritage sites, into commercial products (Baram 2007; Baram and Rowan 2004). These processes transformed Avdat into an archaeological theme park, concerned with its profitability and not with its use as an ideological scaffold (Bruner 2005: 211–12). In an effort to maintain the profitability of the Avdat National Park, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority – responsible for managing the site – decided to rebrand it. In the entrance area, a visitor center was built, merging the formerly separate ticket stand and souvenir shop. In addition, it included an exhibition showcasing Nabataean history (Figure 6.2). Adjacent to the visitor center is a fenced commercial zone containing outposts of fast-food chains. The archaeological site itself was reorganized during the 1990s. In an attempt to rebrand the site, the designer, Dr. Renee Sivan, positioned iron sculptures presenting depictions of Nabataean life at Avdat. These statues were placed in prominent locations and have come to symbolize the archaeological site (Sivan 2011). The placement of similar statues alongside the road leading to the site highlights Sivan’s success, and thus became a part of an overall endeavor to brand the entire region in a similar manner. These changes aspire to brand the area as a touristic and leisure region, which is in accord with the presentation of the archaeological remains at Avdat through concise and simplified explanations. Following the establishment of the visitor center, the guided tours at the site were minimized and replaced by an exhibition and audiovisual presentation. The exhibition describes the factors that supposedly enabled the transition from a nomadic lifestyle to a sedentary one. Yet, there is no chronological table illustrating the transformations that Avdat has gone through in relation to other processes occurring in the Hellenistic and Roman-Byzantine eras. A film, screened in the visitor center in an area designed to resemble a Bedouin tent, expresses an attempt to simplify the Nabataean story in order to make it compatible with the site’s touristic needs (Dvash 2011). The film was revised three times. The first two versions dealt exclusively with the development of the Nabataean kingdom, but barely mentioned the development of Avdat itself. In the third version – installed in 2009 – the use of up-to-date

Figure 6.1 Advertisement for the “Egged Tourism” company, taken at Avdat. It reads: “This ancient city has known Nabataean, Roman, Byzantine and Arab rulers, all of whom no longer exist. However, the sun that shines upon Avdat is the same sun. This couple is enjoying the sun and an interesting tour of the ruins of the reconstructed city of ancient Avdat.” (Davar 1963)

86  Chemi (Menachem) Shiff

Figure 6.2 The Avdat visitor center. The exhibition and souvenir shop are merged together. (Photo by author)

technological means is emphasized, clearly trying to avoid burdening the audience with “unnecessary” information. The film consists of narrated sections accompanied by visual illustrations, audio effects and staged snippets of actors re-enacting the Nabataean lifestyle. In contrast to the previous films, the new version expounds on Avdat’s development. The reorganization of the archaeological site also highlights the touristic means used to present the finds as objects of entertainment. Thus, the sculptures designed by Sivan, which were intended to explain the roles of the different structures at the site, were designed as caricatures (Figure 6.3) (Raz-Romeo 2007: 111). In addition, signs with pictographic explanations were placed beside the sculptures, also indicating the structures’ purpose in a humorous manner. According to Sivan, the replacement of signs laden with archaic archaeological explanations with these new signs was meant to increase the site’s appeal in the eyes of the average visitor (Sivan 2011). Another method which meant that Avdat was branded as a tourist attraction was by establishing the site as the focal point of two touristic projects. The two projects emphasize the economic-touristic aspect of Avdat, seemingly eliminating any ideological Jewish national aspect. The first, founded in 1997, is called the “Wine Route,” and consists of a network of farms, each inhabited by a single family (“individual farms”). Although the Wine Route

Us and whom? 87

Figure 6.3 One of the sculptures designed as caricatures by Dr. Renee Sivan (Photo by author)

was meant to support and substantiate the agricultural Jewish settlement in the Negev, it does not present this settlement’s ideological aspect, concentrating rather on its touristic and economic aspects (Moskuna-Lerman and Greenberg 2009). Although apparently unrelated to Nabataean history, the entire enterprise uses it as part of the economic-touristic resources at their disposal. Thus, for example, the farms in close proximity to the site are called Karmei Avdat (“Avdat’s vineyards”) and Zemorot Avdat (“Avdat’s grapevines”). In addition, many of the farm owners attribute the irrigation methods they use to Nabataean agricultural methods (Arbel 2010). The second project was the declaration of Avdat and other sites in the Negev as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site designated the Incense Route in 2005 (UNESCO 2005). Ostensibly, the efforts to inscribe the Incense Route on Israel’s World Heritage list reflect a desire to become economically and socially integrated into the international community (Baram 2007: 307–9). The decision to establish Avdat as the center point of the Incense Route was supposed, therefore, to enable visitors to experience Avdat as an archaeological site disconnected from the national narrative with which it had previously been associated. Yet, these two projects served to continue the physical and symbolic estrangement of the Bedouin population from their immediate environment.

88  Chemi (Menachem) Shiff One example of this continuing estrangement is the individual farms’ use of current academic research regarding the Nabataean settlements in the Negev. As mentioned above, archaeological research rejects the possibility that an important urban center of the independent Nabataean kingdom developed in the Negev. Paradoxically, this updated interpretation has served to legitimize the foundation of the individual farms along the road, and supports their presentation as the authentic successors of the Nabataean culturalsettlement course. Implicitly, the Bedouin claim that the sole purpose of these farms is to rob their lands (Hamdan 2005) is thus contradicted.

Changing conceptions of heritage at Avdat Heritage can be defined as a series of symbols, values and customs through which a nation constructs its collective memory, serving as an important part of identity- and nation-building processes (Hall 1999: 4–5; Hamilakis 1999). As a site of national heritage, an examination of the changes that transpired in academic research on and the public presentation of Avdat can illuminate the changes in these processes in Israeli society. More specifically, this examination highlights the changing methods used to contend with competing identities that Israeli society has adopted as it went through processes of neoliberalization in recent years (Ram 2013). When contemplating the changing uses made of the archaeological site of Avdat as a symbol of national heritage, it is important to examine the uses made of archaeology in modernistic societies as opposed to the uses made of archaeology in the neoliberal era. In the modern period, archaeology was often recruited in favor of the construction of an ideologically homogenous society, which excluded rather than represented minority groups within it (Bartu 1999). In the face of these processes, in recent years questions were raised regarding the ability of minority groups to integrate their individual conceptions of heritage with wider conceptions of heritage held by society (Clifford 2004). It was also the basis of later attempts to utilize archaeology as a means of promoting a pluralistic inter-group discourse focusing on definitions of indigenousness and the rights it confers (Basu 2008; Daehnke 2007; Dowdall and Parrish 2003). These new approaches molded heritage – and through it archaeology – into a tool mediating between various forms of indigenousness, undermining homogenous approaches to national memory and heritage (Scholze 2008). In recent years, processes of privatization, which were encouraged due to the growing influence of neoliberal practices, enabled a process of ideological privatization of the unified national heritage, and its transformation from an ideological product into an ideologically neutral economic resource, through which every interest group makes an effort to draw a larger consumer audience (Baram 2007). Ostensibly, the challenges of portraying the role of heritage as a unifying national mechanism promoted an awareness of the need to include non-Western expressions of heritage and memory

Us and whom? 89 (Labadi 2007: 152). Paradoxically, the privatization of ideology contributed to the continuation and even to an intensification of the expropriation of heritage by private agents who prevented marginalized social groups from participating in a pluralistic discourse regarding the ideologies and narratives that should construct the national heritage (Silverman 2005). This paradoxical process indicates two patterns regarding the privatization of ideology: first, a pattern that utilizes this process to exclude indigenous groups from participating in the reconstruction of a national identity (Russell and McNiven 1998), and, second, a pattern that involves indigenous groups that recruit heritage sites for the revival of their cultures, as part of their quest for a pluralistic social discourse (Daehnke 2007; De Jong and Rowlands 2008; Meskell and Scheermeyer 2008). Avdat’s role in the construction of Israeli society’s heritage should be examined in view of these two patterns.

The continuing role of archaeology as an instrument of shaping national heritage The academic interpretations and the public representations of Avdat reflect the changing methods through which Israeli society confronted its dialectic identity as an immigrant or native society. Indigenous societies create a harmonious interplay between their physical environment and its symbolic interpretations, as can be demonstrated through language, memory and religion (Gurevitch 2007). In negation, immigrant societies face a permanent divide between their physical environment and the mental-ideological interpretation attached to it (Schwartz 2007: 10–11). In this context, in Israel, the desert was attributed conflicting meanings. On the one hand, it was described as a barren wilderness with an unaccommodating climate and a hostile Arab indigenous population, obstructing the Jewish population’s attempt to tame it. On the other hand, it was described as an open expanse ripe for settlement as part of a renewed Jewish national home in the Land of Israel (Zerubavel 2009). The desert was portrayed as a type of landscape that enhanced Zionist ideology, thus justifying its conquest and cultivation by Jews, transforming them from immigrants into natives (Mitchell 2002: 13–16). In contrast, the Bedouin indigenous population was relegated to the role of bystanders restricted from participating in the landscape’s rejuvenation (Zerubavel 2009). In this sense, the desert’s importance was twofold. While enabling Jews of different ethnic backgrounds to create a shared identity, at the same time it functioned as a border preventing the Bedouin community from taking part in this Jewish Zionist discourse (Gurevitch 2007: 139–42). The academic study of the Negev and of Avdat, and its public presentation, reflects the effort to incorporate it into the Zionist landscape. One example is Avraham Negev’s assumption regarding the rise of the Nabataean kingdom as a nation that built itself in isolation from – and

90  Chemi (Menachem) Shiff sometimes even in opposition to – the social, economic and political processes occurring in neighboring cultures, similar to the contemporary Zionist enterprise’s self-conception. Thus, his archaeological research helped fortify the divide between the nomadic desert landscape, associated with the Bedouins, and the landscape created by the Jewish settlement, representing a sedentary settlement system and perceived as the successor of the Nabataean culture. From a wider perspective, the transformation of Avdat into a Zionist symbol is similar to the use many colonial societies have made of the archaeological remains of native societies. By undermining the cultural connection between archaeological remains and indigenous societies, colonial societies justified dispossessing indigenous peoples of their land (Russell and McNiven 1998: 284–7). In the same manner, in Israel, the process of symbolically dispossessing the Bedouins of the Negev landscape was accompanied by their physical expulsion and transfer into a segregated area (the Sayig) (Zivan 1989: 61–7). The introduction of postcolonial discourse (Said 1978) into archaeological research prompted criticism regarding many of the traditional archaeological interpretations. They were now presented as serving colonial societies in their attempt to justify the disownment of indigenous groups through the appropriation of archaeology as building blocks for the construction of a national narrative that excluded indigenous societies (Daehnke 2007). As a result, archaeology was transformed into an important resource not only for the construction of immigrant societies but also as one enabling the reconstruction of a unique indigenous identity (Clifford 2004). Although postcolonial discourse has not yet featured in key venues of Israeli archaeological research, many postcolonial discursive terms and trends have been integrated into it. New questions enabled the incorporation of tools examining social hierarchies in Israel in a critical manner. Moreover, the penetration of the postcolonial discourse raised the sensitivity in Israeli research to any potential uses of its scientific findings as an ideological tool. For example, the replacement of the term “Nabataean period” – emphasizing Negev’s view of the independent development of the Nabataean kingdom – to a more scientific term, such as the “Roman period” – relating to current views of the development of the Nabataean kingdom as part of wider political and economical changes (Fabian 2005) – demonstrates this new trend. Despite the changes described above, the disengagement of the archaeological research from its colonial ideological context does not necessarily contribute to the shaping of a new public discourse with equal representation of indigenous and immigrant narratives (Bauman 2004; Scham 2001). The excavations at Avdat and its public presentation since the 1990s highlight this paradoxical process. Choosing the Incense Route as one of a series of World Heritage Sites in Israel clearly expresses this paradox. Ostensibly, the inclusion of the Incense Route as part of the list reflects the expansion of the criteria needed to

Us and whom? 91 enlist a location as a World Heritage Site, so as to include values held by indigenous groups who are not perceived as part of the Western world (De Cesari 2010: 310–15; Labadi 2007: 148–57). In the Incense Route’s letter of enlistment, it is noted that the sites built along it indicate the creation of a developed Nabataean agricultural system (UNESCO 2005). The document relies on updated archaeological interpretations of Avdat, stressing its role in the Byzantine cultural development in the empire’s frontier (EricksonGini 2010; Fabian 2005; Politis 2007). In practice, this exclusive reliance on the scientific discourse enables the conceptualization of Avdat as part of a touristic project that ignores the heritage and presence of the local native Bedouin group. The decision to establish the Wine Route plainly supports this trend. The farms set up along the Wine Route are presented as depicting the customary lifestyle prevalent in the Negev since the Iron Age and until the Byzantine period (Arbel 2010). This account utterly ignores later periods and overlooks the presence of the local Bedouin population throughout all of these periods. The declaration that the importance of the Wine Route lies in its ability to hurdle the expansion of the Bedouins in the Negev, made by government officials when approving the tourist venture, accentuates this underlying policy (Adalah 2010). In effect, positioning Avdat at the core of the Incense and Wine Routes disconnects it from its physical surrounding. A phenomenological examination of a site as part of a “route” indicates a symbolic and physical connection between points in the landscape – in effect, denying its independent conceptualization as a “place” in its own right (Witcher 1997: 60–2). Depicting the Negev landscape – and Avdat within it – as part of a “route” reflecting a Western European leisure culture can be understood as a relatively new expression of Israeli society’s ambivalent approach to the “natural” – or assumedly uncivilized – Negev landscape. As a “route”, the Negev is perpetuated as a “no-man’s land”, only to be reconceived as a “place” in itself once Israeli society will build it both physically and symbolically (Benvenisti 2000: 56–8). In this context, the branding of the individual farms as part of the Wine Route – a forbidden product, according to the laws of Islam – can be viewed as another method of detaching the indigenous Muslim Bedouin culture from the Negev’s physical and symbolic landscape. The reorganization of the commercial area of the National Park of Avdat so as to symbolize Israel’s integration into the global market epitomizes the height of these processes. Seemingly, branding Avdat as a symbol of the international market’s commercial world reflects its disconnection from the national ideologies previously associated with it, and links it to a neutral international discourse (Baram 2007: 308). Nevertheless, it is precisely this process that subjects it to a symbolic world disengaged from its immediate environment, thus preventing disadvantaged marginal groups from participating in the shaping of the site and determining the messages it conveys (Kreutzer 2006). The use of traditional Bedouin characteristics in the design of various guiding aids at Avdat constitutes the only connection between

92  Chemi (Menachem) Shiff Avdat and the local Bedouin population. In a sense, the Bedouin traditional lifestyle is presented as a touristic tool in what may be dubbed as the Avdat archaeological theme park. While Avdat’s surrounding landscape is shaped by the touristic projects attempting to emphasize its transformation into an international and Western symbolic “place”, the Bedouin culture becomes one of the exhibits presented in the site, and apparently does not actually exist outside in the real world.

Conclusion As shown through examples of the various research methods and presentation strategies implemented at Avdat, in Israeli society the use of archaeology as a tool for shaping narratives has not diminished but has only changed shape. Perhaps, Avdat’s vandalization as an act of revenge against the state by Bedouins best illuminates the continuous importance of archaeology. It is interesting to note that despite the proximity to important symbols of Zionist heritage, such as David Ben-Gurion’s – Israel’s first prime minister – home and burial ground, the Bedouins chose to “retaliate” against the Avdat archaeological site. This may demonstrate that in their eyes Avdat has become – even more than quintessential Zionist sites – a symbol reflecting the Jewish population’s ongoing efforts to conquer the Negev wilderness while banishing the local Bedouins from their lands (Mahajneh 2009). Ostensibly, situating Avdat as the focal point of a number of tourist enterprises reflecting wider neoliberal processes of privatization and commercialization could serve to allow minority groups such as the Bedouins to take an active part in defining the discourse regarding the symbolic importance attached to the site. However, the neoliberal processes that allowed branding Avdat as a commodified tourist site only deepened processes of exclusion that prevented the Bedouins from participating in an open dialogue regarding the physical and symbolic reconstruction of Avdat and its surroundings. One can interpret the vandalization of Avdat by local Bedouins as an attempt – even if unconscious – to disrupt the divide created by the site between the Bedouin and the Jewish populations. In this context, this chapter may be concluded with a paradoxical statement: it seems that for archaeology to be utilized effectively as a mediator between hegemonic groups and minority groups, practitioners of archaeology must exceed the role society has assigned archaeology in recent years as an objective scientific research tool, or as an ideology-free generator of “tourist attractions.” Rather, they must recognize and take cognizant responsibility for its continuing impact on the existing social stratification of society and its role as an instrument of shaping national heritage. Only then will archaeology be identified as part of a heritage that promotes dialogue and reconciliation instead of an instigator of continued antagonism. It is my claim that practitioners and researchers of archaeology must be constantly aware of the political and social implications the methods they implement have on different sectors in society.

Us and whom? 93

Note 1 The Incense Route is an important commercial route that connected India and the Southern Levant. It was used for the transfer of perfumes and spices from India to the urban centers of the Roman Empire. The Incense Route had many bifurcations, one of which passed from the Arabian Peninsula, through Petra and Transjordan, terminating at the port of Gaza. It was along this bifurcation that Avdat was established.

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7 The archaeological construction of aboriginality The Inuit case Robert McGhee

Archaeologists, even those whose research is focused on the history of Indigenous peoples, generally give little thought to the concept of “Aboriginal” or “Indigenous” as classes of societies that are distinct from those of the world’s mainstream societies. As Ronald Niezen (2003) and others have pointed out, the most important element of this distinction is based on the self-identification of Indigenous groups as a means of distinguishing themselves from dominant or settler societies. Identification of oneself and one’s society as Aboriginal or Indigenous (I will use the terms interchangeably) not only defines one’s relationship with a dominant culture but also links one with a global identity of peoples with similar historical experiences of suppression and marginalization. Although the self-identification of Indigenous societies is most clearly understood as a product of a colonial past, it is also important to understand how Indigenous societies are identified by dominant, mainstream cultures, especially those of the Western world. I will argue that the Western concept of “Aboriginal” has very little to do with a history of colonization, but instead carries a significant weight of meaning derived from earlier European concepts of “primitive man”. I will also argue that archaeology has contributed significantly to the perpetuation of this perspective. I will make special reference to the Inuit societies of Arctic Canada and Greenland, and discuss how views of Inuit history have contributed to the portrayal of Inuit society in the contemporary world.

Early concepts of Inuit history The first scholar to speculate on the history of the Inuit was David Cranz, an eighteenth-century Moravian missionary to Greenland. Arguing on the basis of comparisons with the nations of north-central Asia, Cranz (1767: 259) concluded that the Inuit had originated in “Great Tartary between the Ice-sea and Mongolia”, and that they had reached their present homelands during the fourteenth century. Cranz’s observations and conclusions turned out to be remarkably accurate, but such a sensible view of Inuit history was soon to be buried beneath much more radical scenarios. The

98  Robert McGhee nineteenth-century exploration of Arctic North America gave birth to a popular genre of literature that emphasized not only the dangerous and extreme nature of the Arctic environment but also the exotic character of its human inhabitants. The isolated and pristine nature of Inuit culture was an especially appealing aspect of exploration accounts, and throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century explorers repeatedly reported encountering Inuit who had never before seen Europeans. Such reports were particularly attractive to the nascent science of anthropology, which saw in the Inuit a rare opportunity to study a society that had developed in parallel with, but in isolation from, other human groups. The publication of nineteenth-century exploration accounts of Inuit life coincided with the early development of prehistoric archaeology, and comparisons between the technology and environmental adaptations of the Inuit and the inhabitants of Upper Paleolithic Europe soon led to speculation on a historical relationship between these groups (Dawkins 1874: 353–8). The Inuit were beginning to be seen by early anthropologists not only as an isolated society but also one which had persisted with relatively little change since the time of the last Ice Age. The concept was overtly stated in the report of anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson regarding his first meeting with the Inuit of the central Arctic in 1910: Their existence on the same continent as our populous cities was an anachronism of ten thousand years in intelligence and material development. They gathered their food with the weapons of the men of the Stone Age, they thought their simple, primitive thoughts and lived their insecure and tense lives – lives that were to me the mirrors of the lives of our far ancestors whose bones and crude handiwork we now and then discover in river gravels or in prehistoric caves . . . for here were not the remains of the Stone Age, but the Stone Age itself. (Stefansson 1918: 174) To Stefansson, the Inuit were living examples of early anthropology’s concept of “primitive man”, a being who not only lacked modern technology and social organization but whose intellectual stature and patterns of thought were well outside the range of inhabitants of the mainstream contemporary world. The fact that the Inuit not only survived but thrived in the Arctic was explained in terms of ingenuity in “adapting” to an environment that appeared hostile to human existence. The same term was used by zoologists to explain the particular characteristics and abilities of animals, and the “cultural adaptation” of the Indigenous inhabitants of the region was clearly analogous to the biological process. Robert Flaherty’s 1922 ethnographic film Nanook of the North had a lasting influence in implanting an image of the Inuit as a supremely resourceful and adaptive people following an ancient way of life. The public perception of Inuit is illustrated by the cover photograph of the American popular magazine Life for 2 April 1956,

The Inuit case 99 depicting an Inuit family clad in skin clothing with the caption “Stone Age Survivors”. The anthropological portrayal of the Inuit as a very distinctive form of human being, with patterns of thought and reactions that were different from those of Europeans, continued into the mid-twentieth century. In his popular 1955 book Les derniers rois de Thule, describing the Inuit of northwestern Greenland, Jean Malaurie felt comfortable presenting “an approach to Eskimo psychology” which reads as though it refers to an alien, non-human race: It is difficult with exact words to fix these beings with their expressive and mobile faces . . . Spontaneous and genuine as anyone could be, he wants first of all to satisfy his desires. It is rarely that rational reflection comes to modify, decrease or abort one of his impulses . . . The Eskimo mind is incapable of lingering on an abstract idea . . . This people’s logic is entirely subjective and emotional. Instead of being classified in his mind, his ideas follow one another laboriously, one pushing the other or chasing it away. (Malaurie 1982: 192–6) The Inuit art industry, which developed during the mid-twentieth century as a valuable factor in the economy of many Arctic communities, promoted the stone sculptures and drawings of contemporary Inuit as the products of an ancient and unchanging way of life, which had suddenly been confronted with the complexities of the modern world. While successful as a commercial concept, this promotion continues to influence a perception of the Inuit that has only recently been challenged by curators and students of art.

Archaeological theories of Inuit history Archaeologists have known since the early 1920s that ancestral Inuit have no ancient history of occupation in Arctic Canada and Greenland. Therkel Mathiassen (1927), the archaeologist on Knud Rasmussen’s Fifth Thule Expedition, found clear evidence that ancestral Inuit had moved eastwards from an Alaskan homeland, approximately 1,000 years previously, by his estimation. This hypothesis was supported by Inuit oral history, which claimed that ancestral Inuit had found Arctic Canada to be occupied by a people called “Tuniit”, who had moved away when the Inuit arrived. However, the idea that Inuit were relatively recent immigrants from Alaska was not widely accepted. Anthropologists, such as the ethnologist of the Fifth Thule Expedition, Kaj Birket-Smith (1930), argued that the unique qualities of Inuit culture indicated that it derived from a long-lasting primitive tradition. Others, including a majority of late twentieth-century Inuit politicians, were concerned that depicting the Inuit as relatively recent immigrants would detract from the force of “priority land use and occupancy”

100  Robert McGhee claims to sovereignty over much of Arctic Canada. Fortunately, this concern was alleviated when the court adjudicating the 1980 Baker Lake aboriginal title case (Elliott 1980: 657–8) decided that in order to make a claim of prior land use and settlement, Inuit had only to show that their ancestors had occupied the region prior to 1670, the date when the English king Charles II granted the territory of Rupertsland, comprising much of Canada’s eastern Arctic, to the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Inuit language, Inuktituut, is part of the larger Eskimo family of languages spoken in Alaska and adjacent Chukotka, and the Alaskan ancestry of the Inuit is now generally acknowledged. Although the deepest roots of Eskimo culture cannot be traced with certainty, there is a consensus that early developments took place on the Pacific coast of Alaska, adjacent to the homeland of their linguistic relatives, the Aleuts of the Aleutian Islands. The most distinctive aspects of ancestral Eskimo culture can be traced to the centuries around 2,000 years ago, when this North Pacific maritime way of life was adapted to the seasonally frozen waters of the Bering Sea. Throughout most of the first millennium AD, large settlements occupied strategic hunting locations on both sides of the Bering Strait (Collins 1937; Dumond 1987; Larsen and Rainey 1948). The frozen remains of houses built from logs and turf yield evidence of an economically rich and technologically sophisticated way of life, including celebrated artistic traditions in the form of sculptures in ivory and wood. The sculptures and other items of technology carved in hard organic materials indicate the prevalent availability of iron in these communities (Semenov 1964: 162–7). The development of the Old Bering Sea culture appears roughly contemporaneous with the growth of the Han Empire in China, which saw the introduction of iron into central Asia, Korea and Japan. Iron tools probably reached the Bering Sea region through trade networks that supplied walrus ivory, furs and other Arctic valuables to the market in luxuries desired by the ruling classes of eastern Asia. The implication of trade relations extending southwards from the Bering Sea is supported by cultural influences from the south, including the introduction prior to AD 1000 of both the compound Mongol bow and slat body armor. It has been suggested (Bandi 1995; Mason 2000) that Inuit control of the iron trade across the Bering Strait contributed significantly to wealth, social complexity and inter-community conflict in the area. By AD 1000, the Eskimos of the Bering Sea, and the adjacent coasts of the Chukchi Sea to the north, had also developed techniques for hunting bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus), the largest mammals in Arctic waters. A single whale supplied many tons of meat and blubber, the latter of which was used as both food and fuel for heating and lighting. With stable food resources sufficient to support several local populations numbering in the hundreds, boats and dog-sleds capable of transporting people and equipment over extensive distances, and weapons that were more efficient than those of neighboring groups, the Eskimos of the region were capable of both protecting their valuable commercial activities and of expanding into

The Inuit case 101 the territories of less well-armed and less aggressive peoples (Mason 2009). These conditions set the stage for the Inuit expansion eastwards into Arctic Canada and Greenland. Mathiassen (1927) recorded, across the central and eastern Arctic, the remains of early Inuit settlements characterized by well-insulated winter houses, evidence of bowhead whale hunting, and tools and weapons resembling those of Alaskan cultures; he named this early Inuit way of life the “Thule culture”. Archaeologists termed the initial eastwards movement of Inuit the “Thule migration”, and the episode has generally been conceived as a slow eastwards expansion that occurred over a period of a few centuries. During the late 1960s, my doctoral dissertation on the subject (summarized in McGhee 1970) explained the event in terms of a range extension of north Alaskan whalers, following the eastwards expansion of bowhead whale habitats in response to the warmer climatic conditions of the Medieval Warm Period. A similar argument was advanced at the same time by McCartney (1977), and the model of Thule culture as a response to a warming climate in Arctic Canada gained general acceptance during the late twentieth century. McCartney and I shared, together with a preponderance of prehistoric archaeologists of the time, a paradigm of “cultural ecology” (Steward 1955), which saw the interaction between a society’s technology and economy with the environment as the driving force in cultural change. Like other prehistoric hunting peoples, ancestral Inuit were ascribed little agency or individual initiative in effecting cultural change. Archaeologists had no problem in envisioning societies “adapting” to changes in environmental circumstances – in this case, climatic warming and the consequent reduction in the seasonal extent of sea ice – in an analogous manner to that of the whales and other animals that were their primary prey.

Inuit history was more than environmental adaptation A recent reassessment of this view suggests the inadequacy of the cultural ecological paradigm. Radiocarbon dates relating to the eastwards expansion of Thule culture or Inuit provides no evidence of a slow advance, but instead suggests that a very rapid eastwards movement occurred during the thirteenth century (McGhee 2000). The fact that very early radiocarbon dates have been obtained from sites in northwestern Greenland and adjacent Ellesmere Island, where they are associated with quantities of local meteoric iron and metal obtained by contact with the Greenlandic Norse (McCullough 1989; Schledermann 1980), suggests that the acquisition of metal may have stimulated this movement. The further fact that Thule artefacts from these sites are more similar in style to those used by contemporaneous people around the Bering Strait rather than by the whaling peoples of north Alaska, suggests that the initial phase of the Inuit colonization of the eastern Arctic may have been a commercially motivated enterprise

102  Robert McGhee undertaken by the peoples engaged in the metal trade across the Bering Strait (Gulløv and McGhee 2007). Although it has long been recognized that iron was an integral part of prehistoric Eskimo and Inuit technology (McCartney 1988; McCartney and Mack 1973; Semenov 1964), the critical importance of this material has not been generally perceived. Most of the complex technology in this cultural tradition – hunting weapons, boat and dog-sled gear, construction tools, household tools and equipment – are carved from the hard organic materials that are by-products of subsistence hunting: ivory, antler, horn and bone. Earlier Arctic peoples manufactured such artefacts with cutting and engraving tools chipped from cryptocrystalline stone. However, the use of chipped stone tools decreased throughout the early Eskimo tradition, and in Canadian Thule culture the lithic industry was confined to crude chopping and scraping tools, and ground slate weapon points and knives used for butchering tasks. Despite the paucity of metal recovered from most Thule archaeological sites, metal appears to have been necessary for the manufacture of tools and weapons from hard organic materials, and for cutting skins for tailored clothing. In comparison with technological traditions that had greater access to iron and other metals, the Thule Inuit used very little. Small flakes of iron hammered from the meteorites of Greenland’s Cape York region were fashioned into drill bits, engraving tools and sharp-edged blades, 1 or 2 cm in length, which were mounted in antler handles. Sutherland (2009) has recently demonstrated that the Tuniit predecessors of the Inuit were in contact with the Greenlandic Norse, and these contacts provided another potential source of valuable metal. Sources of metal, in the hands of a relatively small, scattered and poorly armed population, may have been attractive enough to motivate Inuit to undertake journeys of exploration across the barren channels of the central Arctic. A butchering knife or a handful of ships’ nails obtained from the medieval Greenlandic Norse, through trade or piracy, could be broken up and hammered into tiny blades that would supply a small community for years until lost or worn away through use. Small quantities of metal appear to have been crucial to the maintenance of Thule technology and way of life. It should therefore be no surprise that access to metal, and the social power associated with the gaining and holding of such a necessary commodity (Whitridge 1999), would have been a central factor in the process driving the eastwards movement of Thule people and the subsequent development of the Inuit cultures of Arctic Canada and Greenland. This development over the past eight centuries was neither simple nor direct. Thule people seem to have abandoned much of the High Arctic and central Arctic regions at some time during the fifteenth century, after which the preponderance of the Inuit population was concentrated in southwestern Greenland and the southeastern Canadian Arctic (McGhee 2009). This redistribution of populations has generally been associated with the onset

The Inuit case 103 of colder climatic conditions; however, there is no clear link between environmental factors and the distribution of prey animals during this period. When European whalers penetrated the channels of the Arctic Archipelago during the nineteenth century, at the height of the Little Ice Age, they found significant numbers of bowhead whales summering in the waters previously hunted by Thule whalers (Ross 1975). A more likely cause might involve, in part at least, continued access to European trade at a time when the Greenlandic Norse colonies were abandoned and European fishing and whaling industries were becoming established along the coasts of the Labrador Sea. When Martin Frobisher made the first recorded post-medieval contacts with Greenland and Baffin Island in the 1570s, the local Inuit already possessed European goods and were eager to trade for more. From that time onwards, the development of the Inuit way of life in the eastern Arctic was increasingly linked to involvement in European commercial activities (Gulløv 1997; Ross 1975; Taylor 1974). When European explorers penetrated the central Arctic during the nineteenth century, they encountered the Inuit groups whose way of life became the basis for later stereotypes. These small bands occupying winter villages of snow houses on the sea ice while hunting seals at breathing ‘holes’, and passing summers inland subsisting on fish and caribou, were those that led anthropologists such as Stefansson (1918) and Birket-Smith (1930) to posit the survival of an ancient primitive tradition. It is now apparent that the ancestors of these groups had moved into an unoccupied area during the seventeenth or eighteenth century, and that their distinctive way of life was, at most, one or two centuries old. Their reoccupation of previously abandoned territory may have been stimulated by the advance of the Subarctic fur trade across the northern forests, and, by the time that they were studied by anthropologists, the apparent “primitiveness” of their culture may relate to the fact that portions of their traditional way of life had been modified through indirect involvement in the fur trade and consequent access to European tools and weapons.

Archaeology creates aboriginality The image that the world holds of a people, and indeed a people’s own self-image, is closely tied to the understanding of their history. The image of the Inuit as a simple, unspoiled society of capable but primitive hunters is intimately related to the view of Inuit history as an ancient and isolated adaptation to their hostile environment. It is now clear that the Inuit way of life was not the product of such a simple and unlikely history, but rather had developed during the preceding few centuries in response to rapidly changing economic circumstances. The ancestors of the Inuit were not totally isolated from world events, but were an entrepreneurial Alaskan people who appear to have been attracted to the eastern Arctic during the thirteenth century in order to trade with Europeans, and whose way of life has developed

104  Robert McGhee in contact with evolving global culture and economy over the past several centuries. Are the Inuit unique, or do other Aboriginal societies have equally complex histories that have been lost, either through accidents of archaeological preservation or through the blinkers imposed by the assumptions of archaeological paradigms such as “cultural ecology”? A review of the theoretical approaches followed by many archaeologists over the past half century suggests that the discipline has been unconsciously complicit in the construction and perpetuation of a view of Indigenous peoples as inheritors of ancient and “primitive” cultural traditions developing through long and gradual adaptation to local environments. The latter half of the twentieth century saw the ascendance of various schools linked by allegiance to the concept of “processual archaeology”. With the goal of going beyond the simple reconstruction of historical narratives in order to contribute to a science of human behavior, these researchers attempted to use archaeological evidence to create and test models which elucidated systemic relationships between humans, cultures and environments. The span of prehistory was seen as a “laboratory” (Binford 1962: 219) in which human societies interacted with one another and with the environment through systemic processes which could be detected and explored through the archaeological record. In Americanist archaeology, and to a lesser extent in that of other regions, this approach led to dissociation between “prehistoric” and “historic” archaeology. The latter, dealing with the remains of both Indigenous and settler occupation during periods informed by written records, was considered by many prehistorians as merely “doing history”, while their own work was of a distinctly higher scientific calling. The problem with the written record is that it introduces too many variables – incursions of peoples, episodes of famine and disease, acts of war and apparently random events – which intrude on the laboratory conditions required for the undertaking of systemic explanation. The inverse of this situation is the assumption that in prehistoric times such erratic events simply did not occur, and that prehistoric cultures evolved according to predictable processes that can be understood from the archaeological record. Since in settler societies prehistorians most often dealt with the ancestry of Indigenous peoples, it was inevitable that the cultural traditions of these people would be conceived of as adaptational entities immune from changes wrought by the agency of individuals, or from the random occurrences of events such as those evidenced by the witness of written history. This view of the Indigenous past is in peculiar harmony with the nostalgic and essentialist view of the past as proposed by romantic and nativist thought (Sioui 1992; Turner 2006). Compounding the problematic views of processual archaeologists is the fact that, either explicitly or unconsciously, Indigenous people were often seen as present-day avatars of prehistoric societies. When Binford (1978)

The Inuit case 105 set out to study the contemporary Nunamiut Inuit of northern Alaska as a means of gaining insights into the archaeological record of Paleolithic Europe, archaeological thinking was perilously close to Dawkins’s (1874) century-old identification of Inuit as contemporary representatives of Paleolithic peoples. The analogical reasoning of Binford and other ethnoarchaeologists of the late twentieth century (David and Cramer 2001) was considerably more sophisticated than the arguments of earlier anthropologists, but the distinction may not have been fully appreciated by others both within and outside the discipline. The generally negative reaction of Indigenous peoples to the practice of archaeology (Deloria 1995; Thomas 2000; Watkins 2000) must in part be seen as a response to their demeaning portrayal as either living ancients or as scientific subjects.

The social consequences of an academic theory Unfortunately, the effects of archaeology’s complicity in perpetuating a view of Indigenes as inheritors of historical traditions that are qualitatively dissimilar to those of mainstream cultures goes beyond misunderstandings and hurt feelings. At times, it has also been significant in determining government policy. The perception of the Inuit as heirs to an ancient hunting tradition which rendered them supremely ingenious in adapting their way of life to Arctic environments was intrinsic to decisions made by the Canadian government during the 1950s. Concerned with potential foreign claims to unoccupied portions of the High Arctic Archipelago, the government resettled small groups of Inuit families from the Subarctic as markers of Canadian sovereignty (Dussault and Erasmus 1994). The action was generally rationalized in terms of Inuit becoming dependant on the resources of settlements established by traders and missionaries in more southerly regions of the Arctic. The idea that the Inuit would be contaminated and damaged through contact with outsiders reflects the assumption that the Inuit were the unique products of an ancient and isolated adaptation. The resettled families were from the Hudson Bay community of Inukjuak, where Robert Flaherty had filmed Nanook of the North a generation earlier. It was presumed that in the isolation of the High Arctic these families would rehabilitate themselves from impoverished town dwellers to noble hunters like Nanook, while incidentally providing Canada with effective occupation of a potentially disputed region. The locations chosen for High Arctic resettlement were selected, in part, because of the existence of nearby archaeological sites which indicated that Inuit had at one time inhabited the region and made a living from its animal resources. The decision-makers did not know that these sites, winter villages of the Thule people recently arrived from Alaska, were approximately eight centuries old and were not evidence of a long and unchanging Inuit adaptation. Rather, they had been inhabited by people who had entirely different resources of knowledge and skills than those of Inuit from the Subarctic

106  Robert McGhee regions of Hudson Bay. My interest in the questions addressed in the present chapter was stimulated by having spent several summers excavating at Thule culture sites adjacent to the resettled village of Qausuittuq. Here, I learned not only of the hardships endured by the relocated settlers but of the consequences of misunderstood archaeological evidence and flawed assumptions regarding the Inuit past. Archaeologists have been slow in taking up the challenge put to anthropologists a quarter of a century ago by Adam Kuper (1988: 243), who stated that “Anthropologists developed the theory of primitive society, but we may make amends if we render it obsolete at last, in all its protean forms”. By viewing the past as a place where all of our ancestors experienced chaotic series of events that cannot be reduced to abstract processes, and who met those events with equivalent ingenuity and resolve, we place Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal societies on a comparable historical footing. In removing the false foundation of long and static historical traditions, it becomes impossible to view contemporary Aboriginal peoples as distinct from the remainder of world societies, and absurd to ascribe to them the characteristics of peoples of the remote past.

References Bandi, H-G. 1995. “Siberian Eskimos as Whalers and Warriors.” In Hunting the Largest Animals; Native Whaling in the Western Arctic and Subarctic, edited by A. P. McCartney, 165–83. Edmonton: Canadian Circumpolar Institute. Binford, L. R. 1962. “Archaeology as anthropology.” American Antiquity 28 (2): 217–25. Binford, L. R. 1978. Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology. New York: Academic Press. Birket-Smith, K. 1930. “The question of the origin of Eskimo culture: A rejoinder.” American Anthropologist 32 (4): 608–24. Collins, H. B. 1937. The Archaeology of St. Lawrence Island. Washington, DC: Smithsonian. Cranz, D. 1767. The History of Greenland. London: Dodsley. David, N., and C. Cramer. 2001. Ethnoarchaeology in Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dawkins, W. B. 1874. Cave Hunting: Researches on the Evidence of Caves Respecting the Early Inhabitants of Europe. London: Macmillan. Deloria Jr., V. 1995. Red Earth, White Lies. New York: Scribner. Dumond, D. E. 1987. The Eskimos and Aleuts. New York: Thames and Hudson. Dussault, R., and G. Erasmus. 1994. The High Arctic Relocation: A Report on the 1953–55 Relocation. Ottawa: Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Canadian Government Publishing. Elliott, D. W. 1980. “Baker lake and the concept of aboriginal title.” Osgoode Hall Law Journal 18 (4): 653–63. Gulløv, H. C. 1997. From Middle Ages to Colonial Times: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Studies of the Thule Culture in South West Greenland 1300–1800 AD. Copenhagen: Commission for Scientific Research in Greenland.

The Inuit case 107 Gulløv, H. C., and R. McGhee. 2007. “Did Bering Strait people initiate the Thule migration?” Alaskan Anthropological Journal 4 (1–2): 54–63. Kuper, A. 1988. The Invention of Primitive Society. London: Routledge. Larsen, H. E., and F. G. Rainey. 1948. Ipiutak and the Arctic Whale Hunting Culture. New York: American Museum of Natural History. Malaurie, J. 1955. Les derniers rois de Thule: avec les Esquimaux polaires, face à leur destin. Paris: Plon. Malaurie, J. 1982. The Last Kings of Thule. New York: Dutton. Mason, O. K. 2000. “Ipiutak/Birnirk relationships in Northwest Alaska: Master and slave or partners in trade?” In Identities and Cultural Contacts in the Arctic, edited by M. Appelt, J. Berglund, and H. C. Gulløv, 229–51. Copenhagen: Danish National Museum and Danish Polar Centre. Mason, O. K. 2009. “Flight from the Bering Strait: Did Siberian Punuk/Thule military cadres conquer Northwest Alaska?” In The Northern World AD 900–1400, edited by H. Maschner, O. Mason, and R. McGhee, 76–130. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Mathiassen, T. 1927. Archaeology of the Central Eskimos. Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921–24, Vol. 4. Copenhagen: Gyldendal. McCartney, A. P. 1977. Thule Eskimo Prehistory along Northwestern Hudson Bay. Ottawa: Archaeological Survey of Canada. McCartney, A. P. 1988. “Late prehistoric metal use in the New World Arctic.” In The Late Prehistoric Development of Alaska’s Native Peoples, edited by R. D. Shaw, R. K. Harritt, and D. E. Dumond, 57–80. Anchorage: Alaska Anthropological Association. McCartney, A. P., and D. J. Mack. 1973. “Iron utilization by Thule Eskimos of Central Canada.” American Antiquity 38 (3): 328–39. McCullough, K. M. 1989. The Ruin Islanders: Thule Culture Pioneers in the Eastern High Arctic. Ottawa: Archaeological Survey of Canada, Canadian Museum of Civilization. McGhee, R. 1970. “Speculations on environmental change and Thule culture development.” Folk 11 (12): 173–84. McGhee, R. 2000. “Radiocarbon dating and the timing of the Thule migration.” In Identities and Cultural Contacts in the Arctic, edited by M. Appelt, J. Berglund, and H. C. Gulløv, 181–91. Copenhagen: Danish National Museum and Danish Polar Centre. McGhee, R. 2009. “The population size and temporal duration of Thule culture in Arctic Canada.” In On the Track of the Thule Culture from Bering Strait to Greenland, edited by B. Grønnow, 75–90. Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark. Niezen, R. 2003. The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ross, W. G. 1975. Whaling and Eskimos: Hudson Bay 1860–1915. Ottawa: National Museum of Man. Schledermann, P. 1980. “Notes on Norse finds from the East Coast of Ellesmere Island, N.W.T.” Arctic 33 (3): 454–63. Semenov, S. A. 1964. Prehistoric Technology: An Experimental Study of the Oldest Tools and Artefacts from Traces of Manufacture and Wear. London: Cory, Adams & Mackay.

108  Robert McGhee Sioui, G. 1992. For an Amerindian Autohistory. Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Stefansson, V. 1918. My Life with the Eskimos. New York: MacMillan. Steward, J. H. 1955. Theory of Culture Change: The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Sutherland, P. D. 2009. “The question of contact between Dorset Palaeo-Eskimos and early Europeans in the Eastern Arctic.” In The Northern World AD 900– 1400, edited by H. Maschner, O. Mason, and R. McGhee, 279–99. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Taylor, J. G. 1974. Labrador Eskimo Settlements of the Early Contact Period. Ottawa: National Museum of Man. Thomas, D. H. 2000. Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, and the Battle for Native American Identity. New York: Basic Books. Turner, D. 2006. This Is Not a Peace Pipe: Towards a Critical Indigenous Philosophy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Watkins, J. 2000. Indigenous Archaeology: American Indian Values and Scientific Practice. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press. Whitridge, P. 1999. “The Construction of Social Difference in a Prehistoric Inuit Whaling Community.” PhD dissertation, Arizona State University.

Part II

Spaces between “Us” and “Them” Anna Karlström Indigenous as a concept is problematic. When acknowledging indigeneity there is always the risk of making simplified categorizations of “Us” and “Them”, since it is always “We” who defines “the Other”. The structure that indigenous archaeology and heritage discourse lingers within is founded in a Western, Eurocentric academic tradition. Defining and categorizing the indigenous thus runs the risk of creating fixed boundaries. This part of the book is dedicated to the exploration of the boundaries, or rather what might constitute the spaces in between. The cosmopolitan is often set in opposition to the indigenous. However, the stereotypical images of static indigenous people set against constantly changing, globetrotting cosmopolitans are now being challenged, and a reinterpretation of indigeneity, as cosmopolitan and transnational, has been put forward. It is suggested that local roots are articulated through transnational routes, and that these transnational routes create expressions of a wider and inclusive indigenous identity at the same time as they transcend local expressions. Disturbing the boundaries by opening up and merging seemingly opposing definitions and categories is necessary if we want to question the structure and restructure the foundations on which indigenous archaeology and heritage discourse were built. In her book elsewhere, within here, Trinh T. Minh-ha writes about the boundary as a space where endings pass into beginnings and about the necessity of re-siting these boundaries. The space in between is where possibilities are boundless. The focus of this part of the book is not definitions of what is indigenous and what is not, but rather the concept as such and the intriguing, ambiguous and fluid spaces in between, where possibilities are boundless. Paul J. Lane discusses indigeneity as a relational and ambiguous concept, based on a critical examination of how the concept has been used by a European “Us” to define an African “Other”, especially in archaeological interpretations of the material past. He argues that all societies use material culture in their construction of historical narratives, and in this sense all societies practice indigenous archaeology. Hence, the intellectual challenge lies less in giving non-Western “Others” a voice (important though

110  Anna Karlström this is) and more in determining the epistemological and ontological bases of these alternative indigenous archaeologies and what they can contribute to a shared, collective understanding of the past. The San and Bantu dichotomy is at the center of Edward Matenga’s chapter. He claims that the dichotomy rests on a weaker/victim and stronger/ victor paradigm, resulting in violent conflicts, and that this paradigm is so entrenched in the archaeological and heritage discourse to the extent that theory has become fact. However, the birth and propagation of such a theory can be traced to colonial historiography and its political purpose. By critically examining unquestioned interpretations of rock-art in this area, Matenga urges for a space in between where colonial historiography is being dismantled and the subaltern orders its own lenses. In Celmara Pocock’s chapter, the space between “Us” and “Them” is the fluid context of identity, which is marked by skin color in photographic images. Indigenous pasts are there regardless whether non-indigenous acknowledge them. However, there is a need for recovering indigenous pasts and present, and Pocock suggests that photos comprise an important source of information for doing so. When reading the past through imagery, we rely on the identification of physical characteristics and classify indigenous identity based on skin color. With her examples from Australia, Pocock tackles this challenge and illustrates that skin color is not always a defining element of self-identity. Christopher N. Matthews explores the way that historical narratives control the past by excluding and minimizing the presence and role of minority communities and perspectives. He uses the heritage of the Native American and African American community of Setauket, New York, as a case study, and looks into how it is represented in local historical texts. Alternative stories that emanate from the Setauket archaeological project illustrate their significant and meaningful contributions as well as their interpretations of the past. These insights develop an alternative sense of indigeneity, which is inclusive of mixed heritage and communities typically ignored in mainstream stories. In her chapter, Anna Karlström points to shared approaches to heritage among indigenous and non-indigenous groups. She argues that through practicing popular religion these groups, irrespective of categorization, relate to the material past and its meaning in the present in exactly the same way. Through an example from Laos in Southeast Asia, Karlström suggests that popular religious discourse must be given equal value to scientific heritage and archaeological discourse, since these two are here practiced here simultaneously. Thus, the space between “Us” and “Them” is where immaterial and material aspects of heritage are merged and where the insider and outsider might be one and the same. What happens to archaeology when it is detached from its disciplinary framework? This is what Alejandro F. Haber asks in the last chapter of this section. He explores this issue by demonstrating how the concept of

Spaces between “Us” and “Them” 111 indigeneity works within specific epistemic confrontations among particular configurations of diversity. On the one side, he argues that archaeological discipline sees indigeneity as otherness; on the apparent other side, (postdisciplinary) indigenous archaeology tends to recapitulate disciplinary assumptions and – finally – Western episteme. From this hegemonic perspective, indigeneity works as a mirror image of the West. Haber walks across the mirror to its other side, where otherness is not coupled to indigeneity, but to a particular theory of relatedness. The Other to the Other is, thus, not the self, and particular ways of relating to the hegemonic position, which are different from the knowledge of indigeneity, are practiced. Thus, anti-hegemonic places of theory, on both sides and across the mirror, are explored. The chapters in this part all explore the spaces between “Us” and “Them”, but in different ways. The authors not only identify this space as ambiguous and fluid, but also recognize that it is necessary to keep it as such and continuously blurring fixed borders by acknowledging the space in between the imagined “Us” and “Them”.

8 Envisioning a different notion of “indigenous archaeology” from the perspective of ­ Sub-Saharan Africa Paul J. Lane This paper explores some of the conceptual and practical issues associated with the use of the term “indigenous/Indigenous archaeology”1 in subSaharan African contexts, so as to make a basic point that definitions of “Indigenous archaeology” as developed in North America, Australasia and even Scandinavia (and all that such definitions imply) do not necessarily fit with situations across the African continent. This is not intended as a critique of those developments elsewhere, or to diminish their accomplishments. It is simply a reminder, as is so often the case in archaeology, that context is everything. The paper begins with a brief examination of current dominant constructs of “indigenous/Indigenous archaeology”, their implications and some of the discordances between these. I then explore whether these concepts are directly transferable to African contexts (see also Shepherd, this volume). More specifically, this chapter explores the contrasting usage of concepts of indigeneity across sub-Saharan Africa, why different understandings of “being indigenous” act against the promotion of “Indigenous archaeology” on the continent and the consequential greater preference for terms such as “community” or “public” archaeology. The paper concludes with a brief sketch of possible directions for future research.

Indigenous archaeology and postcolonialism In many parts of the world, the development of “Indigenous archaeology” (with emphasis on the use of a capital “I”; see also Shepherd, this volume) has been linked to the development of postcolonial perspectives and practices. This has perhaps been most clearly articulated by Sonya Atalay, who has called for the development of a “collaborative approach that blends the strengths of Western archaeological science with the knowledge and epistemologies of Indigenous peoples” (2006: 301). In a similar vein, Smith and Wobst have argued for “an archaeology shaped by Indigenous knowledges . . . [capable of] decolonizing archaeological theory and practice” (2005: 394, my emphasis). Most recently, Nicholas (2010: 233) has stated that failure to incorporate indigenous approaches within the discipline “will limit significantly or marginalise the potential contributions of archaeology

114  Paul J. Lane as a more representative and responsible discipline, and constrain its continued intellectual growth.” A basic feature of these statements is that they draw a contrast between archaeological approaches to understanding and writing about the past and Indigenous constructs of history and the knowledge systems of which these form a part. In both the cited examples and in broader trends within the discipline (e.g. Bruchac et al. 2010; Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Ferguson 2007; McNiven and Russell 2005; Phillips 2010; Watkins 2000), the goals of promoting Indigenous archaeology/archaeologies are to celebrate these alternative strategies, challenge long-held assumptions about who has the right, authority and power to interpret the past and wrest exclusive control over the production and use of archaeological knowledge from the discipline of archaeology. Beyond this, however, there is considerable difference between various calls for the development of “Indigenous archaeologies” (McNiven 2016; Sillar 2005) and in the issues, which range from contrasting interpretations of the past to debates over rights of access and the repatriation of human remains and objects, that Indigenous archaeology is intended to address (Murray 2011; see also, for instance, the debate between Robert McGhee 2008, 2010 and various others, e.g. Croes 2010; Silliman 2010; Wilcox 2010). Archaeologists also use multiple, and sometimes conflicting, definitions of “Indigenous people”. The degree to which these overlap formal definitions (such as favored by the United Nations or the International Labor Organization), and taken-for-granted concepts of “indigenous people” circulating in the public sphere, is variable (see Watkins 2005). For Conkey (2005: 15), this lack of homogeneity between approaches is to be welcomed, not least because there are many different Indigenous groups and settings in which an Indigenous archaeology comes into play, and each has its own history and emergent needs and goals, many of which are themselves shifting and evolving. Archaeologists working in Africa have certainly noted that archaeology’s “governing paradigms and epistemologies often conflict with African historical needs, views of the past, and ways of structuring time and space” (Schmidt 1995: 119). Recognition of this has encouraged calls for alternative archaeologies (Andah 1995; Pwiti 1996). Nonetheless, there have been relatively few explicit calls for the development of “Indigenous archaeologies”, and instead recent debates have focused more on the need for the creation of postcolonial archaeological practices (see Lane 2011; Schmidt 2009; Shepherd 2002), the ethical issues this raises (e.g. Giblin et al. 2014; Shepherd 2015), the mechanisms by which this transformation might be achieved and their possible consequences (e.g. Giblin 2012; Ndlovu 2011; Ouzman 2005). Where the concept of “indigenous archaeology” (without a capital “I”) has featured in recent discussions, it is usually used somewhat

Envisioning a different notion of “indigenous archaeology” 115 interchangeably for different manifestations of archaeological engagement with the “public” and “local” (aka “indigenous”) communities (e.g. Chirikure and Pwiti 2008), or with reference to the importance of “indigenous” or customary custodianship (e.g. Jopela 2011) and other strands of “indigenous knowledge” in heritage management and applied archaeology (see Stump 2010, 2013 for critical reviews). In both regards, the concept of “community” or “public” archaeology seems to be preferred over “Indigenous/indigenous archaeology” (e.g. Almansa et al. 2011; Chirikure et al. 2010; Pikirayi 2014; Schmidt 2014). This contrasts with the situation in Australia (McNiven and Russell 2005), Canada (Ferris 2003; Nicholas and Andrews 1997), the US (Watkins 2000) and Aotearoa/New Zealand (Phillips 2010; Rike-Heke 2010). These are all former settler societies where people of European descent comprise the dominant social, economic and political group and can be contrasted with the descendants of those populations who occupied these lands prior to European settlement and colonization, in other words the indigenous inhabitants. In Scandinavia, recognition of Sámi identity, culture and selfdetermination has become politically entrenched in recent decades (Thuen 1995), although not entirely in mainstream archaeological practice (Mulk 2009; Ojala 2009). In the archaeological literature, indigenous status is often made manifest through a contrast between autochthonous hunter-gatherer and reindeer-herding societies of northern Fennoscandia and Scandinavian populations. The latter are generally regarded to be descended from the first farming populations to settle in the area during the Early Neolithic between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago, although, judging from recent genetic studies, this scenario now appears to have been far more complicated (e.g. Linderholm 2011; Malmström et al. 2015).

Defining indigenous Defining the term “Indigenous” is complicated, as the appellation “indigenous/Indigenous” can mean quite different things in different contexts. In one sense, we are all “indigenous”, at least in particular settings, since we all have some ties to a particular space within the broader global community (Naryan 1998). However, indigeneity is far more multifaceted than this, since while being on the one hand “profoundly local in character, resting on a distinction between what is native and what is not”, it has also “become a global movement whose members coalesce around the defence of cultural differences and claims to the ownership of resources” (McCormack 2011: 281). It is from this global movement that the distinction between “indigenous” with a lowercase “i” and “Indigenous” with a capital “I” has emerged. As Yeh (2007: 69) notes, the latter usage has become a transnational concept that is claimed by people with very diverse historical trajectories to imply, among other things, firstness, nativeness or original or prior occupancy of a place; attachment to a particular territory or homeland;

116  Paul J. Lane marginalization within a culturally or ethnically different wider society; and often, a history of colonization. At the same time, the term “Indigenous Peoples” also now operates as a legal term (see Ndahinda 2011 for some relevant African legal cases). In this regard, it is perhaps unsurprising that one of the first attempts to formalize the definition was made by the International Labor Organization in the 1980s. This ultimately resulted in their definition of “Indigenous people” as those individuals in independent countries who are descended from the original inhabitants of these countries prior to conquest or colonization, or the establishment of present state boundaries, and who, “irrespective of their legal status, retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions” (International Labour Organization 1989, Article 1.b, my emphasis). These kinds of definitions, and related ones that underpin the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations 2008), characterize fairly well the circumstances of native communities in former settler societies (such as Aboriginal Australians, Maori and Native Americans) where people of European descent comprise the dominant social, economic and political group, and it is in these countries that the term “Indigenous” has been most commonly mobilized to mark identities, descendant communities and practices that are distinct from those associated with European settlers and colonial rule in these regions. The various calls for Indigenous archaeologies have also come mainly from members of diverse First Nations and similar descendant communities in these countries, and current understanding within the broader discipline as to what constitutes Indigenous archaeology derives principally from this perspective. Nonetheless, in a context where the majority of the population would probably describe themselves, if asked, as “indigenous”, there may be little call or cause for self-definition as such, even though there may have been a long history of colonization such as that experienced across much of sub-Saharan Africa. Instead, in a manner similar to the lack of uptake of the concept (and in some cases even hostility toward it) among Tibetans, as described by Yeh (2007), for the majority of sub-Saharan societies the notion of “indigeneity” lacks the kind of relational significance that is has acquired in former settler societies, such as in Australia (Merlan 2007) and North America (Cruikshank 2007), despite a legacy of European colonial rule across most parts of the continent and associated appropriations of land, disenfranchisement and dispossession. Consequently, the international concept of “Indigenous” (as opposed to a more colloquial one) has a more restricted usage in Africa and typically, when mobilized in sub-Saharan settings, refers mostly to poor, rural, politically “non-dominant peoples who are [or were until very recently] also primarily engaged in subsistence economies considered exotic or marginal by urban and agricultural peoples” (Crawhall 2011: 14); in other words, pastoralists, hunter-gatherers

Envisioning a different notion of “indigenous archaeology” 117 or post-hunter-gatherers, and perhaps some fishing communities. Many of these groups experience various forms of prejudice, discrimination and a lack of certain key human rights, and increasingly, especially since the adoption in 2007 of the UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and its formal publication in March 2008 (United Nations 2008), these communities now also self-identify as “Indigenous” (Corntassel 2003: 75).

Being indigenous in Africa Partly as a consequence of the actions of bodies such as the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (2007), the use of the transnational concept of “Indigenous Peoples” has grown significantly in recent decades, beginning first in southern Africa among Khoisan populations in the 1990s (Saugestad 2001, 2011). The inclusion in South Africa’s new coat of arms adopted after the 1994 elections of a phrase rendered in the extinct Northern Cape/Xam language (officially meaning “Diverse people unite”), which is accompanied by a redrawing of rock-art on the Linton stone (Barnard 2003, 2004; Smith et al. 2000), is perhaps the most overt indication of the political currency of the concept. In eastern Africa, over the last 15 or so years there has also been a marked proliferation in the number of communities laying claim to an “Indigenous” identity (Hodgson 2002; Igoe 2006; Lynch 2011). In some quarters, however, the claims made by certain marginalized groups to an “Indigenous people” identity have been contested by members of the political elite, particularly in Botswana (Lane 2014; Segobye 2006). Indeed, it is common for the notion of an “indigenous identity” to be downplayed by African politicians on the grounds that “all Africans are indigenous” (e.g. Crawhall 2011: 17; Hodgson 2009: 3), and a corresponding preference for the use, instead, of the term “minorities”. Such reactions underline a further difference between the politics of indigenous identity as played out in former settler societies such as North America and Australia compared with sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, as Sylvain (2002: 1082) notes, many of the communities in Africa who now assert their “Indigenous identity”, especially the San (but also many others) are not struggling against a legacy of integrationist and assimilationist state policies; rather, they are fighting against a converse legacy of racial segregation and class exploitation, based on deeply essentialist conceptions of what constitutes cultural or ethnic difference [held by other Africans] (see also Hodgson 2009 for a broader discussion). Botswana’s N/oakhwe populations (known as San in the academic literature and as Basarwa in Setswana) today certainly claim identities as Indigenous Peoples (Saugestad 2011), but they do so neither in terms of a contrast to a European settler community nor in terms of European colonial

118  Paul J. Lane dispossession of their land. Instead, these demands are informed by a long history of exploitation and marginalization by the various Tswana polities, who today represent the political majority in the independent nation state (Good 1993; Hitchcock 2002). There remain several other inconsistencies and ambiguities that need to be negotiated in this complex terrain within sub-Saharan Africa. In the first place, the word “indigenous” tends to imply a condition or state that is both primordial and local, and which stands in contrast to anything acquired at a later date and is of foreign, or at least non-local, origin (Corntassel 2003). Yet, several of those communities that now lay claim to being “Indigenous” (and especially pastoralist groups), whether in terms of their own oral histories and traditions, or with reference to established scholarship, make no claim to being the first settlers of the territories they now occupy. A case in point are the Maasai and related Maa-speaking populations of Kenya and Tanzania, who, depending on how these categories are defined, first occupied the areas now most closely associated with them either in the ninth century AD (e.g. Sommer and Vossen 1993) or in the 1700s (e.g. Galaty 1993). Regardless of which historical scenario is preferred, the first Maa speakers encountered pre-existing farming communities and groups of hunter-gatherers, with whom they often developed symbiotic exchange relations, while also categorizing the latter as il-tóróbò (Anglicized as “Ndorobo”), meaning “the ones without cattle”. This term subsequently took on derogatory connotations within Maa languages, and it was also misused by European observers to refer to a great majority of hunter-gatherer groups in East Africa regardless of their origin and linguistic affiliations (Blackburn 1974; Kenny 1981). Moreover, the expansion of certain Maasai sections in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries led to the decimation of other Maa-speaking communities, such as the Laikipiak during the Iloikop wars of the 1840s to 1880s (Jennings 2003; Sobania 1993). This expansion also facilitated shifts toward farming and agro-pastoralism among others, such as the WaArusha in northern Tanzania (Spear 1997), and the adoption of a Maasai identity and the Maa language by former hunter-gatherers, such as the Mukogodo in central Kenya (Cronk 2004; although see also Carrier 2011). Many African societies also make distinctions within their own oral histories and traditions between “first-comers” (les primo-arrivants in French) and “latecomers” (les nouveaux arrivants), and, even before the European colonial era, such categorization was often the foundation for a social hierarchy that determined the distribution of rights and access to resources. Adding to such complexities is the distinction between “indigenous” and “autochthonous”. The latter term is more widely used in Francophone West and Central Africa, partly because indigène (the French equivalent of “indigenous”) was widely employed as a term of abuse during the colonial era, and in these parts of the continent the appellation “indigenous” may be considered to be insulting rather than a desirable status (Friedman 2008: 31).

Envisioning a different notion of “indigenous archaeology” 119 Derived from the Greek word “autochthōn” (αὐτόχθων), autochthony means “born from the soil” (Ceuppens and Geschiere 2005). The term was used initially in West Africa by French colonial authorities to differentiate those of their colonial subjects who were “of the soil” from those who, despite being more recent migrants, were the “rulers”. Hence, like “Indigenous”, it generally implies temporal priority of settlement and a degree of political subordination. However, in its more recent mobilization the term has come to signify more than this. In particular, as several studies of the recent use of the term in Africa (and elsewhere) have highlighted, the term is often used to reinforce a perceived sense of “belonging” to a particular geographical space or terroir that is greater than the rights of “others” who lay claim to a similar right to be there (e.g. Jackson 2006). A further significant difference is that unlike the categorization “Indigenous”, which is typically restricted to pastoralist and hunting-gathering-fishing peoples (or those whose subsistence base was until recently based on these foodprocuring strategies), the term “autochthonous”, at least in contemporary Africa, is ‘more often used with reference to agricultural or industrial populations, who are not necessarily marginal but rather believe that their resources, culture or power are threatened by “migrants” ’ (Gausset et al. 2011: 139). This modern usage is thus a reversal of how the term was first used in the colonial era, and as Pelican (2009) has explored with reference to Mbororo in Cameroon, the competing discourses of being “autochthonous” or “indigenous” can mean that international understandings are often at variance with local connotations of these terms. Thus, in the Mbororo case, “although internationally recognized as an indigenous people, the Mbororo are locally considered strangers, migrants, and latecomers with limited rights to land and resources” (Pelican 2009: 53). Against such contexts, it is perhaps understandable that, for many archaeologists who work on the African continent, the concept of “indigenous archaeology” is simply that of the transfer of employment, training, management and research agendas to African nationals, as previously articulated by, among others, Thurstan Shaw (1976: 165) and Merrick Posnansky (1982: 353) several years ago, and reiterated rather more recently by the Kenyan archaeologist George Abungu (2006). Nonetheless, and perhaps because of broader currency of “Indigenous Knowledge” (IK, also rendered Traditional Ecological Knowledge or TEK) in contemporary development discourse on the continent (Horsthemke 2008), there is increased recognition “that the historical consciousness of indigenous people does not manifest itself in the same way as western history does” (Eze-Uzomaka 2000: 152), and that they may hold a “concept of their past which is divergent from the past presented by archaeologists” (Eze-Uzomaka 2000: 153). Despite this, mainstream disciplinary concerns with regard to how archaeological traces are interpreted, and with the ways to “correctly” manage sites and monuments, typically remain paramount. This is well illustrated by the case of Great Zimbabwe, which as Fontein’s (2006) study demonstrates,

120  Paul J. Lane has long been held as a sacred site by the local population, but from which they have consistently been excluded under all management regimes, ranging from the highly racialized contexts created following Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in November 1965 to the contested postcolonial political landscape that prevails today. Few serious archaeologists now dispute the African origins of the monument (in contrast to earlier interpretations), and management of the monument is in the hands of Zimbabwean archaeologists and allows scope for occasional use of the monument for religious ceremonies (Ndoro 2006), but this is generally permitted only under appropriate supervision and “government”. Hence, while there have since been changes in approach to the monument that acknowledge local communities as the traditional custodians, there have been no attempts to develop a management plan (as distinct from archaeological interpretations) for the monument based on indigenous conceptions of space, time and materiality, by either Zimbabwean or foreign archaeologists.

Conclusion Terms such as “indigenous/Indigenous” and “autochthonous” are relational concepts, which operate at different scales and have different connotations at these scales. Temporal distinctions can also be made concerning how such terms, and especially “indigenous/Indigenous”, have been differentially mobilized. Thus, in the early decades of decolonization across the African continent, the concept of “being indigenous” could be said to have applied to all of Africa as a means to differentiate African societies from European settler communities. Subsequently, and especially since the 1990s, the notion of being an “Indigenous people” has tended to be restricted to specific communities within nation states who have experienced long histories of discrimination, disenfranchisement and dispossession, often at the hands of more dominant African groups, although European colonial powers were also, at times, complicit in these actions as well (e.g. Gordon 1992; Hughes 2006). An “indigenous/Indigenous archaeology” on the African continent thus needs to grapple with both dimensions and the ambiguities associated with each of these concepts. There are signs that this is now happening. For example, it is certainly the case that archaeologists working on the African continent have developed a more critical gaze and have created the intellectual space for different voices to be heard, making different identities visible, and facilitating different modes of discourse or “ways of telling”. As part of this trend, it is becoming more common to find “indigenous” interpretations of the past placed alongside archaeological narratives, and in some instances (such as with regard to the treatment of burials and other contexts containing human remains) archaeological practice is being modified to take account of local sensitivities.

Envisioning a different notion of “indigenous archaeology” 121 Some genuine collaboration between archaeologists and local communities has also emerged (e.g. Chirikure and Pwiti 2008; Denbow et al. 2009). Many more practicing archaeologists working on the African continent are also ready to question the role of research in the community where they undertake their work (e.g. Bolaane et al. 1998; Damm 2005; Segobye 2009). However, there is far less evidence to suggest that indigenous “conceptions of the past, history, and time” (Conkey 2005: 16) have been incorporated in archaeological interpretations of the material record, or that archaeological reasoning has been shaped at all by the inclusion of “indigenous epistemologies” (Conkey 2005: 16) – both aspects that Conkey lists as being core features of a truly indigenous archaeology. More research on these issues and better integration of different ontological understandings of the past and of material remains (e.g. Lane 2005; Straight et al. 2015) into conventional disciplinary archaeological interpretation are thus needed before African archaeology can be said to be truly indigenous.

Note 1 Throughout this chapter, I use the word “indigenous”, without a capital “I”, in the generic sense of the term. By contrast, I use “Indigenous” with a capital “I” when referring to a narrower concept of indigeneity that aligns more closely with current usage within international fora, as enshrined particularly by the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) and in the 2008 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This distinction is further elaborated below, and for an elegant examination of other ambiguities arising from the usage of a capital “I”, see Nick Shepherd’s contribution to this volume.

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124  Paul J. Lane Lane, P. J. 2014. “Being ‘indigenous’ and being ‘colonized’ in Africa: Contrasting experiences and their implications for a postcolonial archaeology.” In Rethinking Colonial Pasts through Archaeology, edited by N. Ferris, R. Harrison, and M. V. Wilcox, 423–44. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Linderholm, A. 2011. “The genetics of the Neolithic transition: New light on differences between hunter-gatherers and farmers in southern Sweden.” In Human Bioarchaeology of the Transition to Agriculture, edited by R. Pinhasi, and J. T. Stock, 385–402. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Lynch, G. 2011. “Kenya’s new indigenes: Negotiating local identities in a global context.” Nations and Nationalism 17: 148–67. McCormack, F. 2011. “Levels of indigeneity: The Maori and neoliberalism.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 17: 281–300. McGhee, R. 2008. “Aboriginalism and the problems of indigenous archaeology.” American Antiquity 73: 579–97. McGhee, R. 2010. “Of strawmen, herrings, and frustrated expectations.” American Antiquity 75: 239–43. McNiven, I. J. 2016. “Theoretical challenges of Indigenous archaeology: Setting an agenda.” American Antiquity 81: 27–41. McNiven, I. J., and L. Russell. 2005. Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Malmström, H., A. Linderholm, P. Skoglund, J. Storå, P. Sjödin, M. T. P. Gilbert, G. Holmlund, E. Willerslev, M. Jakobsson, K. Lidén, and A. Götherström. 2015. “Ancient mitochondrial DNA from the northern fringe of the Neolithic farming expansion in Europe sheds light on the dispersion process.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 370, 20130373. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2013.0373. Merlan, F. 2007. “Indigeneity as relational identity: The construction of Australian land rights.” In Indigenous Experience Today, edited by M. de la Cadena, and O. Starn, 125–49. Oxford: Berg. Mulk, I. M. 2009. “Conflicts over the repatriation of Sámi cultural heritage in Sweden.” Acta Borealia 26: 194–215. Murray, T. 2011. “Archaeologists and indigenous people: A maturing relationship?” Annual Review of Anthropology 40: 363–78. Naryan, K. 1998. “How ‘native’ is a native anthropologist?” In Anthropological Journeys: Reflections on Fieldwork, edited by M. Thapan, 163–87. Hyderabad: Orient Longman. Ndahinda, F. M. 2011. Indigenousness in Africa: A Contested Legal Framework for Empowerment of ‘Marginalized’ Communities. London: Springer/T.M.C. Asser Press. Ndlovu, N. 2011. “Management versus preservation: Archaeological heritage management in a transforming South Africa.” Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 13: 123–33. Ndoro, W. 2006. The Preservation of Great Zimbabwe: Your Monument, Our Shrine. Rome: ICCROM Conservation Studies 4. Nicholas, G. P. 2010. “Seeking the end of Indigenous archaeology.” In Bridging the Divide: Indigenous Communities and Archaeology into the 21st Century, edited by C. Phillips, 232–52. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Nicholas, G. P., and T. Andrews, eds. 1997. At a Crossroads: Archaeology and First Peoples in Canada. Burnaby: SFU Archaeology Press.

Envisioning a different notion of “indigenous archaeology” 125 Ojala, C. G. 2009. Sámi Prehistories: The Politics of Archaeology and Identity in Northernmost Europe. Uppsala: Uppsala University. Ouzman, S. 2005. “Silencing and sharing of southern African indigenous and embedded knowledge.” In Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonizing Theory and Practice, edited by C. Smith, and H. M. Wobst, 208–25. London: Routledge. Pelican, M. 2009. “Complexities of indigeneity and autochthony: An African example.” American Ethnologist 36: 52–65. Phillips, C., ed. 2010. Bridging the Divide: Indigenous Communities and Archaeology into the 21st Century. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Pikirayi, I. 2014. “Sharing the past: Archaeology and community engagement in southern Africa.” In Sharing Archaeology: Academe, Practice and the Public, edited by P. Stone, and Z. Hui, 150–66. London: Routledge. Posnansky, M. 1982. “African archaeology comes of age.” World Archaeology 13: 345–58. Pwiti, G. 1996. “Let the ancestors rest in peace? New challenges for cultural heritage management in Zimbabwe.” Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 1: 151–60. Rika-Heke, M. 2010. “Archaeology and indigeneity in Aotearoa/New Zealand: Why do Maori not engage with archaeology?” In Bridging the Divide: Indigenous Communities and Archaeology into the 21st Century, edited by C. Phillips, 197–212. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Saugestad, S. 2001. The Inconvenient Indigenous: Remote Area Development in Botswana, Donor Assistance, and the First Peoples of the Kalahari. Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute. Saugestad, S. 2011. “Impact of international mechanisms on indigenous rights in Botswana.” International Journal of Human Rights 15: 37–61. Schmidt, P. R. 1995. “Using archaeology to remake African history.” In Making Alternative Histories: The Practice of Archaeology and History in Non-Western Settings, edited by P. R. Schmidt, and T. C. Patterson, 119–47. Santa Fe, NM: SAR Press. Schmidt, P. R., ed. 2009. Postcolonial Archaeologies in Africa. Santa Fe, NM: SAR Press. Schmidt, P. R. 2014. “Rediscovering community archaeology in Africa and reframing its practice.” Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage 1: 37–55. Segobye, A. K. 2006. “Divided commons: The political economy of Southern Africa’s cultural heritage landscapes – Observations of the central Kalahari game reserve, Botswana.” Archaeologies 2: 52–72. Segobye, A. K. 2009. “Between indigene and citizen: Locating the politics of the past in postcolonial southern Africa.” In Postcolonial Archaeologies in Africa, edited by P. R. Schmidt, 163–78. Santa Fe, NM: SAR Press. Shaw, T. B. 1976. “Changes in African archaeology in the last forty years.” In African Studies Since 1945: A Tribute to Basil Davidson, edited by C. Fyfe, 156–68. London: Longman. Shepherd, N. 2002. “The politics of archaeology in Africa.” Annual Review of Anthropology 31: 189–209. Shepherd, N. 2015. “Undisciplining archaeological ethics.” In After Ethics, Ethical Archaeologies: The Politics of Social Justice, edited by A. F. Haber, and N. Shepherd, 11–25. New York: Springer. Sillar, B. 2005. “Who’s indigenous? Whose archaeology?” Public Archaeology 4: 71–94.

126  Paul J. Lane Silliman, S. W. 2010 “The value and diversity of indigenous archaeology: A response to McGhee.” American Antiquity 75: 217–20. Smith, B., J. D. Lewis-Williams, G. Blundell, and C. Chippendale. 2000. “Archaeology and symbolism in the new South African coat of arms.” Antiquity 74: 467–8. Smith, C., and H. M. Wobst, eds. 2005. Indigenous Peoples and Archaeology: Decolonising Theory and Practice. New York and London: Routledge. Sobania, N. 1993. “Defeat and dispersal: The Laikipiak and their neighbours in the nineteenth century.” In Being Maasai: Ethnicity and Identity in East Africa, edited by T. Spear, and R. Waller, 105–19. London: James Currey. Sommer, G., and R. Vossen. 1993. “Dialects, sectiolects, or simply lects? The Maa language in time perspective.” In Being Maasai: Ethnicity and Identity in East Africa, edited by T. Spear, and R. Waller, 25–37. London: James Currey. Spear, T. 1997. Mountain Farmers: Moral Economies of Land and Agricultural Development in Arusha and Meru. Oxford: James Currey. Straight, B., P. J. Lane, C. Hilton, and M. Letua. 2015. “ ‘It was maendeleo that removed them’: Disturbing burials and reciprocal knowledge production in a context of collaborative archaeology.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 21: 391–418. Stump, D. S. 2010. “Ancient and backward or long-lived and sustainable: The role of the past in developmental debates in eastern Africa.” World Development 38: 1251–62. Stump, D. S. 2013. “On applied archaeology, indigenous knowledge, and the usable past.” Current Anthropology 54: 268–98. Sylvain, R. 2002. “ ‘Land, water, and truth’: San identity and global indigenism.” American Anthropologist 104: 1074–85. Thuen, T. 1995. Quest for Equity: Norway and the Saami Challenge. St. John’s: Memorial University of Newfoundland (Social and Economic Studies No. 55). United Nations. 2008. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Geneva: United Nations. Electronic document. Accessed September 25, 2013. http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf. Watkins, J. 2000. Indigenous Archaeology: American Indian Values and Scientific Practice. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press. Watkins, J. 2005. “Through wary eyes: Indigenous perspectives on archaeology.” Annual Review of Anthropology 34: 429–49. Wilcox, M. 2010. “Saving indigenous peoples from ourselves: Separate but equal archaeology is not scientific archaeology.” American Antiquity 75: 221–7. Yeh, E. T. 2007. “Tibetan indigeneity: Translations, resemblances, and uptake.” In Indigenous Experience Today, edited by M. de la Cadena, and O. Starn, 69–97. Oxford: Berg.

9 Who is indigenous? Migration theories and notions of indigeneity in Southern African archaeology Edward Matenga Archaeology in Southern Africa1 evolved under colonialism, serving as one of the tools for constructing “identities” for the subject peoples. Colonialism was about control and exploitation of resources; the urge to control knowledge and information as resources per se was part of the same crusade. These attitudes of control have persisted in postcolonial thought. Archaeology in particular has suffered a double knock: it is treated as a hard-core science that is comprehended by only a few educated elites, and, therefore, is rarely made available to the public as general knowledge, despite its potential to shed critical light on a past that is considered “dark”, largely because of the absence of written sources. From colonial days onwards, archaeology was monopolized by elites, who were privileged by the new order and, in turn, felt obligated to take interpretive positions in support of the ideology of colonial power. In Southern Africa, which was the last region in the world to be freed from colonial hegemony in the second half of the last century, thinking frameworks of the now-extinct empires continue to promote inertia. Thus, to a large extent, archaeological practice continues to reflect imperial leverage with unchanging theoretical frameworks, which are inaccessible to many and the pastime of only a few elites. The discipline remains largely unrepresented in mainstream curricula in schools and universities. In South Africa and Zimbabwe, for instance, archaeology is studied only in universities, 12/13 years through the learning program. This delayed entry is indeed surprising in countries with an incredible wealth of resources, ranging from the ubiquitous San Rock paintings to dry-stone structures of the Great Zimbabwe architectural tradition. In this region, archaeology attracts a large number of amateur practitioners. Almost always, these amateur practitioners come from the upper classes, such as those who have done well in business or similar professions. Public archaeological discourse takes place in conferences, to which a small community of practitioners in the region and recognized experts from overseas are invited. This esotericism was molded by colonialism and has persisted. Following the discussion by Lane in the previous chapter (cf. also the chapter by Ndlovu), this chapter critically examines unchanging interpretations of rock-art as representing the primordial origins of the San (Bushmen)2

128  Edward Matenga in Southern Africa and pottery traditions as exemplifying relatively recent intrusions of Bantu speakers into the region. Migration streams taking place no more than 2,000 years ago are postulated on the basis of radiocarbon dates and typological classification of pottery (Blundell 2004; Eastwood and Smith 2005; Huffman 1970, 2005, 2007; Phillipson 1977, 2005). In 2012, a commercial produced in South Africa by the fast-food franchise Nando’s ruffled feathers in political circles, even though it might have been intended as light humor, or a marketing gimmick. The commercial insinuated that all ethnic groups, except the San, are foreigners in South Africa and must leave the country – “go back to where you came from!”3 It is not difficult to see that the message resonates with the overarching political theory that the “true” indigenes of the region are the San, who were (presumably) pushed into marginal lands by intruding and later immigrants – the Bantu – and, accordingly, “victim” and “foreigner” labels are applied to the former and latter, respectively. This stock perception of ethnohistory in the Southern African region permeates public literature, especially popular guidebooks sought by overseas visitors (e.g. Briggs and Edmunds 2007: 5–6). A “conflict theory” is posited and sustained by archaeology as a fundamental law of who does and does not belong. However, as emerging democratic spaces are expected to nurture critical debate, we must now question these archaeologically generated concepts of regional citizenship using a postcolonial critique. Notions of what constitutes indigenousness reside in a contested field – archaeology – where angels fear to tread. Archaeological writing on the precolonial peoples of Southern Africa is a conflictual meeting place for politics of empires, ethnicity and belonging. In academia, there are many potential risks in researching this subject, including being declared an academic pariah. Today, the dismissive term, “archaeological revisionism”, describes any attempt to rethink the San–Bantu dichotomy (Blundell 2004: 23–4). To understand the degree of entrenchment, these theories have been in circulation for more than a century. One has to look at the production/ consumption chain. Whatever their origin, ideas often become grand theories once they find their way into institutions of higher learning where they receive the stamp of authority and are disseminated by professors. In colonial situations, and perhaps elsewhere, universities are respected as factories of knowledge to the extent that they are political entities and part of the establishment. Their judgment is beyond reproach. When theories move from the experts to the public, they morph into general knowledge or general theories on cultural history. The producer of a guide to Mozambique who asserts as an a priori fact that the present populations (not so long ago) originated in West Africa must therefore be forgiven (Briggs and Edmunds 2007: 5–6). Given the political angle at which this subject is pitched, to ask “What is indigenousness?” is to court controversy. To ask “Who is indigenous?”

Who is indigenous? 129 is to escalate the controversy. Furthermore, to point out those who are supposedly “truly indigenous”, smacks of resentment and intolerance of others. When conducting a street survey, one is likely to get different answers or reactions. In short, these are very sensitive questions, which in the prevailing political mood are better left unasked. Yet, even though colonial archaeology is at liberty to explore these questions, it offers only self-serving general theories. To unravel the subtle discourses on the peopling of Southern Africa, which were nurtured both during and after the end of the empires, I attempt to approach these questions here without emotion. Archaeology purports to provide a basis for reconstructing culture histories based on sound material evidence. Yet, in the San–Bantu dichotomy, ultimately the outcome has been the portrayal of autochthony/indigeneity and migration as “conflicting” opposites based on the interpretation of evidence in a monolithic framework, which has not tolerated other possible alternative interpretations. In the following critique, I deplore the persistent prostitution of the discipline to make veiled political statements on legitimacy and citizenship of Southern Africa’s indigenous populations.

The San Southern Africa’s human history spans more than three million years, and there is no evidence that there was a break in occupation during that period (Gramly 1978: 108). Hominid sites and their fossil remains are largely confined to dolomite caves on the highveld in the Gauteng, Limpopo and Northwest Provinces of South Africa (Deacon and Lancaster 1986). The Stone Age, which began more than 2 million years ago, marks a more diagnostic beginning of the cultural sequence divided into three epochs: the Early, Middle and Late Stone Age. Stone and bone implements manifest the technology of the period and fall into distinct typologies indicating chronological development. The Late Stone Age is also associated with the execution of paintings and engravings, mostly in rock shelters and caves, and rock engravings. The whole Southern African region is replete with painted sites, estimated to number more than 30,000 (Garlake 1995; Figure 9.1). Indeed, the bulk of the paintings can be traced to the San hunter-gatherers throughout their archaeological existence. By extrapolation, they are proposed as the practitioners of the entire Stone Age sequence. The view that the San were the first people in Southern Africa is accepted in most literature as an a priori fact. In a current affairs debate aired on 11 December 2015 by SAfm, the premier radio station of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), many interesting propositions were made, including the portrayal of the San as the first people to inhabit the region. One of the panelists and the program anchor then asked the proponent whether “first” meant “earliest”.

130  Edward Matenga

Figure 9.1 Diana’s Vow cave paintings, 30 km north of Rusape, Zimbabwe, show a variety of figures including humans, a dog and non-diagnostic figures. The paintings are evidence of the wide distribution or movement of the San in the ancient past. Paintings in Zimbabwe are mostly executed on granite in caves and rock shelters (Photo courtesy of Paul Hubbard, Zimbabwe)

With this particular slant, many critical elements of San rock-art have not been emphasized, and it is necessary to highlight them here. First, there is a lack of definitive literature on the distribution of rock-art. To my knowledge, rock paintings are found in a large swathe of territories from Uganda through Tanzania to the Cape Province in South Africa, and from Tanzania in the east through Malawi to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Angola in the west. The high frequency of kudu in Zimbabwe and eland in South Africa seems to suggest different emphases in different areas. Such variations have not been studied in detail. An archaeologist may construct several scenarios including the existence of San communities in the whole area at some time in the past and/or movements of the San (when and in which direction?) in the region. Furthermore, it is likely that any such wide distribution at a particular time would mean different languages and many other variations in culture across the region. Yet, archaeological writing has puzzlingly avoided direct reference

Who is indigenous? 131 to “origins”, migrations and differentiation of the painters, but has the confidence to assert autochthony and primordial status. However, we see these parameters being applied to other Southern African populations such as the Bantu. To begin with, the Khoi-Khoi (Hottentots),4 the San’s close ethnic affiliates, also encountered by the Europeans in the Cape region of South Africa, have not been accorded the same primordial status (Boonzaier et al. 1996). As already mentioned above, studies of the San have concentrated heavily on the interpretation of the symbolism, meaning and function of rock-art (Lewis-Williams and Smith 2008; Vinnicombe 1976; Figures 9.2–9.3). It is here that academic imagination has been quite fertile. In the mainstream view, rock-art is one of the manifestations of a shamanistic tradition supposedly peculiar to the San in which trance is the climax of a series of ritual actions. Functionality resides in the ability of the practitioners to make rain and bountiful kills during hunting expeditions. But more importantly for this chapter, I see little or no academic interest in the nature of contact and influence of the San on other peoples or vice versa in the region. In light of these issues, I here present the typical arguments in the archaeological reconstruction of the Bantu.

Figure 9.2 Shanje cave paintings, Matobo National Park and World Heritage, show a snake, human figures and kudu (Photo courtesy of Paul Hubbard, Zimbabwe)

132  Edward Matenga

Figure 9.3 Inange polychrome cave paintings, Matobo National Park and World Heritage, show giraffes and other animals, and non-diagnostic rectangles (Photo courtesy of Paul Hubbard, Zimbabwe)

The Bantu Iron Age culture, according to current theory, supplanted the Stone Age in the third or fourth century AD and introduced farming and the use of metals and pottery. There has been a considerable amount of scholarly research on the Bantu, straddling archaeology, anthropology and linguistics, all with the aim of proving a rapid flow of the Bantu from West Africa into Eastern and Southern Africa. If this is a conspiracy, its godfather was Sir Harry Johnston, a British explorer, botanist and colonial bureaucrat. In the service of British Empire, he was posted on conquest missions to Nigeria (1887) and then to Malawi (1889). Indeed, Sir Harry’s eyes were attracted by many things and so, further to the occupations stated above, he delved into the Bantu puzzle. In a paper read to the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1913, he visualized hordes of Bantu invaders spreading across Southern Africa (Johnston 1913: 391–2). This set the tone for many later scholars who sought to use archaeological and linguistic tools to substantiate the Bantu migration and conquest hypothesis. A list of these scientific efforts is long, and I cite the following works as a sample: Greenberg (1963), Guthrie (1967), Oliver (1970),

Who is indigenous? 133 Huffman (1970, 2007), Soper (1971), Phillipson (1977, 2005), Ehret (1982) and Collett (1982, 1985). Scholars have analyzed existing archaeological evidence using various models, the earliest attempts of which arrived at the conclusion that a sudden appearance of these technologies occurred in Eastern and Southern Africa, suggesting a fairly “rapid movement” (Phillipson 2005: 265) of people from a source in West Africa (Cameroon and Nigeria) into Eastern and Southern Africa (Huffman 2005: 331). Pottery, even though broken into sherds, has a high survival rate, and has been a handy means for characterizing and identifying archaeological traditions within the broad iron-using culture and for further isolating geographical variations, which have been called facies (Evers 1988). Typological classifications rely largely on shape and decoration similarities and variations. Together with radiocarbon dates, which have been obtained from several sites, it has been possible to reconstruct a picture of the chronological and spatial development of Iron Age traditions. The cultural continuum has been called Chifumbaze after a site in northern Mozambique (Phillipson 2005). Generally, the term has become synonymous with the postulated Bantu migrations. Analyzing samples of pottery in the region, archaeologists have come to the conclusion that two southbound migration streams took place at the same time: Kalundu, the western stream taking a direct route south from West Africa; and Urewe-Kwale, the eastern stream, approaching the subcontinent via eastern Africa (Phillipson 2005; Huffman 2007). Archaeological scholars have gone further to seek corroboration of relatively rapid movements from linguistic studies. So, a hypothesis which brings together archaeology and linguistics declared that: the geographical distribution of the Chifumbaze complex is almost identical with the area occupied in more recent times (sic) by people speaking languages of the closely interrelated Bantu type. This observation lends support to the widely accepted belief that this complex represents the archaeological manifestation of the initial eastward and southward dispersal of Bantu speakers [from the north] beyond the equatorial forest. (Phillipson 2005: 261, citing Ehret 1998; Ehret and Posnasky 1982) Bantu has been adopted as the collective term for a large family of interrelated languages in Central, Eastern and Southern Africa, numbering approximately 400 and with a spoken base of about 250 million people. According to Phillipson, there can be no doubt that the present wide distribution of Bantu languages with a “remarkable degree of inter-comprehensibility” is a result of dispersal from a localized ancestral language within the comparatively recent past, certainly within the last 3,000 or 4,000 years (Phillipson 2005).

134  Edward Matenga What I have termed the San–Bantu conflict hypothesis is described by one of the most distinguished scholars of “Bantu archaeology” as: the final absorption, conquest and displacement of stone-tool using hunting peoples in south-central Africa [by] the expanding [Bantu] population of the early second millennium, which was marked by increased emphasis on herding of domestic animals, notably cattle. (Phillipson 2005: 266) In a preface to his book The Hunter’s Vision, the late Peter Garlake, an authority on Zimbabwean rock-art, views the San–Bantu relationship through the same lens (Garlake 1995: 8): Only pitiful, scattered and fragmented remnants of San communities survived into this century in Zimbabwe. The process by which San societies that once flourished throughout Zimbabwe were extinguished – through development, adaptation, absorption or by being driven from farmlands of the highveld, have not yet been traced by historians. The San are popularly known as “Bushmen”. As this very name makes clear, they were people long reviled by black5 and white6 alike: the foreigners7 who invaded their territories killed the game on which they depended and in the end destroyed their societies. During the last three hundred years the San in South Africa were enslaved and killed – men, women and children – in systematic campaigns of extermination as shameful as any the world has known. This narrative is pregnant with many hidden connotations – bundling blacks and whites together as “foreigners”. It suggests that the San people are not “black” people. Furthermore, it is clear testimony of tenuous attempts by academics to project the colonial atrocities against the San of the last four centuries into the remote past, postulating a long-running San–Bantu conflict, and in so doing indicting the blacks for a crime that they probably never committed. To cap it all, archaeologists say that the southbound movement of the Bantu was still underway at the time of European settlement in the seventeenth century (Gramly 1978: 107). This introduces another dynamic into the equation: seen in this light, the claim to citizenship rights of the Bantu is no stronger than that of the “northwards” migrating Europeans (“Whites”), nor is the claim of the Europeans any weaker. I need to emphasize the term “northwards” here, since the Cape of Good Hope (Cape Town) is the supposed origin of the European expansion, and not the starting point overseas. This is the reference point, which seems to fix the beginning of time and the place of origin for the European expansion in Southern Africa, the so-called “Great Trek”.

Who is indigenous? 135

Discussion After Johnston painted the scenario of hordes of southbound migrants, the Bantu migration theory initially received impetus from a number of scholarly works (Collett 1985; Phillipson 1977; Soper 1971). Studies of pottery variations and radiocarbon dates underpin the evidence, which has been accepted as scientifically valid. However, most Africanist scholars have shifted ground from the “rapid movement” scenario. There has also been a swing to the far left – considered radical – for a “no-movement” scenario, whereby cultural traits were diffused at different times into a pre-existing Indigenous population (Gramly 1978: 111–12). In Gramly’s view, people of Negroid stock have been in the region for longer than can be comprehended in archaeological terms. Overall, current theoretical positions support a gradual expansion or spread of populations of speakers of Bantu languages from a source or sources in the north from around the beginning of the first millennium AD. This brings us to the issue of terminology used to describe origins in Southern Africa. In my view, most of the key terminologies in San and Bantu studies have been corrupted, and it is futile trying to get rid of infective connotations and stereotypes – indigenous people, migrants, invaders, movement, spread or diffusion. It is difficult to find a word which is neutral. The more important issue is to try to address the political questions that arise from the stereotypes. The scientific classification of people supposedly on the basis of linguistics and physical anthropology has “constructed” mutually exclusive groups – the San and Bantu. The former are regarded as the true indigenes, and supposedly almost extinct. The latter are seen as (archaeological) “immigrants” (Eastwood and Smith 2005: 64, 73, 74; Jolly 2005: 86). It is noted that the San have not had the opportunity to write their own history, as Blundell has poignantly observed (Blundell 2005). Instead “others” (non-San) have appointed themselves the task and have come up with ethno-racial classification schemes. Yet, we know that perceptions of the (external) classifier may not necessarily be the same as those of the classified. The classifier has emphasized conflict and ethnic, even racial, difference between the Bantu and the San. In so doing, maybe they have created a serious blind spot around commonalities in the way the two groups, for instance, intermarried and had linguistic intercourse and other cultural and technological exchanges or cooperation (Blundell 2005: 2; Jolly 2005: 93). This is clearly evident in the assimilation of the click syllables of the San into southern Bantu languages such as isiXhosa, isiZulu, isiSwati, isiNdebele and seSotho. Race and ethnicity are social and political constructs of the last 500 years of contact with Europeans. To pose a question: Did the San and the Bantu think themselves to be or act as different races in terms of the modern functionality of such a classification? It is my view that scholars have imposed racial or ethnic perceptions as they prevail today to postulate scenarios of

136  Edward Matenga difference, hostile contact and even subjugation. Yet, all evidence points to the contrary. The later paintings of Southern Africa, largely attributed to the San and sometimes also executed by their Bantu neighbors, rarely depict scenes of conflict, confrontation or violence. Not that these things did not happen, but looking at the evidence squarely in archaeological terms, it is reasonable to conclude that conquest and conflict along the San–Bantu divide as postulated in archaeology is not supported by evidence. Archaeology must be freed from the prevailing biases. There is genetic evidence of the mixing of the peoples of Southern Africa, which has resulted in the genetic footprint we see today, the mixed descendants of the so-called Bantu and San who inhabit these lands. On the cultural front, there is material evidence for integration and multilateral exchanges involving household utilities and domestic animals. If the conquest theory is to be believed, linguistic influence of the San languages on Bantu languages, such as isiZulu, isiXhosa and seSotho, would present an inverted scenario of the stock perception of the subjugated San. There is overwhelming evidence for the natural integration of the two supposedly disparate groups. These people have inherited aspects from both the San and Bantu gene pools, and this hybridization appears to have taken place over several millennia, not two millennia. The San–Bantu dichotomy exists only in the imagination of archaeologists and must be dismissed. Archaeological nomenclature with subtle connotations of how we conceptualize space and time, such as “migration”/“immigrants” and “autochthonous”/“indigenous” are supposedly given credence by rock-art studies, pottery analyses and radiocarbon dates. One wonders whether the San have been in Southern Africa from the beginning of time and so the terminology “migration” does not apply. What minimum time of residence in an area is required to get the stamp of “autochthonous” citizenship? Archaeologists have been uncritical in the application of this terminology; political expediency seems to underlie the contextual meanings that have developed. Paintings ascribed to the San are found in the vast swathe of territory from the Democratic Republic of Congo–Uganda–Tanzania in central and eastern Africa all the way to the Cape (South Africa). If this wide distribution is evidence of settlement or movement, who decides how much time of permanent residence is necessary to qualify for autochthony? If we rewind 10,000 years, we know little about the “original” frontiers of these groups. Supposing that the groups are “indigenous”8 to Africa, what archaeological parameters can be used to determine where their original frontiers were at different times, whether frontier was any issue at all or if there are other parameters in which space and time can be defined. Boundaries are an elusive construct; there are many kinds of social and spatial boundaries. In Southern Africa, colonial boundaries carry so much weight that they appear to be primordial; yet, none are older than 150 years. It is a possible scenario that some societies of the ancient past may have regarded the vast expanse of continental land as a common boundless habitat and that relocation from A to B was not so much a “migration” as a choice of location. There is a

Who is indigenous? 137 danger that the colonially imposed scenario of territorial boundaries has been telescoped to construct parochial models, which delineate San/Bantu territories. My contention is that all the people of Africa are “indigenous” to Africa as it is difficult to imagine that the Bantu or San could have had another home outside of the African homeland in which they are found. This point was alluded to by Gramly in his critique of the Bantu migration hypothesis. In other words, any particular location in that vast homeland or habitat does not accord any special privilege of indigeneity and does not really matter (so long as we are operating outside the colonial thinking framework). Yet, it is now difficult to use the same terminology – indigenous – to make this assertion without taking on board the baggage of the colonial corruption of an otherwise innocuous word. In the service of the colonial imperative, archaeology as an academic discipline has been inflected, ever inward-looking and offering little opportunity for comparative analysis. The interrelatedness of languages over a large area is not something unique to Eastern and Southern Africa. The Slavic, Latin and Germanic language families also possess a pool of common rootwords and grammatical uniformities over large areas. Yet, these similarities have not pointed to recent epic migrations like the ones postulated in Eastern and Southern Africa. No wonder that some scholars see the Bantu migration hypothesis as a grand imperial conspiracy to deny the majority of Africans full citizenship rights as natives of Southern Africa. So, the question arises: If these Africans are not indigenous to Africa, then to where are they indigenous?

Notes 1 South Africa and Southern Africa are geographical terms which appear in this chapter. South Africa is the country situated at the southern tip of the Southern African subcontinent. Southern Africa is a subcontinent or sub-region located south of the equator and comprises several countries including Malawi, Zambia, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland and South Africa. 2 This terminology has been dropped as it perpetuates negative stereotypes. 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R7vu9SuxaQ. Accessed March 15, 2016. 4 This terminology has negative connotations and has been dropped. 5 “Black” refers to Bantu-speaking communities. 6 “White” refers to people of European descent. 7 Italics are my emphasis. 8 For the lack of an alternative word, I am using the word “indigenous” in quotes to imply settlement in an area over several millennia.

References Blundell, G. 2004. Nqabayo’s Nomansland: San Rock Art and the Somatic Past. Uppsala: Uppsala University. Blundell, G. 2005. “Introduction: Three focus areas of current Southern African rock art research.” In Further Approaches to Southern African Rock Art, edited by G. Blundell, 1–2. Vlaeberg: South African Archaeological Society.

138  Edward Matenga Boonzaier, E., C. Malherbe, P. Berens, and A. Smith. 1996. The Cape Herders: A History of the Khoikhoi of Southern Africa. Cape Town: Ohio University Press and David Philip. Briggs, P., and D. Edmunds. 2007. The Brandt Travel Guide to Mozambique (Fourth Edition). London: Brandt Travel Guides. Collett, D. P. 1982. “Models of the spread of the Early Iron Age.” In The Archaeological and Linguistic Reconstruction of African History, edited by C. Ehret, and M. Posnansky, 182–98. Berkeley: University of California Press. Collett, D. P. 1985. “The Spread of Early Iron-Producing Communities in Eastern and Southern Africa.” PhD dissertation, Cambridge University. Deacon, J., and N. Lancaster. 1986. Late Quaternary Palaeoenvironments of Southern Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Eastwood, E. B., and B. W. Smith. 2005. “Finger prints of the Khoekhoen: Geometric and hand-printed Rock Art in the central Limpopo Basin, Southern Africa.” In Further Approaches to Southern African Rock Art, edited by G. Blundell, 63–76. Vlaeberg: South African Archaeological Society. Ehret, C. 1982. “Linguistic inferences about early Bantu history.” In The Archaeological and Linguistic Reconstruction of African History, edited by C. Ehret, and D. Nurse, 57–65. Los Angeles and London: University of California Press. Ehret, C. 1998. An African Classical Age: Eastern and Southern Africa in World History, 1000 BC to AD 400. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Ehret, C., and M. Posnasky, eds. 1982. The Archaeological and Linguistic Reconstruction of African History. Berkley: University of California Press. Evers, T. M. 1988. “Recognition of Groups in the Iron Age of Southern Africa.” PhD dissertation, University of Witwatersrand. Garlake, P. S. 1995. The Hunter’s Vision: The Prehistoric Art of Zimbabwe. Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House. Gramly, R. M. 1978. “Expansion of bantu Speakers versus development of Bantu language and African culture in situ: An archaeologist’s perspective.” South African Archaeological Bulletin 33: 107–12. Greenberg, J. H. 1963. The Languages of Africa. The Hague: Mouton. Guthrie, M. 1967. The Classification of Bantu Languages. London: International African Institute. Huffman, T. N. 1970. “The Early Iron Age and the spread of the Bantu.” South African Archaeological Bulletin 25: 3–21. Huffman, T. N. 2005. “The stylistic origins of Bambata and the spread of mixed farming on southern Africa.” Southern African Humanities 17: 57–79. Huffman, T. N. 2007. Handbook to the Iron Age: The Archaeology of Pre-Colonial Farming Societies in Southern Africa. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. Johnston, H. H. 1913. “A survey of the ethnography of Africa and the former racial and tribal migrations of that continent.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 43: 375–421. Jolly, P. 2005. “Sharing symbols: A correspondence in the ritual dress of black farmers and the southeastern San.” In Further Approaches to Southern African Rock Art, edited by G. Blundell, 86–100. Vlaeberg: South African Archaeological Society. Lewis-Williams, D., and B. Smith. 2008. Reservoirs of Potency: The Documentary Paintings of Stephen Townley Bassett. Johannesburg: Rock Art Institute, University of the Witwatersrand.

Who is indigenous? 139 Oliver, R. A. 1970. “The problem of the Bantu expansion.” In Papers in African Prehistory, edited by J. D. Fage, and R. A. Oliver, 141–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Phillipson, D. W. 1977. The later Prehistory of Eastern and Southern Africa. London: Heinemann. Phillipson, D. W. 2005. African Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Soper, R. 1971. “A general review of the Early Iron Age of the southern half of Africa.” Azania 6: 5–37. Vinnicombe, P. 1976. People of the Eland: Rock Paintings of the Drakensberg Bushmen as a Reflection of their Life and Thought. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.

10 Reading indigeneity without race Color, representation and uncertainty in photographic evidence Celmara Pocock Indigenous perspectives are obscured in or absent from the colonial archives, reflecting both attitudes to indigenous peoples and the limited ability of subjugated peoples to represent themselves. Recovering Indigenous pasts from such written records is therefore challenging and often relies on dispersed and fragmentary sources. Photographic images are increasingly recognized as a complementary and alternative source of information that can provide insights into the otherwise unknown or unrecorded lives and circumstances of indigenous people. However, the ways in which indigenous people are read into these historic images, especially in settler societies such as Australia, is largely dependent on the recognition of physical differences. In other words, the recognition of indigenous people in imagery often depends on observations of skin color and physiognomy and continues a visual dichotomy of “Us” and “Them”. The problems and social consequences of racial classification based on physical attributes, especially skin color, are well known. However, in the context of reading the past through imagery, we often rely on the identification of physical characteristics to identify indigenous subjects. This raises issues for those who might be considered to be indigenous because individuals’ cultural identities are often unrelated to, and can be misrepresented by, skin color. Thus, the reliance on skin color to determine indigeneity has implications for the representations and recognition of indigenous peoples today and in the future. Using images from early Great Barrier Reef scientific and holiday expeditions, I illustrate some of the challenges of reading Australian Aboriginal1 identities in photographs, including where Aboriginal people have (or may have) been used to represent an Other that is not necessarily consistent with their own self-identity.

Reading indigenous history through photographs Photographs have proven to be a very powerful medium for recovering Indigenous histories obscured, neglected and deliberately omitted from

Reading indigeneity without race 141 written historical records. While simplistic readings of photographs can perpetuate existing stereotypes or lead to misinterpretation, careful analysis can reveal understandings of Indigenous experiences unavailable through other sources. These sometimes radical reinterpretations can return status to the disempowered, become a site of remembering and create new narratives about the past. The power and unique insight offered by photographs is underpinned by the persistent perception that photographs capture a form of external reality (despite the growing ease with which digital images can be manipulated). This perception that photographs have the capacity to provide impartial evidence or support irrefutable fact makes them an attractive source of historical information. Photographs are especially useful where there is an absence of written records for particular events, people or places. Photographs that capture images of the marginalized and disempowered have thus become an invaluable heritage resource. They are valuable to researchers because of their ability to provide new evidence of events, places and people, and can illustrate and confirm what is already known from other sources. Moreover, photographs are able to connect communities to the past, to family and to their sense of identity (e.g. Blaikie 2001). This comes in part from the strong notion of contact evoked by photographs: there remains a tangible connection between the photographic subject and the photographic image (cf. Sontag 1973; Taussig 1993: 200–1). The authoritative nature of photography and its role as an agent of colonialism, in particular its tendency to produce essentialized representations of the Other, have been widely critiqued. Photographic assemblages of different human groups formed part of a wider colonial scientific practice of collecting. Collecting photographs of indigenous “types”, along with artefacts, artworks and human remains, can be likened to the collecting of animal and plant species, in which specimens were ordered into an evolutionary framework. In the case of cultures, collecting focused on those societies that were seen as vestiges of earlier human development (cf. Tylor 1871) and who were also thought to be doomed to extinction. Photographs formed an important part of these collecting practices (Blaikie 2001; Gupta and Ferguson 1992; Smith 2003), and many of the images were staged to portray indigenous people in particular adopted poses and cultural objects that signified European understandings of essentialized cultures (e.g. Albers and James 1983). Aboriginal people were thus photographed in these highly staged ways, with dress, artefacts and backdrop carefully composed to portray Aboriginal people as an essentialized group. Nicolas Peterson (2005) argues that photographs can serve as both illustration and evidence of colonial attitudes. He suggests that when photographs are used to illustrate something, they function to support a preexisting attitude or narrative, but when an image is used as evidence, it validates the nature of something. Images can act as illustration and evidence simultaneously, and may oscillate between these roles in different

142  Celmara Pocock temporal contexts. Thus, Peterson argues that photographs that were once used to illustrate a particular narrative in a colonial context can be reread in the present as evidence of something else (Peterson 2005: 11). Peterson’s analysis of family represented in photographs of Aboriginal people is one such study. He shows how photographs of Aboriginal people circulated widely through postcards drew not on the similarities of life-long partnerships between men and women as married couples, but on the unsettling and destabilizing notion of polygyny and its association with primitiveness. In other words, the original context served to highlight the otherness of Aboriginal people, but a reanalysis of the images can reveal the similarity between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal family structures. However, while Blaikie (2001) suggests that photographs of family groups in the Scottish Islands have been used to support the idea that island life was characterized by stable communities, they have also ignored the knowledge that some photographic subjects have not always remained on the islands, that some returned only temporarily and that others are absent altogether. While Blaikie (2001: 363) cautions that the capacity of photographs to be reinterpreted makes them particularly vulnerable to invention and fabrication, it is this same capacity for reinterpretation that has made them a powerful and empowering source in Indigenous heritage (e.g. Conor and Lydon 2011; Kleinert 2006; Lydon 2006, 2010a, 2010b, 2012, 2013; Macdonald 2003; Peterson 2005; Pinney and Peterson 2003). Peterson (2005: 24) suggests that the popular conception that photographs capture the world as it is – that they do not transform objects but merely present them to us – ignores the social and political circumstances surrounding the creation of images. The challenge for the researcher is thus to adopt an openly reflexive position that acknowledges that both history and photography are produced in context and are thus inherently “provisional and negotiable” (Blaikie 2001: 363). In other words, our analyses should be capable of recognizing and deconstructing invented traditions and staged authenticity, but also recognize coexistent and contradictory Indigenous readings. Rather than being authoritative, photography is thus understood as being flexible and open to interpretation. This leads to the possibility of multiple and varied readings and rereadings of historical photographs (Kleinert 2006: 70). Despite the inherent weaknesses of the photographic record, skillful scholarship demonstrates the many nuanced ways of (re)reading historic photographs that can empower those who have been marginalized from dominant and official histories. This is important for heritage studies, which increasingly turns to such sources to support, refute or negotiate new understandings of the past. There is a growing and substantial body of research in Australia that seeks to reinterpret, recontextualize and repatriate photographs of Australian Aboriginal people (e.g. Conor and Lydon 2011; Kleinert 2006; Lydon 2006, 2010a, 2010b, 2012, 2013; Macdonald 2003; Peterson 2005; Pinney and Peterson 2003). Scholars such as Lydon, Peterson, Smith and Kleinert have analyzed images to reveal the dynamics of

Reading indigeneity without race 143 historical encounters between Europeans and Australian Aboriginal people, the circumstances of photographic production, the context of receiving and reading photographs, and the active participation of Indigenous subjects in the creation of images. Even though photographs created in the colonial era were rarely created for the purpose of empowering Aboriginal people, recent analyses of these images have the potential to make a valuable contribution to Aboriginal history and heritage (Lydon 2013) and have become powerful objects and historical sources in the formulation of self-identity in the present. Many photographs of Aboriginal people are used in this way to read both colonial attitudes and Aboriginal resistance to colonial subjugation. Jane Lydon (2013) demonstrates how archival photographs amassed during Australia’s colonial era gain new meaning in the present for Aboriginal people. She suggests that historical images can be reinterpreted and recontextualized to facilitate a wider understanding of Aboriginal experience among non-Aboriginal people. A particularly potent aspect of research into historical photographs is the (re)connection it fosters between the photographic subject and kinship networks. Blaikie’s study of photographic representations of people from the Scottish Islands show how photographic subjects are used in the present as a means of “reckoning of kin” (Blaikie 2001: 354). Similarly, photographs of ancestors, family groups and individuals are important to present-day extended Aboriginal kinship networks. Photographs offer people a connectedness with their past and identity. A number of studies suggest that historical, archival and contemporary images play a central role in Aboriginal constructions of family and self today (Bradley et al. 2014; Kleinert 2006; Lydon 2013; Macdonald 2003; Smith 2003, 2008). Smith, for example, argues that images are themselves an extension of Aboriginal personhood. Historic images, as much as images of the living, are drawn into a way of understanding the Aboriginal self that is plural and consistent with distributed personhood (Smith 2003: 2008). Historic photographs can thus strengthen continuity between past and present as an affirmation of Aboriginal identity. Lydon (2013) argues persuasively that historic images play an important role in Indigenous heritage, where images are used to reconstruct family history, document culture and express connections to place. Photographs are thus a significant heritage resource for relatives and descendants of Aboriginal photographic subjects (Aird 2003; Bradley et al. 2014; Lydon 2013). The rereading of historical images in the present can therefore produce and maintain symbolic relationships and material evidence of the past. They enable Aboriginal people to express and maintain connections with identity and family, and can provide evidence of these relationships in a form understood by legal and administrative systems, where Aboriginal people are required by the state to demonstrate their rights to land and heritage. And importantly, photographs enable Aboriginal people to negotiate their own sociality in time and space (Bradley et al. 2014; Macdonald 2003; Smith

144  Celmara Pocock 2003, 2008). Photographs have helped to reunite fractured families and heal a sense of self for individuals removed from their families under government policies of segregation and assimilation (Macdonald 2003; Peterson 2005: 11; Smith 2003: 9, 11).

Skin color as a marker of indigeneity These nuanced and insightful reinterpretations of historic photographs are thus invaluable to Indigenous people. However, the initial analysis often relies on outmoded understandings of cultural identity. Most of the studies already mentioned are based on close collaborations with descendants and extended family and community members of photographic subjects, and it is through oral history and discussion about photographs that the identity of individual subjects can be made, confirmed or corrected (Blaikie 2001; Bradley et al. 2014). It is only through this process that we can reliably identify Aboriginal subjects and reposition them in time and space, and ultimately reinstate them in kinship networks. Where images are sourced from personal family collections and there is a strong uninterrupted connection with the photographic subject, information and connection are most reliably maintained. However, such context is not always available. The poverty and displacement of Aboriginal people throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has not always been conducive to the maintenance of historic photographs within families. More importantly, the earliest photographs were, on the whole, not created by or for Aboriginal people, but rather were formed as colonial collections that created a currency and circulation of images beyond and separated from the photographic subjects and their wider kinship groups. Specific cultural context and individual identity were largely irrelevant within such collections. Many images therefore exist in public collections or other dispersed and decontextualized archives unknown to the communities of origin. It is for this reason that repatriation of historic photographs to Aboriginal communities of origin has become an important and emotional practice (Aird 2003; Bradley et al. 2014; Lydon 2010b; Macdonald 2003). Prior to any such repatriation, however, the Aboriginal subject matter of photographs must be determined. Photographs discovered during archival research may initially be determined as relating to Aboriginal groups on the basis of limited documentary information or family involvement. Some images are captioned to indicate that the subject is Aboriginal, and in fewer cases still individuals are named. Where captions exist, researchers may rely on the collector’s identification of Aboriginal subjects, though there are several examples that indicate this information can be inaccurate (e.g. Blaikie 2001; Bradley et al. 2014). However, not all images are captioned or include biographical information. Some may have geographic information, generic titles such as “black”, “native” or “aborigine”. Some may have no information at all. However, researchers may nevertheless determine Aboriginal

Reading indigeneity without race 145 subjects with considerable certainty because Aboriginal people are assumed to be identifiable by their physical appearance and signifying context and cultural objects. For instance, Peterson (2005) notes how group portraits are often placed within a “natural setting” or near housing that emphasizes “primitiveness” and poverty. However, it is physical characteristics, particularly skin color and physiognomy, that are most commonly assumed to be indicative of cultural identity. In his analysis of different family groups, Peterson (2005) identifies a number of individuals and families by name. Other individuals remain anonymous, and it is assumed that no family connection or individual identities had been determined at the time of publication. These individuals are nevertheless shown to be Aboriginal through the evidence of dark skin and features represented in the photograph. In one instance, the original caption is stated as “Gin and Family, Australian Blacks” (Peterson 2005: 15, Figure 10.5). Gin is a derogatory term for an Aboriginal woman, but Peterson’s own analysis of the image identifies the woman more specifically as a person of mixed descent. While he does not elaborate on this, it is assumed that he has made this judgment based on the woman’s physical appearance. There is no indication in the text that this woman is a known individual or that there is other evidence of her heritage. In the original caption, she is unambiguously categorized as Aboriginal, but Peterson’s analysis reclassifies her Aboriginal identity as someone of mixed descent. Judgments about Aboriginality are highly contentious and are the source of significant anguish, hardship and deprivation in Australia where families have been torn apart through the identification and reidentification of who is considered to be Aboriginal and who is not. In the context of missions and reserves, skin color was a significant marker of how an individual would be treated under legislative frameworks (Pocock et al. 2015). Evolutionary ideas about human development assumed that Aborigines were an inferior and weaker race in natural decline. The role of early missions was thus seen to “smooth the dying pillow” of a doomed race (cf. Elkin 1951: 172). Against these predictions, Aboriginal populations grew rapidly, with a significant number of children born to parents of Aboriginal and nonAboriginal heritage. This brought an increased cost of maintaining reserves. Colonial control therefore shifted its attention from a policy of segregating Aboriginal people on reserves to assimilating Aboriginal people into mainstream society (e.g. Haebich 2000; Hall 1997; Higgins 1979). Typically, lighter-skinned children and adults were targeted and subjected to a range of assimilationist policies and practices. People of mixed descent – especially those with fair skin – were separated from their families, excluded from missions and reserves, and denied government assistance. However, these individuals were seldom accepted by non-Aboriginal society. Despite being separated from family and home, and being designated as non-Aboriginal, they continued to be regarded as Other and discriminated against on the basis of their Aboriginality. As a consequence, they were denied access to

146  Celmara Pocock mainstream education, employment and housing. Some individuals and families were able to negotiate a place in white society at the cost of denying or hiding their Aboriginality, often by severing contact with family (Broome 2005; Haebich 2000; Pocock 2014; Reid 2006). This contradiction of being neither white nor Aboriginal continues to play a significant role in how Australian Aboriginal people are recognized as authentic indigenes. While miscegenation was widespread and inevitable, observed biological changes were mistakenly linked to cultural change and identity (Cowlishaw 1987: 230–1), and there continues to be a misguided demarcation that links darker-skinned individuals with authentic indigeneity. Skin color is thus an oversimplified and complex marker of Aboriginality. Fair-skinned Aboriginal people continue to be questioned about their authenticity and their rights to claim indigeneity. Anthropologists simultaneously recognize the biological fallacy inherent in the idea of human race and the formidable reality of race as a social and cultural issue (see Challinor 2011; Cowlishaw 1987; Feagin 1991; Jablonski 2012; M’Charek 2013; Mukhopadhyay et al. 2007; Smedley and Smedley 2005; Wade 2002). The association between race and racism has encouraged anthropologists to seek alternative means of discussing difference (cf. Allison and Piot 2013; Challinor 2011). But this itself tends to ignore the way in which perceptions of visible difference shape the experiences of individuals, and may even be significant to the way in which people selfidentify (e.g. Challinor 2011). Skin color remains a strong sign, even though the ways in which Aboriginality is defined, enacted and recognized is based on complex and often contradictory characteristics that extend far beyond appearance (Cowlishaw 1987: 232–3). However, photographs are visual and symbolic by their very nature, and thus indigeneity continues to be categorized through a racialized lens. The belief that it is possible to identify Aboriginal people as a type or race was based on scientific classification of groups that persisted long after the idea of race had been challenged (Conor 2014: 16–17) and continues to make it possible to assign identities to photographic subjects without knowledge from other sources. The use of skin color to identify photographic subjects as Aboriginal may be obvious and necessary, but it remains problematic, as suggested by a case study of Great Barrier Reef photographs.

Photographs from the Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is Australia’s premier tourist destination and the holy grail of marine science. Like many other colonial endeavors, Aboriginal labor enabled and supported the establishment of tourism and scientific research on the Reef Islands (Pocock 2014). The strong connection between photography and science, and photography and tourism, and the intersections between them produced a rich, diverse and often dispersed archive of twentieth century Great Barrier Reef images (Pocock 2009). The vast

Reading indigeneity without race 147 majority of these depict island scenery, marine species and groups of holidaymakers and scientists. Among them, a small number of images of Aboriginal people are discernible, captured as they worked for and alongside scientists, tourism operators and holidaymakers (Pocock 2014). Images in institutional collections in Australia and overseas include promotional photographs, advertising and travel magazines, as well as snapshots captured by holidaymakers and those who worked at the Great Barrier Reef. Images of Aboriginal people at the Great Barrier Reef therefore include those that cast indigeneity in particular ways, as well as images created by photographers with close connections to Aboriginal communities. The latter are regarded as significant because they are more likely to capture Aboriginal people in daily life as it was lived rather than within the staged settings of formal photographs (Aird 2003: 30; Kleinert 2006). Promotional images of Aboriginal people at the Reef are relatively rare, but some do appear in popular magazines, such as the Australian travel magazine Walkabout, and published books. Where they exist, these images largely fall within established colonial representations of Aboriginal people, and are most often presented in poses or engaged in activities that clearly signify Aboriginality. The signifiers of Aboriginality include activities such as turtle hunting, gathering turtle eggs, dancing, spear and boomerang throwing, and fishing with spears (Figure 10.1). In a few instances, tourists visited missions and reserves as part of their excursions to the Reef, and were presented with staged and controlled performances of Aboriginality. The images that holidaymakers captured during these visits thus mirror the essentialized images of staged photography, in that Aboriginal subjects appear semi-naked, scarred and painted, and engaged in activities that were established signifiers of traditional Aboriginal society (Figure 10.2) (Pocock 2014). Images of Aboriginal people are less conspicuously captured in the background of tourist photographs as they performed their roles as servants and laborers. Here, they are often incidental to the main image. They include images of Aboriginal people rowing boats, carting luggage and cooking (Figure 10.3) (Pocock 2014). Even though the relationship between photographer and subject was unlikely to have been enduring or meaningful, these images nevertheless capture an everyday way in which Aboriginal people performed tasks and were integrated into the industry. The sense of everyday interaction is also noticeable in photographs taken during a year-long British scientific expedition to Low Isles in 1928–29. The British Great Barrier Reef expedition was well publicized and documented, including the publication of a popular book by expedition leader Maurice Yonge (1930). The extensive media reports on the expedition do not refer to the Aboriginal participants, but Yonge acknowledged their contribution in his book, which also includes some photographs of the workers. Yonge’s private collections (e.g. O’Neill 1928; Great Barrier Reef 1930; Yonge 1928) provide many more insights into Aboriginal people’s experiences during the

Figure 10.1  Man spearing fish, Lindeman Island, c. 1931 (© Queensland State Archives)

Figure 10.2  Aboriginal performance, Palm Island, 1931 (© John Oxley Library)

Reading indigeneity without race 149

Figure 10.3 Tourists being transported to Great Barrier Reef Islands with unidentified Indigenous men in the background (© John Oxley Library)

expedition at Low Isles. The Aboriginal workers were employed through the mission and reserve at Yarrabah and Palm Island, and included two Aboriginal families and a number of single adult men. The families each comprised a man and woman and two children: the first stayed just a few weeks before being replaced by the second family. Photographs from the archives show these individuals as part of daily activities and routines. They show interactions and relationships with one another and can also be read to understand the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. They are different to the staged promotional images in that, for instance, the Aboriginal families on Low Isles are photographed as families (contra Peterson), in European clothing and in similar housing and inhabiting the same (if segregated) living space as the scientists. As part of a suite of photographs that document life on the island, Aboriginal people are recorded as part of the everyday. They are shown as family groups and as groups of workers; there are snapshots of children playing with each other and receiving gifts on Christmas day. While the photographs do indicate demarcation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal roles and recognition, there is no deliberate staging or performance of Aboriginality. Nor is there any apparent staged Aboriginal context, perhaps because everyone’s living conditions were generally described as basic and primitive. The historic context of these images and the relationships between people make it possible to identify individuals and to research something of their history through archival records. After initial identification, it was possible to make contact with descendants, relatives and community members to learn more about them. Thus, with the Reef images it is possible to use

150  Celmara Pocock archival records and interviews to identify individuals, provide greater recognition and repatriate images to communities that can incorporate them into familial identities and use (cf. Aird 2003; Kleinert 2006; Lydon 2013; Smith 2008). The archival records made it possible to ascertain some biographical details. For instance, Claude Ponto, who lived with his family (Figure 10.4) on Low Isles for most of the year of the expedition, told Yonge that he was a tracker from the Northern Territory in the far north of Australia. Part of his story is that he was engaged by Victorian police in the very south of mainland Australia to track the legendary bushranger Ned Kelly,2 before being stationed at Yarrabah. These stories were repeated by his family. The story establishes him as authoritatively Aboriginal. The skills of Aboriginal trackers are legendary (Langton 2006), and, by identifying as a tracker, Claude Ponto is recognized as authentically Aboriginal. This is accentuated by his Northern Territory origins – a region typified as being the locale of “authentic Aborigines”. This is less obviously, but significantly, contrasted with Victoria in the south, where it is implied that Aboriginal people either no longer exist or no longer have such authentic skills. However, Claude Ponto also occupied other identities, as is apparent in his affiliation with the notorious but iconic Australian legend Ned Kelly, as well as his residency in a Queensland mission, his work at Low Isles and his marriage and descendants.

Creating alternative ethnicities Photographs that deliberately portray Aboriginal people at the Reef demonstrate indigeneity through established tropes and performances. Photographs from tourist performances and those in promotional images are linked to established notions of Aboriginality through body paint, scarification, artefacts and dance or corroboree performances. The mission – like the bush setting – also becomes an indicator of Aboriginality. In these contexts, dark-skinned people are portrayed as sharing a single cultural identity, despite the enormous cultural variation that existed among Aboriginal people on missions and reserves (Pocock 2014). Aboriginal people were frequently taken to missions from vastly different geographic and cultural regions, bringing with them diverse languages, cultural practices, knowledge and experiences. While these policies and practices were designed to destroy social cohesion, they inadvertently created a new, larger collective of Aboriginal people (Gilbert 1995: 147). For holidaymakers and other outsiders, however, the cultural identity of Aboriginal people on the mission is unquestioned and singular. It is assumed that all inmates were Aboriginal. Revealing an Aboriginal history at the Great Barrier Reef primarily emerged through these somewhat unexpected images. I was not actively researching Indigenous history when the presence of Aboriginal people became obvious to me. Rather, it was my background and long-standing interest in Aboriginal history and heritage that made me take note of these

Figure 10.4 Minnie Connolly, Claude Ponto and their two children, Teresa and Stanley, at Low Isles, 1928 (© National Library of Australia)

152  Celmara Pocock otherwise unseen individuals. It is quite likely that others may previously have overlooked their presence in the photographs. In the vast majority of the images I encountered, Aboriginal people appear in colonial clothing, performing everyday tasks associated with scientific research, holiday camps and domestic duties. Indicators or performances of indigeneity are not necessarily present. I assumed (possibly as other researchers have assumed) that the photographic subjects were Aboriginal because of their physical characteristics, notably skin color and physiognomy. While a knowledge that they were employed in particular roles helped to identify Aboriginal individuals, the contexts, performances, props and clothing that signify indigeneity in staged photographs are largely absent. Historically, the Great Barrier Reef region comprises traditional lands and seas of Indigenous groups including more than 70 mainland Aboriginal groups along the coast and a number of Torres Strait Islander peoples indigenous to the islands off the far north-eastern tip of Australia. While Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders are regarded as genetically and culturally distinct from one another, they are known to have married, traded and shared some aspects of cosmology over a long period of time (Fuary 1993: 269; Greer et al. 2002). This includes trading cultural practices, technologies, skills and stories. In addition to these indigenous groups, South Sea Islanders from Vanuatu, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and other parts of the Pacific were brought to Queensland to work in the emerging sugarcane industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Brass 1994; Miller 2010; Moore 1992). While culturally and biologically distinctive, all of these individuals can be characterized as having dark skin. People on missions and reserves included those of both Aboriginal and Islander descent. The excursions that tourists made to the Aboriginal reserve at Palm Island were not the primary motivator for Reef holidays. The vast majority of tourists were interested in marine science and drawn by the romantic ideals of tropical islands (Pocock 2005, 2014). A significant part of the tropical island trope is the South Sea maiden, and, where this figure appears in Reef marketing and advertising brochures, she is largely represented by white women. Occasionally, however, dark-skinned women are photographed as Pacific Island dancers (Pocock 2014). Torres Strait Islander men and women were drawn into performances of song and dance on tourist islands (Hayward 2001; Pocock 2014). It seems likely that some people of South Sea Islander descent were also employed in this way, as both Torres Strait and South Sea Islanders are perceived as sharing more with Pacific Islander cultures than do Aboriginal cultures. Aboriginal people were nevertheless present at the Reef in a range of roles that supported the early tourism industry. By and large, these individuals – like many services in tourism – were invisible to tourists, and hidden from the camera. However, in some circumstances they were recast in a dual role. Among the anonymous photographic images of dark-skinned women are Aboriginal women who are portrayed as Pacific Islanders. Dressed in

Reading indigeneity without race 153 grass skirts, with hibiscus in their hair, propped against coconut palms and other signifiers of the Pacific, the tourist context overwhelmingly suggests an Islander cultural identity for any person with dark skin. In conversation with members of the Yarrabah community, it emerged that some Aboriginal rather than Islander women were asked to perform these roles. Similarly, family members at Yarrabah revealed that some of the men employed by Yonge were of Islander rather than Aboriginal descent. In the absence of such collaboration and knowledge, however, the cultural identity of subjects may be assumed to be other than how the individuals self-identified.

Context and performance Many researchers have made use of context to identify, understand and reinterpret experiences of indigeneity represented in photographs. Context is also a site of analysis itself. The staged setting of formal posed photographs is often a powerful marker of how the broader public perceived and understood Aboriginal people at the time. By placing Aboriginal subjects in real or simulated bush settings and equipping them with the clothing and tools they might have worn at the time of initial contact with Europeans, formal and staged photographic images met a public expectation and understanding of Aboriginal people and their circumstances (Peterson 2005: 24). However, it is equally possible to re-equip Aboriginal subjects with new contexts and different cultural objects and costumes to create an entirely different identity, as is suggested by images of women at the Great Barrier Reef. While white women with grass skirts and flowers in their hair are never presumed to be Pacific Islanders, women with dark skin might be. While skin color masks a whole range of cultural affinities, shared skin tone is decreasingly a marker of affiliation. In a globalized world, humans interact across diverse areas and populations. The genetic mix which has existed for all of human history now occurs more rapidly and between what may once have been distant populations. Indigenous people, colonists, migrants and refugees meet, marry and have children in a variety of circumstances. As a consequence of colonization, forced segregation and assimilation, Aboriginal people in Australia developed a very diverse ancestry, and like indigenous people everywhere, may no longer claim only one biological line of descent. The result is that not everyone has features that are thought to be typically “Aboriginal”. Some people are quite fair: light skin, blue eyes and blonde or red hair. These individuals would not be recognizable as Indigenous by appearance alone. As Cowlishaw (1987) suggests, Aboriginality is a complex and often contradictory interplay of descent, appearance, behavior and circumstance. It is certainly not simply visual. One of the most powerful aspects of recent reinterpretations of historic photographs is the capacity to go beyond appearance to consider the active engagement of participants (Kleinert 2006: 71). It is possible not only to reinterpret information captured in photographs but to understand the

154  Celmara Pocock ways in which Aboriginal people have influenced how they have been photographed (Kleinert 2006; Lydon 2006; Macdonald 2003). In a recent example, Aboriginal people are using social media and photography to assert an Indigenous presence. Following the social media-oriented practice of planking or extreme sleeping that was particularly popular in the early 2010s, Aboriginal people developed “Which Way”, which appropriates one of the most long-standing stereotypes in Aboriginal imagery. First posing and then posting images to social media, Aboriginal people assume the emblematic Aboriginal pose of standing on one leg before the camera. Like planking, individuals make this brief performance in diverse locations and share them through Facebook (McQuire 2011). There is humor and irony in the practice that gives a nod to an ancient stereotype while being very much in the present. The physical appearance of subjects is irrelevant and is as diverse as any cross section of contemporary Aboriginal society. Some wear symbolic Aboriginal colors or flags, some are fair and others are dark, but it is the performance and posture of self-identification that expresses indigeneity and can be recognized as such.

Conclusion Identity is fluid and contextual (Gupta and Ferguson 1992; Hall and Du Gay 1996; Leve 2011), and in this way indigeneity is also something that shifts and changes according to its spatial and temporal contexts. Aboriginality in Australia is constantly contested, often for the political or economic benefit of the state. As Marcia Langton (1993) suggests, Aboriginality is continually renegotiated in Australia as a result of dialogue, imagination, representation and interpretation between Aborigines and non-Aborigines. It is also renegotiated among Aboriginal groups. Reading such flows and shifts within the static representations of photographs remains a constant challenge. The impetus for identifying Aboriginal people in historical images is partly fueled by a need and desire to redress the invisibility of Aboriginal pasts, to renegotiate Aboriginal identities of the past in the present. Through photographs, previously obscured histories have highlighted the economic, social, cultural and labor contributions that Aboriginal people make to Australian society. Evidence of struggles and resistance assist to counter myths and deliberate obfuscation of Aboriginal presence by the state and defy the fiction of Terra Nullius that forms a cornerstone of Australian settler societies. However, when Aboriginal people in Australia enjoy educational, financial or political success, it is not their ideas, skills or politics that are questioned, but their very identity. The basis of such criticism is most commonly directed through notions of racial purity that are read as cultural purity (cf. Cowlishaw 1987). Thus, skin color becomes a misused marker of Aboriginality or indigeneity. Without performance, staged context, cultural props or bodily adornment, indigeneity can be rewritten and misread through photographic imagery. In

Reading indigeneity without race 155 seeking to understand the Aboriginal past, we seek to represent the Other. This is an Other created by time, but when researchers are unrelated to the subjects, it also becomes the Other of race. The researcher is drawn to observe physical characteristics of the body – facial features and body type, but most of all dark skin. But these markers are of limited meaning in how Aboriginal people see themselves and each other. Not all individuals with dark skin are Indigenous, or identify as such, and many Aboriginal people with strong cultural connections and standing within their communities are fair-skinned (cf. Cowlishaw 1987). Aboriginal people view images not as the Other, but as the self – whether that is a present self or a distributed self that incorporates family across time and space (Smith 2008). As Sontag (1973: 164) suggests, memories that photographs evoke do not depend on the quality of the image, but on the capacity of the viewer. And thus the significance of contact in photographs lies not in the likeness but in the continuing association with the original, facilitated through a perception of contact between the subject and the photograph. As visual objects, photographs can thus create differences that are not present, and can hide or mask experiences and expressions of indigeneity – or simply lack the capacity to represent them. Denis Byrne (2003) has suggested that Australian archaeologists need to recognize Aboriginal history in cultural heritage assessments or risk becoming complicit in the erasure of Aboriginal people from the landscape. This can also be taken as a broader challenge for the interpretation of other forms of material culture, including photographs. Whereas Byrne suggests that archaeologists must learn to read historical-cultural artefacts not simply as products of particular colonial cultural manufacture but also through Aboriginal cultural use and patterning, we might similarly ask how scholars might read indigeneity in photographs where there is no staging, performance or apparent physical difference. Collaboration with Indigenous people is necessary to reinterpret images in the present and to diminish the photographic necessity of “Us” and “Them”.

Notes 1 Australia is home to a number of different indigenous groups, each with distinct territories, language and customs. It is preferable to identify people in relation to their specific language and cultural affiliations, and in doing so these proper nouns are capitalized as any other language or nation name would be. For pragmatic and historical reasons, the term Aboriginal is adopted as a convenient shorthand and as a collective proper noun for referring to all mainland Aboriginal people. In addition, the original inhabitants of the Torres Strait Islands are recognized as a distinct group. Although indigenous, Torres Strait Islanders are not Aboriginal. The term Indigenous has subsequently been adopted as a more succinct way of referring to all Australian Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders. Thus, when the terms Indigenous or Aboriginal are used as a replacement for specific proper nouns, they are capitalized. This recognizes these groups as a distinct culture or nation, and is afforded the same respect as any other cultural group. In this paper, the term Aboriginal is preferred, but in the

156  Celmara Pocock case study of the Great Barrier Reef photographs where the origin of individuals is unknown, the individuals may be Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander or even South Sea Islander. In these instances, the general term Indigneous is used. 2 Ned Kelly is arguably Australia’s most infamous colonial outlaw. He was eventually captured and hanged at Melbourne Gaol in 1880. Despite committing a number of serious crimes, Ned Kelly was regarded as an underdog, who was unfairly persecuted by authorities. Sometimes referred to as an Australian “Robin Hood”, he has attained legendary status in Australian folklore, history and popular culture.

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11 How history controls the past “Discovering” the unconventional and underground history of Setauket, New York’s Native and African American community Christopher N. Matthews The attempt to “uncover” history is widely accepted as a primary purpose for archaeological research. The idea is that through excavation and related work, archaeology capably and easily articulates buried objects and associates pasts with the present, since it is only time and the accumulation of sediment and absence that are involved in creating archaeological sites. In other words, what had once been living and present has died and disappeared, been consumed by the earth and may be treated now as a quasi-natural phenomenon, like any other contour on the contemporary landscape. This approach is problematic because it cannot address the fact that sometimes things are hidden or buried or people disappeared on purpose by forces other than passive neglect. In some cases, there have been very active and long-term efforts to hide and therefore control the past (Compañy et al. 2011; Ferrándiz 2013; Hall 1999; Renshaw 2011). One of the most understudied, yet pronounced, of these efforts emerges in the written narratives that demonstrate the significance of historical sites. This work involves a complex process by which the past becomes history, a process, I argue, that serves to control as much as to help us understand the past. This chapter illustrates how the past in the community of Setauket, New York has been controlled to ensure that the story of its Native American and African American residents is obscured. Rich with historical associations, Setauket is locally well known for important historic events, such as a Revolutionary War spy ring and a nineteenth-century shipbuilding industry, as well as contemporary preservation efforts to protect historic sites and districts for the enjoyment and education of future generations (Klein 1986). However, these stories make no mention of the Native American and African American community that has always also lived in Setauket. In this chapter, I argue that this exclusion is not the result of benign neglect or accident but due to the use of a constructed local history that validates essential

160  Christopher N. Matthews aspects of culture and economy vital to the well-being of the white majority, which the recognition of a subaltern past would contradict.

Controlling the past The past is controlled in two ways (Connerton 2009; Sider and Smith 1997; Trouillot 1997). The first is through forgetting. As time passes, what had been a living part of a place is forgotten and replaced. New people, new circumstances and new ways of life settle over those from before, and these do not know, recognize or reference their predecessors. This is an example of the occupation of a territory that has been long abandoned by earlier people, with the result that there is no historical or cultural connection between past and present groups. Control of the past here is established through ignorance. The second is the more active process of silencing, whereby what actually happened in the past is suppressed but remains part of what is newly conceived and constructed in its place. As new people settle and come to power, aware of those who preceded them, they must claim the territory by conquest, purchase or by construing it as abandoned. New settlers often establish a framework of manifest destiny, in which they justify their situation by some teleology, explaining their cultural superiority and casting their predecessors as conquered or vanishing, and thus rightfully ignored (Veracini 2010; Wolfe 2006). Yet, since survivors survive, it is necessary to silence aspects of the past in order to exclude their presence. However, a silenced past is unsettling, so histories are produced to distance the present from what made it by controlling what can and should be known about what came before. We can see examples of this process in the way ruins, artifacts, memories and survivors force a recognition that what was thought to be past is still actually present or, at times, that what is present is not sufficiently well known or claimed. Evidence abounds in the often imaginative practices that attempt to engage potential and actual silenced pasts, such as the goddess cult at Catal Huyuk (Meskell 1995), druids at Stonehenge (Bender 1999), New Age tourists at Chichen Itza (Castañeda 1996) or historical re-enactors and cultural tourists elsewhere around the world (Ames 1995; Magelssen and Justice-Malloy 2011). In these cases, unsettled pasts support novel and fanciful historical interpretations. However, even in the mainstream, where historical significance has been professionally established, histories are always more than a record of past events. They are also frameworks that guide what we do and do not see and act to control and limit the unsettling influences of the past on the present. Moving from “uncovered” to “discovered” pasts The purpose of our research in Setauket is to show that the process of creating histories without people of color has been a long-term strategy of

How history controls the past 161 the majority community to silence and suppress the minority. A key to this critique is voiced by my local collaborators in the Native American and African American community, who highlight the difference between a more passive “uncovering” of the past versus the more active effort to “discover” it. A past that is uncovered (un- stands for negation) has simply been buried by sediments of inattention, so that what comes into view is easily understood and fits into existing, well-known historical narratives. A past that is discovered (dis- stands for “the opposite of”) comes not through unpacking, but through the more difficult work that is involved in considering how what has become “archaeological” was lost and forgotten. This is especially important since some pasts have never been lost to living communities by virtue of surviving (i.e. not becoming past) or being maintained and/or signified as “history.” Discovery requires what Robert Lewis,1 my principal collaborator and host in Setauket, describes as a process of “unlearning,” in which what comes from the ground, the archives and memory is brought into view through alternative interpretive lenses that foster new narratives, simultaneously separate from and critical of those who silence these sources (Matthews 2011). Lewis thinks that archaeology in particular has two qualities that an alternative historical narrative of his community must include. The first is that archaeology is unconventional in that it demands we seek out and engage with places, sites, ruins, artifacts, etc. not considered in dominant narratives and that we look at known sites in new ways. By “discovering” undocumented or ignored people, places and objects, archaeology has the potential to foster an “unlearning” of the histories that control the past and provide insight into how the past was silenced and how it might resurface when new methods and new voices are included. A second aspect of archaeology is that it is underground. Archaeology, as well as exposing that which is buried, also exposes how the past consists of important relationships – typically hidden yet still connected – that survived the effort to keep the past under control. To explain, Lewis likens the relationship between past and present to an ecosystem, in the sense that all of the components are intimately interconnected, even if these connections are at times hard to see, since to remove one part inevitably and irreparably damages the rest. In sum, archaeology in Setauket is a mechanism of discovery that produces something unconventional and new that the minority community can make for themselves, and something new is exactly what they want most. The old histories not only exclude them, but their absence in the past also promotes a sense that their ancestors passively suffered and essentially accepted the class and racial hostilities that denied people of color access to the fruits of the American promise, despite the fact that their labor supported their white neighbors’ attempts to do the same. Moreover, set at the margins of the old stories, the community exists now as historically “nonsignificant,” leaving them poorly situated to defend against routine threats that have come from the steady gentrification of their community since the

162  Christopher N. Matthews 1970s. This, in particular, was the situation that called out for the project Lewis and I are co-directing along with cultural anthropologist Dr. Judith Burgess, and which guides us to see that what is happening with gentrification has underground connections to a history that has long forced this community to struggle for relevance, if not to simply survive. What follows is a presentation of a few examples of the history that controls the minority past in Setauket and some results of our collaborative research that illustrate how our work challenges the leading historical narratives of Setauket. I conclude with a reflection on this material that reconsiders the meaning of indigeneity in archaeological research.

How history controls the past in Setauket To illustrate how history controls the past, I discuss a few examples of the way Setauket’s past is represented in The Three Village Guidebook (1986), written by Howard Klein and published by the regionally significant Three Village Historical Society. Describing the historical details of 300 sites along five walking tours, this is the most prominent local history text used by residents and outsiders alike. To set the stage, the preface to the second edition opens as follows: To travel the Three Village area, to walk its woods, fish its waters, see its restaurants, shops, and museums, is to taste contemporary American life with a flavor of the past. What cannot be supplied to the visitor, or the reader of this book, is the imagination to reinvest the scene with a zest of eras past. Like ourselves, the now long dead labored, sorrowed, laughed, and loved. Houses and clothes, modes of communication and transportation change over the centuries, yet we tend to retain a close kinship with previous members of the species. (Klein 1986: 6) This statement clearly acknowledges that Setauket’s past is integral to its present, although the past – as a “flavor” or a “zest” – is regarded as a fleeting aspect of modern experience rather than a real basis for “contemporary American life,” the substance of which is not defined. We are invited to invest the current scene on our own with a zest of eras past, an offer that establishes that anyone, residents and visitors alike (in fact, any member of the “species”), is capable of taking in, imagining and appreciating Setauket’s historic qualities. This offer posits that the past is external to the people who live with it, and that anyone privileged enough to recognize this can freely know, enjoy and apply it in the world. This standpoint is foreign to the descendent Native American and African American community, whose experience of the past, which exists mostly as a continuum of exclusion and a struggle for recognition, is central to their identity. Looking at how this

How history controls the past 163 community in particular is represented in the Guidebook provides some of the other mechanisms of their exclusion. It also shows how their continuing presence in the village today unsettles “contemporary American life” because they fail to fit into the master narrative. “Humans are not native to Long Island” The local Native American Setalcott are introduced in the opening statement of the main section of the text: Humans are not native to Long Island, or indeed to the Western Hemisphere. The earliest known immigrants were the Indians who might have settled here as much as 10,000 years ago. This salvo indicates that the Setalcott Indians, and essentially all people, in the past and today are immigrants (c.f. Matenga, this volume). Establishing that no one is actually native to Setauket, any claim to being indigenous or having a legitimate place for Native Americans in the modern community is quickly and immediately dismissed. Yet, opening the book with a familiar American claim that “we are all immigrants” strategically and silently establishes the legitimacy of the current immigrant owners of these ancient lands and suppresses the unsettling presence of Native American-descended residents who might otherwise have a distinct claim to the land. A few pages in, the Guidebook provides a brief discussion of the Setalcotts, the content of which continues to make every effort to establish the legitimacy of the modern owners of the land.2 Included here is a reprinting of the details from the agreement in which “the Indians bartered away their lands freely” (Klein 1986: 15). According to the document, the English paid 10 coats, 12 Hoes, 12 Hatchet, 50 Muxes (or mucksucks, small awls used to perforate sea shells in making wampum), 100 Needles, 6 Ketles, 10 Fadom of wampum, 7 Chest of Powder, 1 Pare of Child Stokins, 10 Pound of Lead, 1 Dosen of Knives. The author adds that “cloth was prized among other goods by the Indians, who prior to the European migration, had never seen it.” While reprinting this document is helpful in understanding relationships in the past, its use in this instance is to confirm that the land was justly acquired by English settlers. It is also used to demonstrate the settlers’ superiority, since they in fact bettered the Indians in the exchange. However, by highlighting the Indians’ quaint desire for new things like cloth, we are directed away from seeing a clear desire for tools, weapons and cash (wampum), objects both parties would have recognized as key resources for managing their developing relationship.

164  Christopher N. Matthews The last substantive mention of Native Americans closes the book’s introduction: As the local Indians receded through disease or intermarriage, naught remained of them but the sound of their tongue in the names used every day in the Three Villages. Names that Walt Whitman said, “roll with the venison richness upon the palate” – Comsewogue, Lotowana, Naasakeag, Minnesauke, Nissequogue, Sachem, Poquott, and, of course, Setauket. (Klein 1986: 20) Perhaps no other statement more clearly illustrates how history controls the past, since in just two sentences Native Americans are denied their contemporary existence (having “receded”) and been fully replaced by modern residents, who now use their place names for their own art and identity. The only other mention of Native Americans in the Guidebook is an entry on “Indian Rock,” a glacial erratic that sits alongside Setauket’s Main Street. Sadly, the origin of this compelling name is not explained, and in fact its connection to Native Americans is entirely ignored. Rather, the stone is described as [a] six foot by 15 foot boulder of fine-grained gneiss, a metamorphic rock formed under great pressure and heat from other types of rock, contains the minerals feldspar, quartz, mica, and others. It has been estimated to be about 200-million years old and was deposited here by the Wisconsin Glacier, which terminated along two lines sweeping the length of Long Island and whose terminal moraines formed its topography. Such boulders were carried here by the ice sheets from mountains far to the north. (Klein 1986: 44) This description silences the Native American past in several ways. First, the rich geological detail displaces any thoughts of the Indian people after whom the rock is named. Second, this description deploys an association of Native Americans with the time and space of geology, which is a wellestablished practice on Long Island. One of Long Island’s most visited cultural sites is Garvies Point Museum and Preserve: “a center for research on Long Island geology and a valued resource in the study of the Island’s Native American archaeology”3 (http://www.garviespointmuseum.com/). Exhibits on Native Americans at Garvies Point consist of dioramas of several archaeologically based reconstructions of prehistoric Native American lifeways that sit alongside explanations of the region’s geologic and natural history. By association, Garvies Point fixes Indian people as prehistoric phenomena excavated from the earth and comfortably spoken about in the same breath as boulders and sediments from ancient glacial eras and related

How history controls the past 165 to the natural formation of the land. Finally, despite this construal of Indians and boulders as signs of the ancient past, the description in the Guidebook makes sure to note that Indian Rock, like Indian people and others who live on Long Island, is an immigrant. “Slaves on Long Island farms were few” If Native Americans serve as a proxy for prehistory in the Guidebook, the African-descended people who also gave rise to the minority community in modern Setauket are absent almost entirely. Of the five mentions of African Americans in the Guidebook, three refer to structures or spaces that may have been built by whites to be used by the enslaved. These include the Edwards “Slave” House, the Thompson Slave House and the “slave gallery” built at the Caroline Church. Klein doubts the two houses are connected to slavery, and he is likely correct. Still, it is interesting to consider why supposed “slave houses” like these are so common in the historic landscape, even if these structures were not used to house laborers at all. What needs do the stories about these houses meet? It may be that without extant former “slave houses,” slavery would be entirely missing from Setauket’s historic landscape. Perhaps by attributing small houses and segregated spaces to the enslaved, modern people in Setauket do what they can to deal with the legacy of the bondage of others from which their ancestors benefited. Moreover, by maintaining such “ghosts” of slavery, modern residents also emotionally distance themselves from their ancestral slave owners and thus relinquish responsibility for the legacy of slavery in their communities today. Of course, this legacy is evident along Christian Avenue, where some of the descendants of these enslaved people still live. This outlook is also apparent in the brief discussion of the history of local slavery in the Guidebook, which notes that the 1790 federal census for the Town of Brookhaven recorded a total population of about 2,600 of which almost 10 percent were “other free persons” (283) and another 10 percent were slaves (240). The other free persons were undoubtedly bonded servants and other non-whites, probably Indians, and some freed slaves. This statement is printed on the same page as a line drawing depicting five non-white farm laborers working in a field with the caption “Slaves on Long Island farms were few.” While it is correct that northern slave owners ran smaller-scale operations than southern planters, the book still documents that 20 percent of the local population, a substantial figure, were either enslaved or bonded laborers. It is also curious that the author included an imagined image of enslaved field workers, since the book does not make any reference to the picture in the text. We are left to wonder whether the drawing was included to make up for the author’s apparent lack of words.

166  Christopher N. Matthews The historical discussion of slavery is completed by establishing that slavery was mild on Long Island and ended long ago: [S]ince slavery was not basic to the Long Island agrarian economy, it was easier to abandon the evil practice . . . In 1799 the Act of Manumission in New York provided a formula for the gradual freeing of slave families by 1827 . . . Thus, slavery was practically abolished long before the Emancipation Proclamation of the 1860s. (Klein 1986: 19) While this statement is historically accurate, its emphasis is on distinguishing New York State from the South, and as such is clear evidence of an effort to compensate for an uncomfortable past by positing that life for the enslaved was better in the North. However, owning even one person, especially from the perspective of that person, is always and intentionally dehumanizing. That there were relatively few enslaved people on Long Island does not excuse the community who tolerated enslavement in their midst. Moreover, most enslaved Africans could not marry, or, if they did, were not likely to live with their spouse, nor were any freed as “slave families.” These minimal engagements with Native Americans and African Americans in the Guidebook belie a sense of great discomfort with the role of these communities in local history. Each of these few statements about their past also works to minimize their existence and historical impact. Native Americans have receded into prehistoric and geological time, and enslaved Africans have been dissolved into myths and ghosts, or as signs of an “evil” past that has long faded away. Inasmuch as dispossession and slavery are over, the readers of the Guidebook and the residents of Setauket may assuredly live without the burden of their legacy. It is only possible to believe this history if readers ignore the descendent community on Christian Avenue, who are not embedded in ancient stone, invisible or able to distance the struggles of the past from their present lives. Rather, they know that Native American- and African American-descended people still make history every day in Setauket and have been doing so since at least the 1660s, despite the consistent effort by their white neighbors to write and live out a history that excludes and controls their past and relegates them to the margins of the community’s story. As a result, the stories of the Native American and African American community wait to be told to the outside world. Recording and telling these stories is the purpose of our work in Setauket.

Archaeology in Setauket To date, we have collected stories from multiple sources, including archaeological excavations, oral history interviews and archival research. Archaeological research was undertaken at two sites where members of the Native

How history controls the past 167 American and African American community lived in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The most intensive excavations have been at the Jacob and Hannah Hart home site. Jacob Hart was born in Setauket in 1856. His parents were William H. Hart and Rachel Lucretia Hart, who are believed to have been born in Setauket in the 1820s. Jacob married Hannah Tyler, who was born in Virginia but moved to Setauket as a teenager to work for a white family. In 1888, the Harts purchased a small property at the corner of Lake Street and Main Street in Setauket, just up the road from “Indian Rock.” An 1873 map indicates that a W. Harts and an A. Tobias lived on Lake Street. It is likely that this area of Setauket near the mouth of Mill Pond was a long-time home for people of color and that Jacob Hart settled there, down the street from where he grew up. Archaeological excavations at the Jacob and Hannah Hart home site in 2011 and 2015 showed the site to be in a very good state of preservation and to contain a wide range of artifacts associated with the Hart family. Excavations exposed several features including two brick walkways, two in-situ wooden posts, a well and a 6 x 12-foot stone foundation enclosing a stone chimney base. Based on these finds and the memory of elders who were in the house as children, the latter is identified as the back addition, which served as the kitchen. Among the several hundred artifacts recovered, three stand out. The first is a collection of glass, ceramic, metal and rubber buttons, along with a thimble and a possible scissor blade (Figure 11.1). Seventeen different button types were identified, most of which are represented by a single example. This range of buttons suggests that the Harts took in laundry, a common occupation for poor women of color in the US (Hunter 1998). Notably, Hannah Hart is documented as a laundress in the 1900 federal census. The census also shows that this was a common occupation for women of her status in the Town of Brookhaven. In fact, aside from three nurses, 97 percent of non-white women worked in unskilled domestic service jobs, for example as laundresses, cooks or live-in household servants. The census taker’s distinction between domestic servants and laundresses is believed to indicate that laundresses worked in their own homes as opposed to the homes of their white employers. In fact, Barbara Russell (2013), a white woman who grew up in Setauket in the 1950s and 1960s, recalled that her family sent laundry out to Mamie Sells, whose father-in-law was Selah Hart, Jacob Hart’s brother. Taking in laundry, therefore, was not only an important means for women of color to contribute to the household income but it may also reflect a tradition of work used by the Hart family to survive in Setauket. A second notable artifact is a fragment of a Sperm Sewing Machine Oil bottle (Figure 11.1). The oil of sperm whales was a prized resource in the 1800s. Even though its use for lamp oil declined in the 1870s, it was used as a lubricant for small household tools like sewing machines well into the twentieth century. The excavated bottle fragment suggests the

168  Christopher N. Matthews

Figure 11.1 Artifacts from the Jacob and Hannah Hart site in Setauket, New York. Fragments of Sperm Sewing Oil bottle (left), variety of buttons and thimble (center), and quartzite stone tool and flakes (right) (Photos by author)

Harts may have had a sewing machine, which would have been another strategy and investment that Hannah would have used to support the family. The sperm whale industry may also have had special meaning for Jacob, whose 1931 obituary in the Port Jefferson Echo noted that he “followed the sea for a time.” Native American and African American men are known to have found well-paying jobs in the maritime industries in the northeast (Barsh 2002; Bolster 1990; Handsman 2011; Linenebagh and Rediker 2001). Since there is no record of Jacob in Setauket between the 1870 census and 1888 when he and Hannah purchased their home, it is thought that he worked at sea during these years. So, while the oil bottle may have had a basic functional and economic purpose, it could also have been part of the story the Harts told themselves about how working on the water helped them survive as people of color on the margins of their home community. A final notable artifact is a chipped white quartz bifacial scraper (Figure 11.1). This tool is not from a prehistoric deposit, but, rather, it was part of the assemblage of objects that made up the Harts’ material world in the late 1800s. It is not known when or by whom this artifact was made, though there are only a couple of options. First, this could be a prehistoric tool, discovered by the Harts as they traveled through the Setauket landscape during their routine activities, such as walking to work or to collect shellfish or other resources from the shoreline. There are two well-known pre-contact coastal sites in the area, and Native American artifacts are commonly found along the shore of the Long Island Sound and creek beds that Setalcott people frequented long ago. Another option is that the Harts made the tool themselves, drawing on an indigenous knowledge base that originated in the precolonial era and which they maintained and passed along. While no one in the community can make tools like this one today, those that remember Jacob and his home have noted that he self-identified as an Indian. His daughter Lucy Keyes stated that “He’s an Indian . . . [his] hair

How history controls the past 169 was just as white and straight . . . [He was a] tall, beautiful-featured man” (Keyes 1987). That Jacob Hart knew how to make this stone tool is certainly possible. Taken as a whole, these materials “discover” a different history of Setauket than the one driving the place today. They speak about work, specifically the work done by the Hart family for themselves in order to survive in the racialized community they called home. These objects tell the story of taking in laundry, going to sea, walking to the home or business of a white employer and drawing on ancient, but still present, indigenous traditions to meet the needs of their routine home activities. None of these stories – or many others like these such as the work of non-white baymen or the role of fishing, hunting and collecting foods to supplement their diets and incomes – have a place in the dominant narrative of Setauket, though they were arguably essential activities in the preservation and well-being of not only the minority community but the larger village as well. This is the embodiment of the ecosystem analogy that Robert Lewis proposed, but it is transposed here from the natural to the social environment. The meaning of this analogy is even better illustrated by another example from our project’s research. A second site we have studied is the Ernest Hart cabin, located in the back section of the lot formerly owned by his sister Lucy Hart Keyes (Figure 11.2). Lucy and Ernest were Jacob and Hannah Hart’s youngest children, and both were born in the house that we excavated. Lucy lived her whole life in Setauket, purchasing a home on Christian Avenue in 1920. At a later point, Ernest moved into a small cabin about 50 feet behind Lucy’s house. The cabin was 6 x 9 feet, with one room and a small loft for storage. Unfortunately, Ernest is not well known in living memory. Elders in the community and Lucy’s descendants remember him, but no one can say what he did for a living or anything about exactly when he came to live in the cabin behind his sister’s house, or why he chose to do so. However, the contents of the cabin that were left there after he died in 1979 demonstrate that this was his home. We are fortunate that nothing happened to these materials in the intervening 30 years. The most important attribute of the materials he left behind is how they reflect an effort to make the cabin into a home. There is a set of eating utensils, plates, bowls, a coffee pot, sugar bowl, a small Sterno stove, storage pots, mixing bowls and salt and pepper shakers. There were shelves and two chairs in the cabin, as well as a unique coffee-pot-shaped corner cabinet that was likely home-made. There was a chicken feeder, suggesting he raised a brood for himself and perhaps his sister. Also included were decorative pieces such as a cat-shaped salt shaker and a vase (Figure 11.3). These objects evoke Ernest Hart’s decision to create a home of his own in the small cabin. While we have to assume that his sister and others helped him by providing access to running water and other necessities, he nevertheless acquired what he needed to live mostly independent of others in a home of his own.

170  Christopher N. Matthews

Figure 11.2  Ernest Hart cabin (Photo by author)

Figure 11.3 Artifacts collected from the Ernest Hart cabin in Setauket, New York. Japanese-made salt shaker (left), chicken feeder and Sterno stove (center), and coffee-pot-shaped corner cabinet (right) (Photo by author)

The meaning of the items from Ernest Hart’s cabin provides a way to understand the minority community at large, and it offers a way to reconsider what we mean by the term “indigenous” as it might apply in Setauket and beyond. Mixed-heritage Native Americans and African Americans are documented as part of Setauket’s history since its historical beginnings. The first English settlers encountered and negotiated with Indian people known as the Setalcott, whose name they adopted as the name of their settlement.

How history controls the past 171 Over the following decades, frequent reference is made to Native Americans living and working at the margins of colonial society in Setauket and the surrounding settlements (Strong 2011). As early as the 1660s, documents also make note of people of African heritage present in the area of Setauket. These enslaved laborers worked in the fields and homes of increasingly prosperous white settlers. As is known to have occurred in many other instances (Brooks 2002; Miles and Holland 2006), Native and African people found themselves living in similar situations and in close proximity, which led to intermarriage and the making of new families and lineages that we now call “mixed heritage.” The problem with this history is that it is used to identify the indigenous community as impure and thus having “receded” into history (Klein 1986: 20). This understanding defines their descendants, including the Harts, as non-indigenous, which, combined with their relatively powerless position at the community’s margins, essentially denies these people a rightful claim to belonging in the community. However, why should a community that can document its ancestry in Setauket and elsewhere on Long Island to at least the early 1800s and that can tell us the story of its survival on the margins since this time need to document anything more to be considered essential to the community? In other words, what does it really take to be recognized as indigenous? Of course, there are a plethora of legal statutes that need to be met to be an officially recognized Native American tribe by local, state and federal agencies. However, this is not what is at stake for the minority community in Setauket, at least not right now. Rather, they seek first to be recognized as part of the history of Setauket. They are calling for a new history that removes the various forms of control over their past and that has for decades reinforced what racism and local class- and power relations have already done: kept them on the margins of the community so that others may leisurely enjoy what Setauket has to offer.

Conclusion What is at stake therefore is knowledge of the Native American and African American community’s existing indigeneity and the basis of belonging that such understandings establish. With the invented history that now dominates the landscape, the majority white community acts as indigenous in Setauket. We see this very clearly in the way the narrative allows them to welcome people to visit Setauket and, simultaneously, write Native Americans and African Americans into the history they tell of Setauket without noting their names, showing their faces, recognizing their homes and neighborhoods, or, for the most part, noting that they are still there. Turning this around requires unlearning these dominant histories and discovering new narratives that identify people and places of meaning and import, and imagining not only that the minority community is still there but that they are essential and should remain.

172  Christopher N. Matthews To do this we must respond to the statement in the Guidebook that “Humans are not native to Long Island.” While this may be true, this does not negate the fact that there are quite a lot people for whom Long Island is their native home. Might not these people be seen as indigenous, whether they can document their ancestry to the 1660s or earlier or simply to the 1960s when they happened to be born there? In fact, we might consider refocusing our energies in the study of indigeneity in archaeology to consider less who is or is not indigenous but rather to look at the very ways that people of all sorts – in the distant and not so distant past – constructed and engaged with their “native” heritage and territory to come to know themselves through their own version of indigenous eyes. This statement does not in any way mean to discount the political agenda and import of Native American indigeneity, but rather to amplify it so that we can see that the claim and desire to be indigenous is widely shared and hotly contested, since it is all of our homes that are at stake.

Acknowledgements I want to thank Anna Karlström, Carl-Gösta Ojala and Lotta Hillerdal for the invitation to attend the workshop on “Archaeologies of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ ” at Uppsala University. I also want to recognize all of the workshop participants for generating exciting discussions about indigeneity. The research presented here was facilitated by students, faculty and staff at Hofstra University and Montclair State University, as well as a grant from the New York Council for the Humanities. This paper reflects the ideas of my collaborators in Setauket: Robert Lewis, Judith Burgess, Brad Phillippi and members of Higher Ground Intercultural and Heritage Association, Inc. Any errors of fact or reasoning, of course, remain my own responsibility.

Notes 1 Robert Lewis is a life-long resident of Setauket and a long-time leader and activist voice among the Native American and African American community. In 2005, he formed Higher Ground Intercultural and Heritage Association, Inc., a non-profit community preservation organization. Higher Ground successfully created the Bethel-Christian Avenue-Laurel Hill historic district, recognized by the Town of Brookhaven as the home site of the historically and culturally significant Native American and African American community in Setauket. Mr. Lewis’ ideas and concepts referenced in this chapter are drawn from our many conversations since 2009 about the meaning of history and the role of archaeology in his community. 2 The Guidebook also explains that the Setalcott were named after their settlement site along a local creek and that this creek later became the first settlement of the English, and that, despite being “handsome,” the Setalcott were considered “heathen” and easily succumbed to disease. 3 http://www.garviespointmuseum.com/. Accessed March 8, 2016, 11:33am.

How history controls the past 173

References Ames, M. 1995. Cannibal Tours and Glass Boxes: The Anthropology of Museums. Vancouver: UBC Press. Barsh, R. L. 2002. “ ‘Colored’ Seamen in the New England Whaling industry.” In Confounding the Color Line: The Indian-Black Experience, edited by J. F. Brook, 76–107. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Bender, B. 1999. Stonehenge: Making Space. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Bolster, W. J. 1990. “ ‘To feel like a man’: Black Seamen in the Northern States, 1800–1860.” Journal of American History 76 (4): 1173–99. Brooks, J. F., ed. 2002. Confounding the Color Line: The Indian-Black Experience. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Castañeda, Q. E. 1996. In the Museum of Maya Culture: Touring Chichen Itza. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Compañy, G., G. González, L. Ovando, and D. Rossetto. 2011. “A political archaeology of Latin America’s recent past: A bridge towards our history.” In Archaeologies of Internment, edited by A. Myers, and G. Moshenska, 229–44. New York: Springer. Connerton, P. 2009. How Modernity Forgets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ferrándiz, F. 2013. “Exhuming the defeated: Civil war mass graves in 21st-century Spain.” American Ethnologist 40 (1): 38–54. Hall, M. 1999. “Subaltern voices? Finding the spaces between things and words.” In Historical Archaeology: Back from the Edge, edited by P. P. A. Funari, M. Hall, and S. Jones, 193–203. London: Routledge. Handsman, R. G. 2011. “Some Middle-Range Theory for Archaeological Studies of Wampanoag Indian Whaling.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Conference on New England Archaeology, Amherst, MA. Hunter, T. 1998. To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors after the Civil War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Klein, H. 1986. Three Village Guidebook: Setauket, Poquott, Old Field & Stony Brook. New York: Three Village Historical Society, Setauket. Linenebagh, P., and M. Rediker. 2001. The Many-headed Hydra. Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic. Boston: Beacon Press. Magelssen, S., and R. Justice-Malloy, eds. 2011. Enacting History. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Matthews, C. N. 2011. “Lonely islands: Culture and poverty in archaeological perspective.” Historical Archaeology 45 (3): 41–54. Meskell, L. 1995. “Goddesses, gimbutas, and ‘new age’ archaeology.” Antiquity 69: 74–86. Miles, T., and S. P. Holland. 2006. Crossing Waters, Crossing Worlds: The African Diaspora in Indian Country. Durham: Duke Univeristy Press. Renshaw, L. 2011. Exhuming Loss: Memory, Materiality and Mass Graves of the Spanish Civil War. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Sider, G., and G. Smith, eds. 1997. Between History and Histories: The Making of Silences and Commemorations. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Strong, J. A. 2011. The Unkechaug Indians of Eastern Long Island: A History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

174  Christopher N. Matthews Trouillot, M. R. 1997. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Books. Veracini, L. 2010. Settler Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Wolfe, P. 2006. “Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native.” Journal of Genocide Research 8 (4): 387–409.

Oral interviews Keyes, Lucy Hart. 1987. Interview by Glenda Dickerson. Transcript on file at the Three Village Historical Society, Setauket, NY. Russell, Barbara. 2013. Interviewed by Christopher Matthews. On file at Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ.

12 Bronze drums and the contestations of indigenous heritage in Laos Anna Karlström

The idea of indigenous people has been challenged as being essentialist and based on notions and romantic visions about “the Other”, and indigenous has been suggested to be just another word for “primitive” (cf. Kuper 2003). I agree with this critique, and also with the fact that there are racial and colonial structures inscribed in the word indigenous itself because it is always a “we” who defines “the Other”. The structures that underlie definitions of indigeneity are insufficiently taken into account in the general debate, even though the ambiguity and relativity of the term has been acknowledged (cf. Bruchac et al. 2010: 19–27), and it has also been stated that “debates over the problem of definition are more interesting than any definition in and of itself” (Niezen 2010: 34). Not taking the structural problems into account is problematic because the structures that we want to free ourselves from by being inclusive are still there. So, how are we to handle this concept that, on the one hand, we know really needs to be debated, analyzed, deconstructed and continuously discussed, and, on the other hand, we know exists only because of and is created within racial and colonial structures? We are facing a double bind, which in this context is the core dilemma for postcolonial critique (cf. Spivak 1999). The complex relationship between indigenous and postcolonial/colonial has been debated elsewhere (Tuhiwai Smith 1999), especially within the fields of archaeology and heritage (McNiven 2016). Part of that complexity is the challenge of theorizing indigenous (Hillerdal, this volume), of inclusion/exclusion, differences/similarities and overlaps (Shepherd, this volume), and of power relations and imbalances between “Us” and “Them” (Ndlovu, this volume). In my view, and as is presented in this chapter, the actual problem is the divide or the border that indigeneity creates between “Them” and “Us”. With fixed borders, reality is dichotomized and set into binary oppositions, and much attention is paid to difference and distinction. The indigenous is distinct and distant, conceptually placed somewhere else in another time (Fabian 1983), and, in general, simplistically reduced to deal with spiritual and immaterial heritage, whereas the term non-indigenous relates to the real, material and permanent (Karlström 2009). This traps the marginalized and the Other. The otherness of the Other becomes cemented,

176  Anna Karlström to the detriment of those whose marginalization we set out to criticize and change (Wobst and Smith 2003). But there is also a reciprocal relationship. In Laos, where I have carried out most of my research over the years, I am the Other. I am the stranger, the antithesis and the mirror in which my Lao colleagues, friends and informants reflect their own Lao identity. There are, of course, also large differences and nuances among those with a Lao identity (cf. Karlström 2009: 104–7). The Lao cultural identity operates in several registers where local traditions are appropriated and woven into a national story, and where local traditions vary depending on language and ethnic belonging. We have to see “the Other” as other, but also as self. Otherness should be acknowledged as a fluctuating, contemporary relation that is always ready to change direction. Inspired by the Vietnamese film-maker and gender theorist Trinh T. Minh-ha, I will here approach this problem with categorizations of “the Other” and “Us” by looking at what is in-between. By focusing on those categorizations and that which is both and, neither nor, I hope to blur the borders that separate “Us” from “the Other”. So, for this chapter I want to add to the discussion that which is in-between and suggest that the border is rather a space on its own, a boundary. The boundary, seen through Trinh T. Minh-ha’s eyes as both a material and immaterial event, is where the endings pass into beginnings and the insider and outsider might be one and the same (Minh-ha 2011). The aim of this chapter is to illustrate the complexity by examining this in-between space. I will approach it through an example from the fieldwork in Laos, which I carried out during 2012–13 as part of a postdoctoral research project. The generally accepted in-group or inside group, the “Us” group, is the Lao majority of the county’s population. This group also includes scholars and academics, of course, both national and international. “The Others” are the numerous ethnic groups, particularly the Mon-Khmer-speaking groups, whose members are supposed to be the indigenous Lao. What partly characterizes their indigeneity is their culture/ religious beliefs and practices, which represent animistic belief systems, whereas the Tai-Lao majority officially consider themselves Buddhists. What I want to focus on here is the unofficial, ordinary, most common (irrespective of group belonging) way that people relate to the material past and give meaning to it in the present by practicing popular religion (Byrne 2014). The in-between space is here represented by popular religious practices and beliefs.

Indigenous in Southeast Asia In anthropology, the concept of indigeneity has been debated over the years, sometimes more and sometimes less intensely. Within the fields of archaeology and heritage, this kind of debate has not really entered the scene to any great extent. It was in the mid-1980s that international archaeologists started to seriously acknowledge indigenous people, to incorporate local

Bronze drums 177 knowledge into research agendas and encourage indigenous people to participate in and engage with archaeologists and heritage managers in their work. Now, indigenous groups are to a certain extent included. Indigenous archaeology as a subfield of archaeology was first developed in Australia and the US, where it still has its strongest support. From the perspective of Southeast Asia, indigeneity is complex, diffuse and multi-layered because of innumerable invasions and colonizations throughout history, in contrast to, for example, Australia and North and South America. I do not say it is less complex in these places but there is a specific point in time when the indigeneity of the indigenous population was created, namely the advent of European colonization. In Southeast Asia, the concept as such is hardly ever used or discussed in relation to archaeology or heritage. When talking to my Lao colleagues, for example, they refuse to use the concept of indigeneity; they prefer to talk about the more politically correct ethnic groups. Indigeneity is here embedded in discussions about ethnic identities, nationalistic categorizations of people and ethnic groups, and is more-or-less purely political. But it is never really spoken about openly. At least not until very recently, when some ethnic groups started to realize what benefits being recognized as indigenous could provide. As the field of archaeology in Southeast Asia now becomes more open to contemporary perspectives and political debates about ethical and moral issues and archaeological practice, I think it is important to include a discussion and a critical analysis of concepts and definitions of indigeneity here, too, and to point out the complexities and ambiguities connected to indigeneity and heritage politics.

The bronze drums and the indigenous in Vilabouly Vilabouly is a district in Savannakhet, one of 17 provinces of Laos, situated in the southeastern part of the country near the Laos–Vietnam border. The official national identity in Laos today is associated with the dominant ethnic group, the Lao. In the country, there are officially 49 ethnic groups, and in Vilabouly the villages are primarily inhabited by Mon-Khmer-­speaking people. These groups are considered to be the first to have inhabited the area of modern-day Laos, and hence its indigenous population. But they have, historically, and continuously today, been looked upon and defined as primitive by the Lao majority and have never been formally acknowledged as indigenous to Laos. People belonging to these groups are popularly called kha, which today is a pejorative term used by the majority to classify these groups of people as being the Other. The Lao term kha refers to a class and social representation. After the revolution in 1975, when the communist regime came to power, the Lao government solved the problem of being a multi-ethnic and multinational country by placing the Others within the national project. All residents were to be called Lao, followed by a suffix: Lao Loum, Lao Theung and Lao Soung. Officially, this classification is not

178  Anna Karlström used today, and all Lao people are now supposed to be part of a multi-ethnic population. Still, and ironically, the ethnic minority groups are subject to injustice, and groups as well as individuals are discriminated against. In particular, the Mon-Khmer-speaking groups (with their subgroups), are still identified by the name kha. Traditionally, Mon-Khmer-speaking groups are strongly connected to the use and production of bronze drums. The area around Vilabouly was dedicated to the mining of copper and gold in 1998. The operation, named Sepon, is an open-pit mine owned by Lane Xang Minerals Limited (LXML), a company of which the Lao government owns 10 percent, and an international mining company MMG now owns 90 percent. In 2008 archaeologists signed an agreement with the mining company to preserve the cultural heritage of the mining area. This has successfully resulted in close cooperation between the mining company, international archaeologists and heritage managers, and the local community (Mayes and Chang 2014, cf. Baird, this volume): there is a heritage research center at the mining site and ongoing archaeological excavations, and the mining company has financed the Vilabouly culture hall and museum. Even before this cooperation formally started, in 2007, the first Dong Son bronze drum was found in Vilabouly. A member of the UXO (unexploded ordnance) removal staff located and excavated it. This drum was considered to be of national significance and taken to Vientiane where it now is displayed in a prominent position at the Lao National Museum. Some years later, miners in Vilabouly came across ancient shafts that were used to extract copper ore deposits in the area more than 2,000 years ago. Additional Dong Son bronze drums have been unearthed and, together with other ancient artefacts, they are exhibited in the local culture hall and museum (Figure 12.1). Vilabouly is now referred to as the largest and earliest site of copper metallurgical industry known in Laos. Bronze drums are found across the whole of Southeast Asia and southern China. The prefix Dong Son was added to the drums, as they are considered to have been manufactured originally within the Dong Son culture (Calò 2014) in the Red River Valley in northern Vietnam more than 2,500 years ago. The drums found in Vilabouly are of this Dong Son type; hence, Lao archaeologists suggest that these have been traded and originate from the Dong Son area in Vietnam, which, in their opinion, determines a strong relationship between the prominent Bronze Age culture and the area and ancient culture group in Vilabouly. This is, of course, of great interest for the nation state of Laos because it puts this part of the country on the archaeological map, and also strengthens contemporary political relations with Vietnam. A majority of the villages that are directly affected by the mining project in Vilabouly are inhabited by Mon-Khmer-speaking groups. As a result of the mining activities and the archaeological excavations in Vilabouly, the drums have started to become a sensitive issue. In the nationalistic competition with the surrounding countries about who has the most glorious past, Laos always lags behind. Now, since these spectacular ancient bronze drums

Bronze drums 179

Figure 12.1 One of the ancient Dong Son bronze drums recently found in Vilabouly district (Photo by author)

have been found, they are, of course, put forward as an important part of the Lao national cultural heritage, worthy of preservation and display. Some of the minority groups in the area find it disturbing that the oppressing and discriminating majority in the country has more or less appropriated

180  Anna Karlström the drums. Their significance as national heritage is absolutely superior to their significance as local heritage, representing the minority groups of the country. However, the bronze drums play an important role in many of the Mon-Khmer-speaking communities. The late Damrong Tayanin, an ethnologist originally from northern Laos, who worked for many years at Lund University in Sweden, has written extensively about these ethnic minorities. He was Khmu himself. Khmu is one of the largest groups among the Mon-Khmer-speaking people in Laos. Damrong Tayanin recorded and documented, among other things, stories about the meaning and use of the Dong Son drums. He carried out this work mainly in the 1970s (cf. Tayanin 1994). According to Damrong Tayanin’s sources, the drums are said to have been made long ago by a mythical hero. The drums are classified according to size, decoration, the place where they were made and the materials used. They are called “old” or “new”, not depending on age but on the proportions of tin and copper used. They can be “female” or “male”. They are considered to have a soul, and they are also empowered with “luck”, either good or bad. Most often, the drums are not private property, but rather belong to a whole group, a family or a village. The drums are used as music instruments but are never played purely for entertainment. They are used exclusively for ritual occasions and played in order to invoke the ancestor spirits. Anybody is allowed to beat them: women, children and men. When not in use, the drums are stored in the forest, more or less unprotected. Yet, very few people would venture to steal them. The oldest bronze drums are said to be cursed, and no one can touch or even see them. These extremely empowered drums have often been buried, thrown into rivers or hidden in caves. Demon spirits occupy the territories where the ground is rich in metals. As the drums are made of this metal, the demon spirits own them. The spirits allowed people to use the drums, but they are still under their direct control. In Vilabouly today, there are drums still used by the minority groups, but most of them are of later origin. A large part of the research project I carried out in 2012–13 was a “heritage-ethnographic” investigation (cf. Meskell 2012) in Vilabouly, including survey and mapping. Forty-two of the villages in the Vilabouly district were surveyed. The team included staff from the Ministry of Information and Culture district office, a research assistant from Lao Academy of Social Science in Vientiane and me. During our survey, we came across a few of these old drums and heard stories about innumerable others. In general, people were quite reluctant to show us any of the drums, even the modern ones. They use them only for special occasions. As an example of contemporary use, Guangxi, one of the Chinese provinces in which the majority of Mon-Khmer-speaking ethnic groups live today, must be mentioned. There has been a bronze drum revival over the last couple of years. Thousands of old drums are documented in this province, and new ones are also being produced in large numbers there. But what about these old drums, now excavated in Vilabouly by archaeologists and taken by the

Bronze drums 181 authorities in order to be preserved and exhibited in the museum? What became obvious during the survey was that the minority groups in Vilabouly had a dual and somewhat contradictory opinion. On the one hand, they see how the bronze drums, which were recently excavated at the mining site, get full attention from dominant Lao groups as pieces of valuable art and are adopted by the majority group as an important component of their national Lao identity, without being acknowledged as something with a connection to the minority groups. From this perspective, they, of course, want the drums to be returned. But on the other hand, they are deadly frightened when these ancient bronze drums are unearthed. They are afraid of what will happen to themselves, and they link the drums’ appearance to all the various bad and unlucky things that have happened in their villages recently, such as people who have become ill and even died. So, from that perspective they do not want the drums back at all, at least not as physical objects, and they disagree with the excavation of more drums. Paradoxically, they want the previously excavated drums to be returned to them, but they want them to be reburied because no one knows any more how to take care of them. What we see here is a different way of relating to materiality. Sacred objects are never chosen for their material value, but rather for their spiritual value (Karlström 2005), and this is an approach for which there is not much room in archaeology or the contemporary heritage discourse, which privileges material authenticity, form and fabric and the idea that archaeological and heritage values are universal and that things should be preserved for the future and preferably forever (Smith 2006).

Popular religion Going back to the “Us” and “the Other” divide, the indigenous Khmu are here represented as “the Other” whereas the nation state of Laos represents “Us”. But as I already touched upon, there is a large in-between space, too, in which most of the common ordinary Lao people reside: this is a population which regards itself as living according to traditional Lao culture but in a contemporary globalized world, believing in popular Buddhism, which includes the often overlapping practices of animism, Theravada Buddhism and Hinduism. In Laos, as in many other Southeast Asian countries, this popular Buddhism is the dominant religious practice. The belief in spirits, or phii, is a common expression of popular religious practice. During my former fieldwork in Laos over the years, which was conducted primarily with Lao groups, I have tried hard to understand the significance of phii. I realized early on that this was a sensitive issue, as my informants were often reluctant to answer my questions. After persistently asking about phii, I was told that they exist in many different ways. For example, there are dangerous spirits residing in nature and a number of malevolent spirits that cause illnesses. One can seek protection from these spirits, and cures when harmed by them, through performing different rites and offerings, or by wearing

182  Anna Karlström certain protective objects, such as amulets or tattoos. Other spirits are protective. In addition to these, there are also ancestral and guardian spirits. Maintaining good relations with the spirits often implies certain rituals and acts such as the daily food offerings at the spirit house, which hosts a beneficent spirit that is attached to the place where it stands. The understanding of phii is that they are very much present in the everyday life of most people living in Laos. To those who have a connection to the drums, for example, the spirits are obviously as real and meaningful as the material significance and importance of the drums are to me. This belief in the spirits and the empowerment of certain objects and places is shared by the majority in Lao society. To most Lao people in general, irrespective of their ethnic belonging, the drums function as containers for spirits. During the fieldwork, we visited other places where drums had been found and sometimes excavated. Southwest of Vilabouly, a Dong Son bronze drum, which is more than 2,500 years old, was unearthed more than 10 years ago. The villages’ administration decided that the drum could not be entirely excavated and removed since it was found in the sacred forest belonging to and shared by people from three different villages. Two of the villages are inhabited by Mon-Khmer-speaking groups, and the third village by Lao. Removing the drum would disturb the spirits, which empowered it, after hundreds of years in the ground. This, in turn, could harm the villagers. A shelter was built around the drum, and this space has for more than a decade now been used as a shrine, shared by people from all three villages who perform their sacred acts of offering and worship around the drum. Small pieces and scraps from the drum are occasionally removed and reused to empower new sacred objects such as amulets and charms. People traveled, and continue to travel, from far away to come and worship the drum. This belief in the empowerment of certain objects and places transcends the rural–urban divide and the class divide, as well as the division of gender and age and between indigenous and non-indigenous. And yet it tends not to be mentioned, other than as anecdotes, in heritage and archaeology debates. Through popular religion, objects from the past are given meaning. This describes the relationship a large part of the population of the world has with remains from the past, and also suggests that the discourse of popular religion reaches farther (i.e. more people and also in their everyday lives) than archaeology and heritage discourse.

Conclusion So, as a conclusion I now return to the issue of indigeneity. I see in the case of Laos that rather than being an indigenous/non-indigenous divide, it is about the local/national divide. What binds together the people and their relationship with heritage, irrespective of indigenous or non-indigenous categorization, is their shared way of relating to the material past and giving meaning to it in the present by practicing popular religion and empowering

Bronze drums 183 the objects that are concerned. The indigenous status might only be used for legally claiming back land and objects. But these groups will most certainly not be very successful in doing that, thinking of the current political situation in Laos. Indigenous knowledge, values and perceptions can more easily be taken into consideration if we instead allow ourselves within the field of archaeology and heritage to start thinking of more far-reaching ways to define, approach and manage heritage. It is an adaptive challenge, which requires a profound change in values and behavior, and a more radical approach that gives equal value to popular religious discourse and to scientific heritage and archaeological discourse is needed. Instead of choosing one or the other of the discourses or worldviews, we should be able to practice them simultaneously, as we have seen in the example above that people do. Adopting this approach facilitates the recognition of in-between spaces, the broader, wider boundary – here represented by popular religious practices and beliefs. The boundary is where indigenous can be combined with modern life, where the space is shared by the modern indigenous and non-indigenous majority, where the space is the immaterial aspects of heritage and where endings pass into beginnings and insider and outsider might be one and the same.

References Bruchac, M. M., S. M. Hart, and H. M. Wobst, eds. 2010. Indigenous Archaeologies: A Reader on Decolonization. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Byrne, D. 2014. Counterheritage: Critical Perspectives on Heritage Conservation in Asia. New York and London: Routledge. Calò, A. 2014. Trails of Bronze Drums across Early Southeast Asia: Exchange Routes and Connected Cultural Spheres. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian studies. Fabian, J. 1983. Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York: Columbia University Press. Karlström, A. 2005. “Spiritual materiality: Heritage preservation in a Buddhist world?” Journal of Social Archaeology 5 (3): 338–55. Karlström, A. 2009. Preserving Impermanence – the Creation of Heritage in Vientiane, Laos. Uppsala: Uppsala University, Department of Archaeology and Ancient History. Kuper, A. 2003. “The return of the native.” Current Anthropology 44 (3): 389–402. Mayes, W., and N. Chang. 2014. “Discovering Sepon: Cultural heritage management and the making of a modern mine.” The Extractive Industries and Society 1 (2): 237–48. McNiven, I. J. 2016. “Theoretical challenges of indigenous archaeology: Setting an agenda.” American Antiquity 81: 27–41. Meskell, L. 2012. “Archaeological ethnography: Materiality, heritage, and hybrid methodologies.” In Archaeology and Anthropology: Past, Present and Future, edited by D. Shankland, 133–44. London: Berg. Minh-Ha, Trinh T. 2011. Elsewhere, within Here: Immigration, Refugeeism and the Boundary Event. New York and London: Routledge.

184  Anna Karlström Niezen, R. 2010. “A new global phenomenon?” In Indigenous Archaeologies: A Reader on Decolonization, edited by M. M. Bruchac, S. M. Hart, and H. M. Wobst, 33–37. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Smith, L. 2006. Uses of Heritage. New York and London: Routledge. Spivak, G. C. 1999. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tayanin, D. 1994. Being Kammu: My Village, My Life. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, Southeast Asia Program series. Tuhiwai Smith, L. 1999. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Dunedin: University of Otago Press. Wobst, H. M. and C. Smith. 2003. “ ‘Unothering’: Theory and practice in archaeology.” In Indigenous People and Archaeology: Proceedings of the 29th Annual Chacmool Conference, edited by T. Peck, and E. Siegfried, 211–25. Calgary: Archaeological Association of the University of Calgary.

13 Indigeneity, knowledge and archaeology on both sides of the mirror Alejandro F. Haber

I Archaeology, as science in general, is a human creation. As such, it is obviously a social and political practice. Whether or not our social and political interests are made explicit, they not only exist but also inform our practice and discourse. Having said that, it must also be noted that to pretend science and/or archaeology is or can be separated from social and political interests implies the introduction of a systematic deformation, a concealment that fulfills hegemonic interests. Hegemonic interests are those that do not need to be worded, scrutinized or debated, and so they can continue to inform their positions of power as if they were normal. Failing to situate and particularize scientific and academic discourse amounts to what the Colombian philosopher Santiago Castro calls “the zero-point hubris” (Castro Gómez 2005); that is, the pretense that one can observe and write about world matters without being affected from that same world, the pretense that one can keep an eye on history and society that is outside history and society itself. This is as common as it is dangerous within the discipline of archaeology, which seems to be quite well equipped for scrutinizing and deconstructing the Other but completely unable to turn those same intellectual skills on itself. Yet, it is even more dangerous when “the indigenous” becomes the topic of the discourse. As indigeneity is from the outset a relational category presented as objective, failing to think reflexively when talking about the indigenous serves the colonial project into which the category was originally inscribed (Haber 2007). At least two sociohistorical contexts should be theorized in order to gain some kind of understanding of the workings of the archaeological discipline and indigeneity in terms of the geopolitics of knowledge. The first such context is related to the national state as the main dispositive of the modern advanced capitalist expansion. The nation state, mainly in its form that developed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is associated with the renovation of colonialism, whether external or internal, and the associated generalization of the essentialist categorical othering (and hence the almost universal presence of the indigenous as the Other to the national

186  Alejandro F. Haber being). While within each national state a particular configuration of diversity (Segato 2007) gives space to specific forms of nomination, definition and treatment of indigeneity, these forms amount in general to a recapitulation and expansion of the modern West, understood as a specific evolution of a longer tradition of theory of history that can be traced back to at least Herodotean times. The importance of academic disciplines, such as history, anthropology and archaeology, in the building and reproduction of those configurations of diversity cannot be neglected. Within that same context, that archaeological discipline was consolidated and institutionalized, its disciplinary framework accepted and generalized, and the idiom of the vestigial matter as a means of knowing the gone past of the illiterate (and thus voiceless) Other became a cultural dogma. Disciplinary archaeology includes a diversity of theoretical and methodological positions, but conserves the same basic epistemic assumptions. A second context, named post-capitalism, postcolonialism, or globalization, corresponds both with a post-disciplinary phase within archaeology and multiculturalism within indigeneity discourse. The main feature of post-disciplinary archaeology is the incorporation of aims other than the pursuit of true knowledge, and the context is now a renovated and expansive colonial border calling for the incorporation into the capitalist market economies of lands previously considered unworthy of attention, local and indigenous knowledge, constantly rewritten narratives of the exotic Other and rare, disseminated and formerly disguised mineral, vegetal and animal resources that become valuable because of the new extractive and transformative technologies (Haber 2012b). Either “archaeology” or “indigenous” is usually applied to these postcolonial scenarios, but it is often the case that both of these terms simultaneously play a leading role within such border contexts. Multiculturalism is the theory behind the new colonial pact between the state and its Other, implying its recognition and relative compensation, together with the consolidation of the essentialist aspects of the othering mechanism. Indigeneity, reframed as a new category of client to the state, becomes appealing for the descendants of the peoples who were oppressed through that same categorization process (Shepherd and Haber 2011). It is ironic how commonly anthropology and archaeology scrutinize and deconstruct such processes of self-representation of the state while those same disciplines are the very ones responsible for the consolidation of the particular configurations of diversity that shaped the state’s categorical idioms in the first place. Multilateral organizations and multinational corporations are to be included as new client-demanding actors in the renovated border scenarios. In this chapter, with the aid of two archaeological field vignettes, I demonstrate how the concept of indigeneity works within specific epistemic confrontations in the context of a particular configuration of diversity (Haber 2012a). The archaeological discipline views indigeneity as otherness; and (post-disciplinary) indigenous archaeology tends to recapitulate disciplinary

Indigeneity, knowledge and archaeology 187 assumptions and, finally, Western episteme. Within this hegemonic perspective, indigeneity works as a mirror image of the West. The vignettes help me to walk across the mirror, where otherness is not coupled with indigeneity, but with a particular theory of relatedness. The Other to the Other, thus, is not the self, and particular ways of relating to the hegemonic position, which are different from the knowledge of indigeneity, are practiced. Antihegemonic places of theory, at both sides of the mirror, are explored, as are its implications for un-disciplining archaeology (Haber 2012b).

II After 20 years of conducting archaeological research in the Antofalla territory, I wanted to do a test excavation alongside the recently modified stone fence of an agricultural plot. I asked Severo Reales, the owner of the plot, for permission, although I already had legal authorization from the state anthropology bureaucratic agency. Severo said he had no objections at all, and that he would come with us (me and the small group of students) the first morning of work. Next morning, he came along with wine, alcohol, coca leaves and cigarettes; he dug a hole by the spot where I wanted to dig and gave the ritual food to the antiguo.1 After lighting a cigarette, he invited each of the people present to feed the antiguo and eat some food, while he said to the site that was to be excavated, “Holy Earth Pachamama, beautiful old things shall be bred for Don Ale” (I am commonly referred to as Don Ale in this area). Severo was severe enough: with these words of friendship towards me, he also provided me with a theory of relatedness, including relationships with antiguos, which is completely different from the theory of relatedness I assumed was valid. According to Severo’s theory, antiguos are not vestiges from a perfect past, but are still alive and growing under the soil; the past is not gone and distant, the past has not passed in a perfect sense and the relationship with the past is not primarily about extracting knowledge but about reciprocal feeding, care, respect, fear and love. Archaeological objects, considered by the archaeological discipline (and heritage legislation and international agreements) to be its subject matter, and which are variously named but always refer to the vestigial matter originated in the more-or-less distant past, for Severo, instead, exist and act upon people in the present, demand obligations from them, and, rather than being accessible or inaccessible in absolute terms, modulate their relationship – including access and avoidance – through ritual (Kusch 1962; Vilca 2009). Severo’s significant practice challenged my common understanding of my relationship with the antiguos of Antofalla. Moreover, he also challenged the central assumptions of the discipline, its solid foundations and, together with them, every other piece of legislation (provincial, national, international and multilateral) that shared with the archaeological discipline the same basal set of assumptions: the materiality of the archaeological thing, its vestigiality from a past located at a distance along a time vector, the

188  Alejandro F. Haber archaeological discipline as the medium for relating with the otherwise inaccessible past, asymmetrical knowledge as the normal relationship and the illicitness (and displacement along the vector) of relations other-than-­ disciplined (Haber 2009a). It is not that there are simply other possible interpretations of past history, but that history, the past and things are related to one another and to other things (people, the earth, sun, moon, food, etc.) in completely different ways, according to other theories of relatedness. Those other relationalities are made through the relationship to the Other. This Other is not the Other-to-the-West; that is, the cultural Other to be placed at a different point along a vectorial line of time, culture or development, outside the borders of the West, where it is to be reflected negatively in the configuration of a self-image and finally captured as an object of science, tourism or social or international aid (Escobar 2005). Neither is it the negative of Western othering, an othering that would assume a local perspectival point for othering the West. Instead, the Other from the Other-to-the-West’s perspective is both metaphysical and immanent at the same time, given that the relationality with those animated powerful beings is itself the fabric of the ones implied in the relationality. These theories of relationality are based on local ontologies (local epistemes) and are grounded locally; but they are not isolated from the Western hegemonic episteme, including the archaeological discipline (Haber 2009a). Severo knew quite well what I was thinking about the archaeological site, what my ontological assumptions were, what I was looking for and what kind of praxis I would develop regarding the antiguos. That is why he came to intervene before I started my excavation; he placed my relationship to the antiguos within the expectancies of the local theory of relatedness, and through our involvement in a ritual conversation with the antiguo he semio-practically explained to us – me and my students – what kind of relations they – the antiguos – expected from us (Grosso 2008). In doing so, he implied that from the locus of “normality”, where we were standing as archaeologists, we had no choice but to ignore the local episteme, and he intervened to put things in order. We were epistemically eaten by the local relationality. Archaeological things are enmeshed within local theories of relationality, and are themselves actively related. The inter-epistemic relation is constructed in time as hegemony/subalternity within particular configurations of diversity. Subaltern local theory includes its own positionality regarding the hegemonic episteme, a perspective on its relation to hegemony, but its main feature regarding hegemonic episteme is that it can either incorporate Western beings (objects, concepts, gods) within its own episteme (phagocitosis, as named by Kusch 1962) or actively ignore hegemonic agents (ignoration, as named by Londoño 2012). Phagocitosis and ignoration are two different attitudes to hegemony that preserve local theories of relationality. In local theory there is not an outer space of otherness where the self can draw its own contours and expand, as is the case with the modern West.

Indigeneity, knowledge and archaeology 189 Otherness as a condition of relationality is already thought and practiced by every being in relation to every other being. Parents and children, people and Pachamama, upper winds and lower winds, alive and defunct, and so on are relations of otherness already patterned through the local theory of relationality.

III While in Antofalla, Antolín and his family asked me to excavate their plot. It was the first time I was asked to excavate by local people. The locals irrigate their plots by flooding them during one or more days with water from a canal. They told me that the water “gets lost through a hole”. As they saw some large stones inside the hole, they presumed that it had something to do with archaeology; as I was the expert, it was obviously my duty to excavate the plot. My inspection of the spot gave me the impression of a tomb, similar to the underground slab-stone false-vaulted chambers that are common in the area (Haber 2009b).2 As I was never fond of excavating tombs, and I assumed that excavating human remains would provoke contrary feelings, I talked to Antolín and his family about the possibility of the hole being a tomb before excavating. To my surprise, Antolín asked me, if it were a tomb, would it be Christian or Gentile (i.e. non-Christian), and he showed no particular interest when I said that, in my opinion, it would be Gentile. He was almost upset, however, when I suggested discussing the issue of excavating a tomb with the rest of the people in the community. He perceived my suggestion as challenging the exclusivity of his rights to that plot of land; neighbors had nothing to say about what happened within his plot, and asking them would be admitting their right to intervene. Rights to land are a consequence of taking care of that particular place, a relationship that is again enmeshed within the idea of reciprocal breeding, a meta-pattern that I called uywaña (Haber 1999). In time, the goodness of that relationship becomes manifest in the well-tended land, the many and fat sheep and a well-bred family. With the conversation in mind, I spent the following two days “excavating the hole”, where I fortunately found nothing but a broken pottery bowl, two big slabs and the idea that, if it was indeed once a tomb, the amount of water running through it across several years was mainly responsible for the displacement of the slabs from their original chamberlike disposition and the washing out of any other eventual organic remains. While I reported my conclusions and findings to Antolín, he told me that the job was not finished yet, given that the hole, by then neatly brushed and photographed, needed to be filled in in order to let the water flood the plot instead of running out through the hole. I managed to leave the filling part to Antolín, who also wanted to take out the big slabs in order to use them in some building plan. When I was a spectator to the lifting of those two gigantic stones from a hole in the soil, I was again taken by surprise. The following morning, Antolín and two neighbors gathered around the hole,

190  Alejandro F. Haber prepared to begin the job. They first poured alcohol and offered coca leaves, and, sharing them with the Earth, lit a cigarette for her and for each of the people present. Taking out the stones from the earth demanded a reciprocal ritual payment for them, in the very same spot where the possible tomb of a Gentile was unimportant for the same people. I should say that the relationship with the land enacted in this scene seems much closer to local than to Western Christian episteme. These epistemes are meshes of relationships, ways of understanding and acting out relationships between things, gods and beings, not mere groups of things. To be “Christian” or “Gentile” is uttered as an identity, a piece of metacultural discourse, but Christianity, as practiced within local indigenous epistemes, is a kind of relationship that can illuminate the way we think about things and gods. In this second vignette, the sacred is not the tomb (nor the would-be tomb) but the Earth that is asked to release the big slab stones from inside. I am suggesting that we think of the sacred beings (wak’a) not as beings in themselves but as relational agents, which are themselves enmeshed in relationships, ones created through the conversation with many agents. While the wak’a as a tomb can be the object of scientific knowledge and legislation (as the objects within the tomb are), the wak’a as a relational agent is a subject to be related to, not merely as a knower but as a related being. The earth, that particular piece of soil in the familial plot, was a relational agent that took care of the family, providing them with food, and, in return, they gave her attention through work and food through ritual. Antolín’s plot itself is a god that brings up his family through relations of uywaña; however, it is not a god prior to these relationships but rather because of and through those relationships. Relationality in motion is, at once, both sacred and pedestrian. The apparent paradox appears when relationships of uywaña take precedence over fixed objectual identities: Antolín is Christian in a local indigenous way but maybe he is not indigenous in an Argentine/Western way. Local theories of relatedness are the context for culture as knowledge, while national configurations of diversity and the positioning within the hegemonicsubaltern difference are the context for the meta-culture of Christianity/ indigeneity. The gods whom Severo asked to breed beautiful things for me (in vignette number one) were already related to the gods of the water and the earth, and with Antofalla people. Wak’a are everywhere. They are not objects but animated things (gods) that act upon their relationship with other things (humans) (Vilca 2009). As with any other conversation, any utterance is a reply to the other’s real, imaginary or expected utterance. Within the archaeological discipline, archaeological objects have power only in instrumental terms: as media for obtaining knowledge. However, for Antolín and Severo, antiguos and wak’a in general are not the means for attaining another aim, neither are antiguos there to represent some absent reality (like vestiges of the gone and perfect past). Archaeological objects/

Indigeneity, knowledge and archaeology 191 sites do not mean the past;3 they are purposeful and powerful actors with embedded social relations with the rest of things in the (local) world. Time and space are not dimensions in the Western modern sense, but conversations among animated beings, relationality that codifies alterity. From Antofalla episteme, space and time are the same as “the place”; that is, my lived-in place. The theory that soil is not a dimension as in Western episteme, is not even an issue as in Western thought of the Other. Pacha, a concept of “space/time” and “this place” and the noun root of Pachamama, the so-called “Andean mother goddess”, makes sense only as a web of lived relationships in which one comes to being, but, again, not just as an object but as a sentient and powerful being, a god. Thus, the lived relationships within the cosmic community of beings, in which each being is bred, grows, reproduces and dies, are themselves agentive and sacred. Life itself, being a god, acts upon each being through reciprocal and asymmetrical relationships of breeding and eating, and creation and destruction. Life cannot be simply known but lived; relationality cannot be simply known but related to. The inter-epistemic trip that begins to un-discipline archaeology ends with its own epistemological/philosophical consequences: local theories of relationality act upon the knower that comes from afar as much as the knower is related and becomes through those relationalities; in theoretical and political terms, this implies a standpoint from which to decolonize oneself from Western modern assumptions codified in the disciplines of knowledge. As much as one moves from being “ignorated” to being phagocitated,4 the move undertaken within the local conversation implies a post-Western conversion. Un-disciplining archaeology implies an insubordination from its disciplinary assumptions (dimensional and vector-based time-space, cultural difference as codifying otherness, ontological/moral binaries, among others). These are not just a series of tenets within the disciplinary parcel but are also core beliefs of the modern West as a whole. Entering a conversation, that is, being in the relationship according to local theory of relatedness, implies being related as being. This promotes a move of the place of writing; that is, my writing as a device of knowledge moves according to the conversation that moves me as a being. I am not saying that un-disciplining archaeology entails going native, but that everyone included in the relational conversation is transformed in it.

IV Essentialist theories such as Nazism, culture-historical archaeology and multiculturalism are based on the assumption of identity of culture and meta-culture (that is, discourses on culture), and social scientists and archaeologists tend to evaluate the correspondence between both as authentic and the lack of correspondence as fake (Briones 2004). My suggestion here is to abandon such a paradigm and consider, on the one hand, subaltern

192  Alejandro F. Haber meta-cultural discourse in the context of strategies for survival within the variable configuration of diversity as proposed by nation states, and, on the other hand, culture, not as cultural data for the construction of anthropological/archaeological knowledge, but as knowledge in itself; that is, theories about the world that can easily confront other theories, even Western and academic theories. The colonial border can be described as a zone of friction between the capitalist West and its exteriority, over which the West aims to expand. While, from my perspective (Haber 2012b), the border is the place for thought: it is wide enough to produce unexpected interchanges. Border theory (Mignolo 2013) is being already developed by indigenous peoples and communities, social movements, peasants and local communities. Those who struggle against the colonization of their worlds must, in the first place, de-link (Mignolo 2013) their own thought from hegemonic language. Border thinking must comb against the grain of taken-for-granted assumptions and, most importantly for this volume, against the grain of academic knowledge as found in disciplinary archaeology. Such knowledge predicates people’s relationships with their ancestors only through the archaeological discipline, their past is gone, their ancestors were already dominating and oppressing each other before European colonization, and many other pieces of colonialist narrative (Gnecco and Hernández 2008). It is in the border that the ontology of the archaeological object is being dismounted according with local theories. The archaeological discipline has created a myriad of self-serving images. To un-discipline archaeology, led by the hand of border thinkers such as Severo and Antolín, may imply walking through the mirror to its other side. In order to explore what happens to archaeology while it becomes undisciplined, I return to the vignettes. First, certain situations imply epistemic interpellations that help to see how one – as an archaeologist – reproduces the coloniality of knowledge; this may move to anatomize how such a geopolitical positioning works (Santos 2005). Second (not in time but for the sake of writing it down), the researcher may move (mudanza) from that position, a movement that implies un-disciplining the disciplinary assumptions, knowing that this may imply a departure from the West as ontological normality. Such moves are not made in academic isolation, but in conversations within border contexts; that is, with indigenous peoples, social movements, anti-system activists and local communities. These subaltern positionings have already thought the world to be otherwise and, moreover, such a fundamental task is done from subaltern perspectives on hegemonic discourse. Many different things happen to archaeology once you walk across the mirror. Most importantly, it becomes a very relevant skill for re-establishing disconnected and traumatized relations, across previously incommensurable realms, languages, textualities and textures within us as archaeologists. It is the (our own) hegemonic way of understanding the world as the very thing that has to be deactivated while other

Indigeneity, knowledge and archaeology 193 non-hegemonic links should be developed, and an un-disciplined archaeology may be a helpful skill for this.

Notes 1 Antiguo (the “old one” in Spanish) refers to either an old being, antiquity, the archaeological site or ruin, or the archaeological object. The antiguo lives in the ruin and should not be bothered, but related [communicated] with through a ritualized paying [payment] of food and drink. Once a year, it admits to be [agrees to be/tolerates being] visited by living people and share food and “things” with them. 2 The presence of two large slab stones in the valley bottom suggested that they were carried from the upper slopes where there are quarries with the same kind and size of stones. 3 In the modern logocentric sense of meaning as an explanation, a description of a word or significance that is absent is represented by a meaning or signifier. In Severo’s theory, antiguos are the past as much as the past is the antiguos: both are co-present, continuous, material and immaterial at the same time. 4 Ignoration and phagocitosis are briefly explained before in this same chapter, in section II.

References Briones, C. 2004. (Meta) cultura del Estado-nación y estado de la (meta)cultura. Popayán: Universidad del Cauca. Castro-Gomez, S. 2005. La hybris del punto cero: ciencia, raza e ilustracion en la Nueva Granada (1750–1816). Bogota: Universidad Javeriana. Escobar, A. 2005. Más allá del tercer mundo: globalización y diferencia. Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia ICANH. Gnecco, C., and C. Hernández. 2008. “History and its discontents: Stones statues, natives histories, and archaeologists.” Current Anthropology 49 (3): 439–66. Grosso, J. L. 2008. “Semiopraxis en contextos interculturales poscoloniales. Cuerpos, fuerzas y sentidos en pugna.” Espacio Abierto 17 (abril-junio): 231–45. Haber, A. F. 1999. “Uywaña, the house and its indoor landscape: Oblique approaches to, and beyond of, domestication.” In The Prehistory of Food, edited by C. Gosden, and J. Hather, 59–82. London: Routledge. Haber, A. F. 2007. “This is not an answer to the question ‘Who is indigenous?’ ” Archaeologies 3 (3): 213–29. Haber, A. F. 2009a. “Animism, relatedness, life: Post-Western perspectives.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19 (3): 418–30. Haber, A. F. 2009b. Domesticidad e interacción en los Andes Meridionales. Popayán: Universidad del Cauca. Haber, A. F. 2012a. “Severo’s severity and Antolín’s paradox.” E-flux 36. http:// www.e-flux.com/journal/36/61263/severo-s-severity-and-antoln-s-paradox/. Haber, A. F. 2012b. “Un-disciplining archaeology.” Archaeologies 8 (1): 55–66. Kusch, R. 1962. América profunda. Buenos Aires: Hachette. Londoño, W. 2012. “Fausto ignorado. Una etnografía sobre construcción e ignoración de la modernidad en la Puna de Atacama.” PhD dissertation, Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad Nacional de Catamarca.

194  Alejandro F. Haber Mignolo, W. 2013. “Geopolitics of sensing and knowing: On coloniality, border thinking, and epistemic disobedience.” Confero Essays on Education Philosophy and Politics 1 (1): 129–50. Santos, B. de S. 2005. El milenio huérfano: ensayos para un nueva cultura política. Madrid/Bogotá: Trotta/ILSA. Segato, R. L. 2007. La Nación y sus Otros: raza, etnicidad y diversidad religiosa en tiempos de Políticas de la Identidad. Buenos Aires: Prometeo. Shepherd, N., and A. F. Haber. 2011. “What’s up with WAC? Archaeology and engagement in a globalized world.” Public Archaeology 10 (2): 96–115. Vilca, M. 2009. “Más allá del “paisaje.” El espacio de la Puna y Qeubrada de Jujuy: ¿Comensal, anfitrión, interlocutor?” Cuadernos FHyCS-UNJu 36: 245–59.

Part III

Heritage and indigenous rights Carl-Gösta Ojala Working in a field of tension between past and present, archaeologists face many challenges concerning the ethics and politics of archaeology, and the roles and responsibilities of researchers, heritage workers and institutions. In many cases, archaeology has an impact on contemporary society and matters to people in their everyday lives. In many parts of the world, there are also connections between archaeology and debates and conflicts over land and cultural rights, not least in indigenous contexts. In the two earlier parts of the book, the contributors have discussed aspects of the politics of indigeneity and spaces between “Us” and “Them” in archaeology and heritage discourse. In the third part of the book, the authors explore issues of heritage, social and cultural justice and indigenous rights, discussing case studies from different parts of the world, including North America, Japan, Southern Africa, Scandinavia and northern Russia. It should be noted that heritage can be defined in many different ways, and that the authors in this part of the book approach the concept of heritage from several different perspectives. The challenges faced by archaeologists in situations with contested history and heritage have fueled discussions on archaeological ethics. Many national as well as international archaeological associations have formulated codes of ethics and guidelines for good practice. Especially important, the World Archaeological Congress (WAC) has addressed issues concerning the relationship between professional archaeologists and local and indigenous communities (see WAC website: http://worldarch.org/ code-of-ethics). Furthermore, international law, with several important conventions and declarations (see also contribution by Niezen in Part 1), constitutes an important aspect of discourses on heritage and indigenous rights. In particular, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, from 2007, plays an important role in the debates, as several paragraphs relate to the management and control of indigenous cultural heritage. At the same time, it is important to remember that the impact of national legal frameworks, which vary greatly between different countries, is still of fundamental importance.

196  Carl-Gösta Ojala One common central concern is the relationship between, on the one hand, heritage management ideology and practice, and, on the other, indigenous self-determination and indigenous rights. Debates on repatriation of cultural heritage and reburial of human remains have been particularly important in many parts of the world. One especially controversial issue has concerned collections of human remains from indigenous groups, which were gathered as part of anatomical and racial biological research in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; this issue has become a highly emotional and sensitive matter in many countries (see contributions by Ojala and Kato for examples from the Nordic countries and Japan). One of the most central issues in the repatriation debates concerns indigenous authority and self-determination, and the right to and responsibility for collections of objects and human remains. In his chapter, George Nicholas highlights issues of power dimensions and inequality in archaeology and heritage management, with case studies primarily from Canada. His discussion is based on three premises: 1) that access to and control over one’s own heritage is a basic human right essential to identity, well-being and worldview; 2) that Indigenous peoples in so-called ‘settler countries’ have historically been separated from their heritage, experienced little benefit from heritage-related research and suffered cultural harms and economic loss as a result; and 3) that community-based heritage initiatives are capable of challenging colonial structures in the research process without compromising the integrity of archaeology. He stresses the need to acknowledge the right of descendant communities to have direct and meaningful means of engaging in decision-making concerning their heritage – and that for many indigenous communities much more is at stake than just political recognition. Nicholas also gives an overview of the international IPinCH project (Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage), based at Simon Fraser University. Hirofumi Kato discusses issues concerning Ainu history and heritage in the context of Japanese archaeology and heritage management. He provides an overview of how the Ainu, the indigenous people in northern Japan, have been represented in archaeological and anthropological discourses. Historically, there has been a strong focus on mainstream society in Japanese archaeology, and a lack of recognition of Ainu indigenous rights in Japanese society. Kato discusses the challenges for archaeologists in Japan and the possibilities to learn from community-based archaeology initiatives, and debates on archaeological ethics, in other parts of the world. In their respective chapters, Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu and John Giblin focus on issues of indigeneity in Southern Africa. Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu raises important issues concerning community archaeology and the complexities

Heritage and indigenous rights 197 of the application of the concept of indigeneity in Southern Africa. He stresses the need for a multitude of voices to exist and addresses power inequalities in heritage research and management. He also emphasizes that historical aspects in a given locality must be considered when discussing how best to involve local communities in heritage management. John Giblin also discusses Southern Africa, but focuses on Indigenous heritage ecotourism in Southern Africa and critically explores the practice of “performing Indigenous” for international tourists by socially marginalized, rural groups, such as Maasai and Batwa groups. He points to problematic aspects of the cultural entertainment, with its expectations of authentic indigenousness in a rural context characterized by poverty, social exclusion and inequality. Giblin asks whether this heritage tourism actually benefits and empowers the local communities, or whether it is rather part of the root cause of the marginalization and impoverishment of these groups. Ndlovu’s and Giblin’s chapters also relate to the discussions on indigeneity in African contexts by Paul Lane and Edward Matenga in Part 2. Carl-Gösta Ojala explores the contested colonial history and heritage in the Sámi areas (which stretch across northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in the Russian Federation), with particular focus on present-day northern Sweden. There is a reluctance to recognize the colonial history and present in the Sámi areas in northern Sweden, which in turn makes Sámi indigenous rights in Sweden a very controversial topic. Some of the most contested issues have concerned the exploitation of natural resources and debates on the control and repatriation of Sámi cultural heritage and reburial of Sámi human remains. There are many critical challenges concerning the ethics and politics of archaeology and heritage management in the Sámi areas, and Ojala argues that, although it is important to maintain a critical perspective, there could be a lot to learn from debates and approaches to community-based archaeology and Indigenous archaeology in other parts of the world. Vladislava Vladimirova explores discourses on reindeer herding as heritage in the Russian Federation, especially on the Kola Peninsula, and the movements for promoting reindeer herding and acknowledging indigenous land and cultural rights in the Russian North, where the large-scale exploitation of natural resources is constantly threatening reindeer-grazing lands. Vladimirova discusses the particular situation for indigenous groups in the post-Soviet world, with its legacy of Soviet ideology and social structures, and Soviet conceptualization of nationality, ethnicity and indigeneity – as well as the role of heritage in post-Soviet management and the Sámi ethnopolitical movement. Vladimirova also addresses the challenging issue of cultural and ethnic authenticity, regarding reindeer herding as heritage. In her chapter, she also discusses the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Laponia in northern Sweden – a combined natural and cultural heritage site – and the challenges of creating a new management system which includes the local Sámi population.

198  Carl-Gösta Ojala The chapters point to the need for further discussions on the ways in which indigeneity is conceptualized in archaeology and heritage research, and the complexities and challenges that archaeologists and other researchers are facing when confronting, and participating in, the fields of tension between past and present. Furthermore, the chapters underline the importance of considering similarities as well as differences when discussing heritage and indigenous rights in different parts of the world.

14 Culture, rights, indigeneity and intervention Addressing inequality in indigenous heritage protection and control George P. Nicholas The questions of who is “indigenous” and whether that status offers any special rights within heritage claims beyond those of other members of the nation are of considerable importance today. As others have noted, the term itself – “indigenous” – is also problematic, as it is necessarily defined in relation to something (someone) else. Some also challenge the term, pointing out that everyone is indigenous to somewhere. “Indigeneity” has thus become a focus of scrutiny (e.g. Devy et al. 2009; Hokowhitu et al. 2010; Miller 2003). Making sense of indigeneity and the power relations it includes or obscures is a task of some urgency, with considerable social, economic and political consequences. This is particularly so within multicultural societies where the indigenous population has often been subjected to centuries of disenfranchisement, assimilation and other threats. In such situations, allowing certain groups to have “privileges” (e.g. fishing rights) not afforded to others is at once a necessary means of restitution but also highly contentious and politically charged, especially in the context of unresolved land claims. What is at stake are not just economic interests but the identity, wellbeing, sovereignty and indeed survival of Indigenous peoples and their cultural traditions. There have been discussions of culture-based rights by scholars and legal experts at a relatively high level of theorizing and legal analysis (e.g. Kuper and commentaries 2003; Cowan 2006, 2013; Kapchan 2014; Strathern 2006). This is part of much broader discussions concerning a suite of related topics, including race, culture and identity (Brooks 2002; Tallbear 2013), the legitimacy of traditional knowledge and “indigenous research” (Irlbacher-Fox 2014; Widdowson and Howard 2008), human rights (Donnely 2013; Goodale 2009) and the more encompassing epistemological debates relating to the “Culture Wars” or “Science Wars” (Boghossian 2006; Kuznar 2008). Theorizing aside, discussions of indigeneity and indigenous rights often have very real and irreparable consequences, while also exacerbating Western stereotypes and potentially supporting racialist perspectives. For example, while the claim of some Europeans that they are “indigenous” has merit, it nonetheless detracts from the situation of Aboriginal peoples in

200  George P. Nicholas the Americas, Australia or Africa, who may have much more at stake than political recognition. In this paper I take a pragmatic approach to the intersections of indigeneity with cultural property and intangible heritage. If descendant groups are denied direct and meaningful means of engaging in decision-making concerning their heritage, then heritage management policies are ineffective at best and harmful at worst. My position is based on three points: 1) that access to and control over one’s own heritage is a basic human right essential to identity, well-being and worldview; 2) that Indigenous peoples in so-called “settler countries” have historically been separated from their heritage, experienced little benefit from heritage-related research and suffered cultural harms and economic loss as a result; and 3) that communitybased heritage initiatives are capable of challenging colonial structures in the research process without compromising the integrity of archaeology. My goal here is to discuss the need for a theoretically, ethically and politically viable approach to heritage research with, for and by descendant communities. What follows is a discussion of heritage values and challenges relating to those three premises. I begin with issues of heritage and human rights, which lead into a discussion of some of the harm caused by unequal access to or benefits from heritage. I then shift to community-based initiatives that challenge existing power structures in archaeology and heritage research. The latter part of this paper focuses on two approaches – community-based heritage practices and the use of intervention to change heritage policy – to illustrate the relevance of and urgency in addressing issues and concerns relating to colliding cultural values, inequities in heritage preservation and questions about access to and benefits from research on and development of indigenous heritage locales.

Heritage as a human right To one degree or another, heritage is important to all peoples – everyone has a cultural legacy worthy of respect and protection. What constitutes “heritage” includes (but is not limited to) the objects, places, knowledge, customs, practices, plants, stories, songs and designs of earlier generations that define or contribute to a person’s or group’s identity, history, worldview and well-being. Heritage is complex, culturally variable and highly nuanced. David Lowenthal (1996) provides an excellent broad overview; more focused reviews include Smith (2006), Smith and Akagawa (2009), and Sørensen and Carman (2009). However, Indigenous peoples – disempowered, disenfranchised, colonized or otherwise dominated by the states that claim jurisdiction over them – have historically had little control over their heritage, including a say in decisions made over sites and places of great importance to them. Moreover, they generally experience the least benefit from research conducted on their heritage. Indeed, all too often their lifeways, traditional knowledge and cultural sites are viewed as part of the public domain, free for the taking and enjoyment of others (Brown 2003; Nicholas 2014a; Vaidhyanathan 2005).

Culture, rights, indigeneity and intervention 201 In recent years there has been a substantial commitment by some to address these concerns, with researchers seeking more meaningful inclusion of, and collaborations with, Indigenous peoples in projects related to their cultural heritage (e.g. Atalay et al. 2014; Lyons 2013; Pitt Rivers Museum n.d.). Nonetheless, there remain tremendous challenges to establishing more respectful, ethical and effective policies to protect Indigenous heritage and subsequent difficulties arising from the implementation of these practices, especially when fundamental differences exist between Western and Indigenous societies over how heritage is perceived or defined. These include different epistemological regimes and evidentiary standards, the absence of the familiar dichotomies that comprise the Western worldview and the indivisibility of tangible and intangible heritage. Developing ways to include Indigenous peoples in heritage research is more than an academic exercise, as this approach seeks to address problems faced by real people on a daily basis. Recognizing, respecting and protecting indigenous heritage is bound up with challenging questions about sovereignty and jurisdiction, about social justice and human rights, and about access to and benefits from ancestral objects, places and knowledge. Indigenous peoples, long affected by disenfranchisement, loss of language and culture, and fragmentation of their societies, continue to press for meaningful engagement with those controlling their affairs. In response to these challenges, university-based researchers, professional organizations, government agencies and international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Intellectual Property Organization are increasingly being called on to help develop solutions to these challenges and inequities that exist at international, national and local levels. For its part, the United Nations has set a broad mandate for acknowledging and protecting Indigenous peoples through its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Of particular relevance to heritage is Article 31: Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and performing arts. They also have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions. (United Nations 2007; emphasis added) This declaration serves to uphold those rights in theory, but it is another matter to put this into practice. That task falls within the realm of state, provincial or federal heritage preservation laws and policies (e.g. King 2013), with some protection afforded by intellectual property laws (e.g. Christie 1998). Heritage legislation in settler countries has been thoroughly discussed, with conversation focused as much on its effectiveness – or lack thereof – as on its

202  George P. Nicholas sometimes conspicuous absence. While acknowledging that the archaeological record is dominated by the legacy of ancestral Indigenous peoples, most legislation continues to prioritize scientific evidence over culture-based values. In some cases, there is unequal protection under the law for indigenous vs. settler heritage. Additionally, heritage policies in North America and elsewhere are strongly influenced by economic pressures (Welch and Ferris 2014); protecting heritage sites may thus unfairly pit Indigenous peoples against private landowners and other interest groups. The actions that archaeologists and others take are often situated at the nexus of complex debates over such important topics as open vs. restricted access to data, and universal access vs. culture-based rights. There are also potential contradictions to contend with, such as those found in Article 27 of UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2001): “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits,” and “Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.” What is problematic here is the apparent presumption of “scientific advancement,” which has so often been at odds with community values and the desire to retain control (and privacy) of heritage matters. Helaine Silverman and Charles Ruggles (2007: 3) speak to such challenges when they state: Heritage is by no means a neutral category of self-definition nor an inherently positive thing: It is a concept that can promote self-­knowledge, facilitate communication and learning, and guide the stewardship of the present culture and its historic past. But it can also be a tool for oppression. For this reason, heritage has an uneasy place in the United Nations’ call for universal human rights and it merits examination as an urgent contemporary problem. Indeed, it is surprising that anthropologists have only recently begun to focus on issues of human rights in relation to heritage (Goodale 2009; Wilson 2008; although, see Wilson 1997). However, there is also considerable opposition to culture-based rights or privileges (see Widdowson and Howard [2008] for a Canadian example). Found at all levels is an apparent tension between Indigenous peoples and the dominant society, regarding both the protection of the tangible elements of their heritage in the face of land development and the more fundamental question of whether access to, and control over, one’s own heritage is an inalienable human right. Caught up in all of this are people who find themselves increasingly separated from their heritage and all that may be derived from it.

Inequities in heritage protection Archaeologists today are increasingly cognizant of the need to more fully engage with descendant communities in issues pertaining to their heritage.

Culture, rights, indigeneity and intervention 203 Nonetheless, there continues to be a significant power imbalance regarding who has access to, benefits from and controls heritage. Archaeologists, situating themselves as stewards of the past, have become the gatekeepers of other people’s heritage. This has consequences for individual well-being, group identity and cultural sovereignty. A continuing challenge for postcolonial archaeology (Lyons and Rizvi 2010) is therefore identifying and addressing those inequalities affecting descendant communities both in the practice of archaeology and in the ability to access and benefit from its tangible and intangible products. Stewardship policies and practices are also problematic because they are based largely on Western values (and presumptions), with only limited accommodation of local heritage values and needs. Often within an indigenous worldview, the material elements of heritage (artifacts, archaeological sites, places) cannot be separated from the knowledge, beliefs and stories associated with them; ancestral beings and supernatural forces may be understood to reside in material things and places still today (see Appendix 1). In these cases, a lot more than economic value or historical and archaeological significance is at stake when heritage sites are threatened or when traditional objects, images and knowledge – all elements of intellectual property – are used in inappropriate and unwelcome ways. A critical analysis of the situation makes it apparent that a substantial source of tension has been the unequal power relationship that exists between Indigenous peoples and archaeologists in settler nations. It is clear that archaeologists have monopolized the means of knowledge production (not always intentionally) and benefited from this more than others (Hollowell and Nicholas 2009). Or, they have been unwilling or unable to give up control of the research process, which amounts to much the same thing. I do not think it a stretch to view archaeologists as historically being the bourgeoisie, monopolizing the means of knowledge production and being the primary beneficiaries, and Indigenous peoples as the proletariat, still with limited access to the benefits arising from that knowledge production (although in some contexts today those roles may be reversed).

When burial grounds are archaeological sites The fact that in settler countries the heritage sites of the colonizers and colonized may be treated differently reveals unequal power dynamics. In British Columbia, Canada, burial grounds dating to before 18461 fall under the protection of the Heritage Conservation Act; those after that date are protected by the Cemeteries Act. The Heritage Act states that a person “must not damage, desecrate or alter a burial place that has historical or archaeological value.” There is an implication here that not all burial places have historic or archaeological value, never mind other values inherent in such places. A critical point is that, with some exceptions, the act requires interpretation of the value of such sites, thus raising questions about who decides the value of such burial places, or what sites are worthy of protection (Nicholas et al. 2015).

204  George P. Nicholas Not only is the Heritage Act subject to divergent interpretations, but when heritage sites require protection in a particular instance, the mode of preservation may still be inadequate or indeed irresponsible. It is the government and its representatives that ultimately decide what constitutes acceptable mitigation when disturbance or destruction of “significant” heritage properties is unavoidable. When the majority of heritage sites are those of Indigenous peoples, preservation practices are often more contentious than congruent. In the case of a house being built on Grace Islet (Figure 14.1), a 1-ha island in coastal British Columbia with 16 recorded burial cairns, construction was initially allowed to proceed by literally building around several of the cairns (Nicholas et al. 2015). Thus, while the burial ground remained technically intact, considerable harm was nonetheless done according to local First Nations. For his part, the landowner satisfied all requirements of the heritage legislation. Although construction was eventually stopped, it is greatly disturbing that such a mitigation plan was ever considered acceptable in the first place. Was harm done in the Grace Islet case? If so, to whom? And were those harms acknowledged and recompensed? Based on the terms of the province’s purchase of the property in early 2015,2 it was judged that harm had been done to the landowner. The province of British Columbia paid him $5.45 million, of which $840,000 was for the property itself, and $4.6 million for “losses suffered.” It was reported that: the price tag covers [the landowner’s] costs over two decades to install utilities, hire archaeologists, architects and other professionals, and to begin construction of the house, which is partially completed . . . [and] also compensates for the loss of future enjoyment of the property. (Kines 2015) In this case (and others like it), the province clearly acknowledged that the owner did suffer various losses, including “future enjoyment.” What has been conspicuously absent, however, is any consideration given to the local First Nations, not for lost “enjoyment,” but for the “losses suffered” from the disturbance of a historic place they consider sacred or otherwise important.

Heritage harms as violence For many archaeologists, one of the darkest moments in memory was the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001 – until that event was eclipsed by the far wider destruction of artifacts and heritage sites by ISIS in 2014 and 2015.3 Highlighted in such instances of wanton destruction is the loss of history and scientific potential,4 which can be interpreted as violence against history. However, this raises a more general question: do the types of cultural harms evident at places like Grace Islet – denigration, destruction of heritage sites, misappropriation – constitute a similar form of violence?

Culture, rights, indigeneity and intervention 205

Figure 14.1 Construction underway on Grace Islet, an ancestral burial ground, British Columbia, Canada (Photo courtesy of Kelly Bannister)

The World Health Organization defines violence as: the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation. Without wanting to detract attention from more explicit forms of harm, the loss of access to, or more obviously, the destruction of heritage sites has significant adverse effects upon Indigenous peoples for whom those sites are considered necessary not only to their historical continuity and worldviews but also their well-being. This is articulated well by a First Nations community member in British Columbia: Ruby Peters believed that the disturbance of the ancient burial ground at Somenos Creek not only offended and disrupted relations with the deceased but also resulted in physical danger for the living. Only by conversing with the deceased and using her ritual knowledge could she at least partially restore the requisite balance of relations between the world of the living and the world of the dead. (McLay et al. 2008: 155)

206  George P. Nicholas When used to describe harms resulting from disturbing heritage sites, “violence” is seldom in the vocabulary of archaeologists, except when it involves (in an abstract way) acts of violence against “their” (shared worldly) heritage, such as the Bamiyan Buddhas. But by looking at this through the lens of indigeneity, we must acknowledge that real harm occurs to people in these situations. As Kapchan (2014: 4) observes, “violence is an abrogation of human rights.”

Heritage protection through innovation or intervention One important trajectory of change in the realm of heritage has been indigenous archaeology, defined (in part) as: an expression of archaeological theory and practice in which the discipline intersects with Indigenous values, knowledge, practices, ethics, and sensibilities, and through collaborative and community-originated or -directed projects, and related critical perspectives. (Nicholas 2008: 1660) It seeks to 1) make archaeology more representative of, responsible to and relevant for Indigenous communities; 2) redress real and perceived inequalities in the practice of archaeology; and 3) inform and broaden the understanding and interpretation of the archaeological record through the incorporation of Aboriginal worldviews, histories and science (also see Atalay 2006; Nicholas 2014b; Nicholas and Watkins 2014). This is part of a set of efforts to foreground community heritage needs and preservation goals (Oland et al. 2012; Phillips and Allen 2010; Smith and Wobst 2005) in ways that relate to (but may remain distinct from) public archaeology (Skeates et al. 2012), community archaeology (Marshall 2002), postcolonial archaeology (Lydon and Rizvi 2010) and other such efforts. As a suite of strategies and goals, indigenous archaeology – along with shifts in research methods aligned to indigenous interests (Smith 2012) – is poised to both complement and challenge archaeology and thus make it more robust, more encompassing, and more representative and relevant. Indigenous archaeology is not without its critics, however. Robert McGhee’s (2008) article “Aboriginalism and the Problem of Indigenous Archaeology” likely resonates strongly with a large number of archaeologists.5 The same holds for corresponding concerns over oral histories (Henge 2009; Mason 2006). Whether viewed as theoretically bankrupt or an exercise in political correctness, or owing to unfamiliarity with its premises and goals, indigenous archaeology is seen by some to threaten the ability of archaeologists to go about their business. This is especially the case with reburial and repatriation, and other supposed challenges to conventional understandings of who controls heritage sites and information. This unease has been mutual. For their part, Indigenous peoples

Culture, rights, indigeneity and intervention 207 contend that they do not need archaeology to tell them what they already know through other means; that it is yet another form of colonialism; and that they continue to be excluded from decisions relating to their heritage in a meaningful and sustained way. What is clear is that, while Indigenous peoples may now be more familiar with archaeology and increasingly see it as a useful tool, distrust and inequality remain (Watkins 2011).

Reconciling inequalities In Canada, many of these issues are playing out in the context of national efforts promoting “reconciliation” with the First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples that together comprise the indigenous population of the country. Reconciliation has also been a prominent theme elsewhere, especially in Australia. While there has been much promotion of “consultation” as a means of accomplishing this (including in heritage management), such efforts generally have been superficial. This is because achieving reconciliation requires fundamentally changing how things are done by governments, heritage practitioners and researchers, and by the public regarding respecting and protecting indigenous heritage, especially in such areas as: legislation and policy regarding heritage sites and values, university research protocols, free, prior and informed consent, community-defined heritage goals and benefits of research flowing to communities. It has proven very difficult to redress some of the inequalities faced by Indigenous peoples (Nicholas 2014c) because of Western notions of heritage and the guiding principle of stewardship. This is due to: • a lack of neutrality, with heritage management policies (including notions of “significance”) operating from a privileged, largely Westerncentric position; • only limited accommodation of so-called “indigenous knowledge,” with little credence given to oral histories, except when it concurs with archaeological sources (Nicholas and Markey 2014);6 • concerns over relinquishing control, with the majority of archaeologists reluctant to share, let alone give up, any control over archaeological or heritage projects and policy development; • a fear of an “anything goes” non-scientific approach to heritage, emanating from a presumed postmodern, politically correct stance. Coupled with calls for greater representation in heritage research by socalled “marginalized peoples” has been a promotion of activism (Atalay et al. 2014; Stottman 2011) and civic engagement (Little and Shackel 2007). This has seen some considerable success, most often in the form of collaborative or community-developed research projects (e.g. Atalay 2012; Nicholas 2014b). True collaborative ventures are not only possible but can

208  George P. Nicholas incorporate both scientific and indigenous approaches and values without one compromising the other. Efforts to address inequalities in protecting indigenous interests can take different forms. Here I offer two examples. The first involves communitybased heritage research, and the second, the use of an intervention in a situation where existing heritage legislation is not only ineffective but harmful. Community-based initiatives Community-based participatory research (CBPR) engages the community fully in the process and works to ensure they are primary beneficiaries (see Atalay 2012; Bell and Napoleon 2008; Smith 2012). In recent years, CBPR has made inroads in archaeology and heritage studies as a way to ensure that the research is designed to be relevant, respectful and beneficial to involved communities and other stakeholders.7 An integral aspect of such projects is a commitment to learn about core local values and concerns through interviews, ethnographic studies and ongoing consultations to aid in defining research goals and designing effective and culturally appropriate research processes (Hollowell and Nicholas 2009). A growing number of community-based projects exemplify this (e.g. Guilfoyle et al. 2009; Guindon 2015; Silliman 2008; Straight et al. 2015). A larger-scale approach to meeting local needs is through a series of initiatives facilitated by the Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage (IPinCH) project.8 IPinCH was an international research collaboration (2008–16) exploring the diverse values that underlie attitudes, decisions and actions relating to heritage, and providing research, knowledge and resources assisting academic scholars, descendant communities and others in negotiating equitable terms of heritage research and policies. The team included more than 50 archaeologists, museum and cultural tourism specialists, lawyers, ethicists and others, along with 25 partner organizations and many associate members and students. One major component of the IPinCH project was a series of communitybased studies addressing concerns over intangible and tangible heritage using methods that foreground local values, needs and sensibilities. In each case, the community developed the study and has complete control over both the process and products of the research. These projects addressed a variety of issues and opportunities, including: preserving local values within cultural tourism, developing protocols for research on human remains, repatriating information from museum collections, capturing the history of tribal efforts to preserve intellectual property and creating tribal policies, procedures and protocols that protect intellectual property while complying with current historic preservation laws, developing a cultural knowledge database for recording elders’ traditional knowledge in an indigenous methodological and ethical framework, and more. These studies not only directly aid the community (and potentially other indigenous groups) but may also help to

Culture, rights, indigeneity and intervention 209 refine or reformulate theory, practice, policy and ethics at critical intersections of knowledge, culture and rights. Three other examples of notable collaborative or community-directed projects addressing local needs through innovative approaches in different realms are as follows: for digital archiving – Kim Christen and colleagues’ two communitybased digital archiving and dissemination initiatives: Mukuto,9 an indigenous archive and content management tool, developed with the Warumungu community of Australia; and the Plateau People’s WebPortal (Christen 2015);10 • for virtual museums – The Reciprocal Research Network:11 a collaborative research initiative connecting Aboriginal communities to national and international museums through a virtual museum-type platform. It was developed by the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology, Musqueam Nation, Sto:lo Nation and U’mista Cultural Society; • for websites as cultural hubs – the “Inuvialuit Pitqusiit Inuuniarutait: Inuvialuit Living History” website12 incorporates the ideas and information contributed by Inuvialuit of northwestern Canada. The website facilitates compiling and sharing community knowledge and provides lesson plans for elementary and high-school students that highlight Inuvialuit traditional knowledge and the history of the region as pathways for learning. •

Such initiatives help to ensure that heritage is protected, that heritage values continue to flow between generations and that sharing knowledge with outsiders is done in ways culturally appropriate. Intervention What happens when heritage legislation ignores or is unable to meet the needs and expectations of Indigenous peoples? In multicultural and settler states, the challenges associated with the recognition, respect and protection of cultural heritage can be particularly acute and often a source of conflict with substantial social, political and economic consequences. Exacerbating this is the reluctance of archaeologists, heritage managers and others to relinquish some of the considerable control they have over descendant communities’ heritage. Effecting change can thus be a monumental task, given that government bureaucracies are slow to change without considerable incentive and public support.13 Earlier in this paper, the controversy at Grace Islet was introduced as an example of the lack of acknowledgement and protection afforded to Indigenous heritage sites – in this case, a burial ground. This case revealed that significant differences exist in how Indigenous and non-Indigenous burial

210  George P. Nicholas sites are valued and protected, and that heritage legislation, policies and practices are heavily weighted towards addressing Western needs (e.g., collection of scientific data). More fundamentally, such culture- and race-based inequities are rooted in colonial perspectives that have worked to separate Indigenous peoples from their heritage and all that flows from it. In 2014, the IPinCH Project became involved with this case with the hope of helping to achieve a resolution. Project members first sent an open letter14 to provincial authorities and others, pointing to the need to view the local controversy more broadly, and arguing that the minimal level of protection offered by British Columbia’s heritage legislation runs contrary to emerging trends in Canadian Aboriginal rights law. We noted that the privileging of land and site alteration over the protection of Aboriginal rights and interests was inconsistent with the intent of international Indigenous rights and cultural heritage law, including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Our intention was to highlight how British Columbia’s current legal and policy framework for heritage failed to reflect emerging national and international norms related to the recognition of and respect for Indigenous legal and cultural traditions. Although the letter was acknowledged by provincial representatives, construction continued on Grace Islet. It was apparent that a stronger intervention was required. A larger group of IPinCH team members subsequently developed the Declaration on the Safeguarding of Indigenous Ancestral Burial Grounds as Sacred Sites and Cultural Landscapes (see Figure 14.2).15 This document articulated the growing global consensus around the importance of protecting Indigenous ancestral burial sites and called on all levels of government, heritage professionals and others to work together to ensure such sites are not subject to alteration or damage. It also served to remind non-Indigenous governments in Canada of their existing legal and ethical obligations with respect to First Nations sacred sites in which human remains of cultural and spiritual significance are interred. The declaration was released on 10 December 2014, International Human Rights Day, with copies sent directly to key provincial officials as well as local governments, First Nations authorities and conservation groups involved in the Grace Islet controversy. The declaration has now received endorsements from such organizations as the Society for American Archaeology, the American Anthropological Association, the BC Association of Professional Archaeologists, the International Society of Ethnobiology, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs and others. As noted earlier, the Grace Islet case was “resolved” through the purchase of the property, and construction was halted to the satisfaction of local First Nations groups. However, this particular form of resolution has done nothing to change existing heritage legislation or its application, so it remains only a matter of time before similar controversies arise, despite the province’s pledge for a full review of heritage legislation. We believe that this intervention did aid in a settlement being reached, in part by bringing

Figure 14.2 “Declaration on the Safeguarding of Indigenous Ancestral Burial Grounds as Sacred Sites and Cultural Landscapes” (www.sfu.ca/ipinch/resources/declarations/ancestral-burial-grounds)

212  George P. Nicholas international attention to the case – an unfortunate but all too familiar situation in which academic voices are privileged over those of Indigenous peoples.

Conclusions Archaeology is how we learn what happened in the past, while heritage is that set of values given to or possessed by objects, places and information derived from archaeology and other means. We are most familiar with the scientific and historic meanings ascribed to these, but less so with local values and specific needs of descendant communities. Many Indigenous peoples are interested in engaging with the wider world, but on their own terms and in ways that preserve cultural values and help protect identity, well-being and worldview. Projects developed in partnership with Indigenous communities – especially those on topics relevant to them – enhance, not limit, the research results, thus providing a deeper understanding of local heritage values along with equitable benefits sharing derived from cultural heritage. Indeed, national research funding agencies are now starting to see the value of collaborative and community-driven initiatives as a means of breaking away from the traditional research methods that have been successful for academics, but less so for others. This points to a new era of community-informed and -oriented heritage research and more effective policies, one that seeks to move beyond the legacy of scientific colonialism and outdated attitudes. Sadly, this optimism is at odds with continuing disputes over heritage sites, such as Grace Islet. While a Canadian example, it nonetheless exemplifies how little say some have over ancestral burial grounds and other places of great significance to them. Until Indigenous peoples and other descendant groups regain at least a significant degree of control over their own affairs, there will be no full resolution regarding culture-based rights issues. The challenges are not small, especially when trying to ensure equality in how, for example, ancestral remains are treated, while also respecting cultural differences in what are still not postcolonial contexts. Nonetheless, the examples of innovations and interventions discussed hopefully contribute incentive to developing more meaningful dialogue and actions.

Acknowledgements I am most grateful to Charlotta Hillerdal, Anna Karlström and Carl-Gösta Ojala for their invitation to participate in the Uppsala University symposium, “Archaeologies of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ – Debating the Ethics and Politics of Ethnicity and Indigeneity in Archaeology and Heritage Discourse.” I thank Alexa Walker and Graham Reynolds for comments on the paper, and Kelly Bannister for providing the photograph of Grace Islet.

Culture, rights, indigeneity and intervention 213

Notes 1 This date reflects the start of British (and later Canadian) sovereignty over what is now British Columbia. 2 The purchase followed extensive and prolonged protests by First Nations groups and their supporters and the efforts of environmentalists. What was disappointing was that the primary rationale for the purchase, at least in public reporting, was the unique ecological setting of the islet, not the burial ground. 3 http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/09/world/iraq-isis-heritage/. Accessed March 6, 2016. 4 This is well represented in media reports, such as: “ISIS Archaeological Vandalism Destroys Knowledge and Heritage” (http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/isiss-archaeological-vandalism-destroys-knowledge-and-history-bob-­mcdonald1.3036473), accessed March 6, 2016, and “ISIS’ Archaeological Destruction Creates New Dark Age” https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/03/10/isisarchaeological-destruction-creates-new-dark-age/1suc7tP8LEXO7hJoGt6u5N/ story.html, accessed March 6, 2016. 5 A series of responses was published in the July 2010 issue of American Antiquity. 6 But see the Supreme Court of Canada’s 1997 Delgamuukw decision (Canada 1998). 7 One indicator of greater recognition of this theme are the journals Collaborative Anthropologies and the Journal of Community Archaeology and Heritage. 8 http://www.sfu.ca/ipinch. Accessed March 6, 2016. 9 http://www.mukurtuarchive.org/. Accessed March 6, 2016. 10 http://plateauportal.wsulibs.wsu.edu/html/ppp/index.php. Accessed March 6, 2016. 11 https://www.rrncommunity.org. Accessed March 6, 2016. 12 www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca. Accessed March 6, 2016. 13 This is illustrated by the recent Supreme Court of British Columbia’s ruling in 2014 that grants Aboriginal title to the Tsilhqot’in Nation to a portion of their traditional territory, and shifts the standard from “consultation” to “consent.” https://scc-csc. lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/14246/index.do. Accessed March 6,2016. 14 http://www.sfu.ca/ipinch/news/ipinch-news/open-letter-grace-islet. Accessed March 6, 2016. 15 The declaration, complete with the names of the 27 signatories, and a list of private individual and organizational endorsements can be found at: http://www.sfu.ca/ ipinch/resources/declarations/ancestral-burial-grounds. Accessed March 6, 2016.

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214  George P. Nicholas Brown, M. 2003. Who Owns Native Culture? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Canada, Supreme Court. 1998. Aboriginal Title: The Supreme Court of Canada Decision in Delgamuukw V. British Columbia. Accessed March 6, 2016. http:// www.parl.gc.ca/content/lop/researchpublications/bp459-e.htm. Christen, K. 2015. “Tribal archives, traditional knowledge, and local contexts: Why the ‘s’ matters.” Journal of Western Archives 6 (1): article 3. Accessed March 6, 2016. http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/westernarchives/vol6/iss1/3/http://digitalcommons. usu.edu/westernarchives/vol6/iss1/3/. Christie, G. 1998. “Aboriginal rights, aboriginal culture, and protection.” Osgoode Hall Law Journal 36: 447–84. Cowan, J. 2006. “Culture and rights after culture and rights.” American Anthropologist 108: 9–24. Cowan, J. 2013. “Before audit culture: Towards a genealogy of international oversight of rights.” In The Gloss of Harmony: The Politics of Policy Making in Multilateral Organisations, edited by B. Muller, 103–33. London: Pluto Press. Devy, G. N., G. V. Davis, and K. K. Chakravarty. 2009. Indigeneity: Culture and Representation. Bangalore: Orient BlackSwan. Donnelly, J. 2013. Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice (Third Edition). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Goodale, M., ed. 2009. Human Rights: An Anthropological Reader. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Guidon, F. (in collaboration with the Neeposh family). 2015. “Technology, material culture and the well-being of aboriginal peoples of Canada.” Journal of Material Culture 20 (1): 77–97. Guilfoyle, D., B. Bennell, W. Webb, V. Gillies, and J. Strickland. 2009. “Integrating natural resource management and indigenous cultural heritage: A model and case study from south-western Australia.” Heritage Management 2 (2): 149–76. Henge, D. 2009. “Impossible to disprove yet impossible to believe: The unforgiving epistemology of deep-time oral tradition.” History in Africa 36: 127–234. Hokowhitu, B., N. Kermoal, C. Anderson, A. Petersen, M. Reilly, I. AltamiranoJimenez, and P. Rewi. 2010. Indigenous Identity and Resistance: Researching the Diversity of Knowledge. Dunedin: Otago University Press. Hollowell, J., and G. P. Nicholas. 2009. “Using ethnographic methods to articulate community-based conceptions of cultural heritage management.” Public Archaeology 8 (2–3): 141–60. Irlbacher-Fox, S. 2014. “Traditional knowledge, co-existence and co-resistance.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society 3 (3): 145–58. Kapchan, D. 2014. Cultural Heritage in Transit: Intangible Rights as Human Rights. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Kines, L. 2015. “Province buys disputed Grace Islet for $5.45 million.” Times Colonist, February 16. Accessed March 6, 2016. http://www.timescolonist.com/news/ local/province-buys-disputed-grace-islet-for-5–45-million-1.1764939. King, T. F. 2013. Cultural Resource Laws and Practice (Fourth Edition). Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Kuper, A. 2003. “The return of the native.” Current Anthropology 44 (3): 389–402. Kuznar, L. 2008. Reclaiming a Scientific Anthropology (Second Edition). Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Little, B., and P. Shackel. 2007. Archaeology as a Tool of Civic Engagement. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.

Culture, rights, indigeneity and intervention 215 Lowenthal, D. 1996. The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lyons, J., and U. Rizvi, eds. 2010. Handbook of Postcolonial Archaeology. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Lyons, N. 2013. Where the Wind Blows Us: Practicing Critical Community Archaeology in the Canadian North. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Marshall, Y. 2012 “What is community archaeology?” World Archaeology 34 (2): 211–19. Mason, R. J. 2006. Inconstant Companions: Archaeology and North American Indian Oral Traditions. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. McGhee, R. 2008. “Aboriginalism and the problems of indigenous archaeology.” American Antiquity 73 (4): 579–97. McLay, E., K. Bannister, L. Joe, B. Thom, and G. Nicholas. 2008. “A’lhut tu tet Sul’hweentst ‘Respecting the ancestors’: Understanding Hul’qumi’num heritage laws and concerns for protection of archaeological heritage.” In First Nations Cultural Heritage and Law: Cases Studies, Voices and Perspectives, edited by C. Bell, and V. Napoleon, 158–202. Vancouver: UBC Press. Miller, B. G. 2003. Invisible Indigenes: The Politics of Nonrecognition. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Nicholas, G. P. 2008. “Native peoples and archaeology (Indigenous archaeology).” In The Encyclopedia of Archaeology. Vol. 3, edited by D. Pearsall, 1660–9. Oxford: Elsevier. Nicholas, G. P. 2014a. “Indigenous cultural heritage in the age of technological reproducibility: Towards a postcolonial ethic of the public domain.” In Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online, edited by R. J. Coombe, D. Wershler, and M. Zeilinger, 213–24. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Nicholas, G. P. 2014b. “Indigenous archaeology (Archaeology, Indigenous).” In Oxford Bibliographies of Anthropology, edited by J. L. Jackson. Oxford: Oxford University Press. www.oxfordbibliographies.com/obo/page/anthropology Nicholas, G. P. 2014c. “Reconciling inequalities in archaeological practice and heritage research.” In Transforming Archaeology: Activist Practices and Prospects, edited by S. Atalay, L. Clauss, R. McGuire, and J. Welch, 133–58. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Nicholas, G., B. Egan, K. Bannister, and E. Benson. 2015. “Intervention as a strategy in protecting indigenous cultural heritage.” SAA Archaeological Record 15 (4): 41–7. Nicholas, G. P., and N. M. Markey. 2014. “Traditional knowledge, archaeological evidence, and other ways of knowing.” In Material Culture as Evidence: Best Practices and Exemplary Cases in Archaeology, edited by R. Chapman, and A. Wylie, 287–307. London and New York: Routledge Press. Nicholas, G. P., and J. E. Watkins. 2014. “Indigenous archaeologies in archaeological theory.” In Global Encyclopedia of Archaeology, edited by C. Smith, 3777– 86. New York: Springer. Oland, M., S. M. Hart, and L. Frink, eds. 2012. Decolonizing Indigenous Histories: Exploring Prehistoric/Colonial Transitions in Archaeology. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Phillips, C., and H. Allen, eds. 2010. Bridging the Divide: Indigenous Communities and Archaeology into the 21st Century. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Pitt Rivers Museum. n.d. “Kaahsinnooniksi Ao’toksisawooyawa: Reconnections with Historic Blackfoot Shirts.” Accessed March 6, 2016. http://web.prm.ox.ac. uk/blackfootshirts/. Silliman, S., ed. 2008. Collaborating at the Trowel’s Edge: Teaching and Learning in Indigenous Archaeology. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

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Appendix 1 Why heritage matters (more to some than to others)

1 Heritage is not just about things. Ancient objects are important touchstones of history, and they reveal much of scientific importance. However, no artifact or archaeological site has any meaning without the intangible values brought to it. 2 Heritage is not limited to “the past.” For some Indigenous peoples, there is no division between culture and nature, or between the natural and supernatural realms, and notions of “past” and “present” may be folded together. This means that ancestral beings and other forces are part of this existence. 3 Heritage permeates the fabric of indigenous societies. “Heritage” as a concept really does not exist in many Indigenous societies since it is entwined with all other facets of people’s lives. Thus, the loss of an ancestral site is not just a loss of history but a separation from places important to them, and a threat to well-being and a way of life. 4 Heritage is largely intangible. It reflects a society’s engagement with the world through its material culture but especially through its collective knowledge, experiences, traditions and origin stories that both shape and reflect what people do. 5 Heritage research may have unintended consequences. Research on archaeological materials, including ancient DNA studies, can yield great insights into ancient people’s lives, including population movements in the past. But that information can also challenge a community’s origin beliefs, threaten an individual’s identity or complicate land claims. 6 Heritage needs to be managed by the heritage holders. All peoples need to have access to and be able to make decisions about their own heritage in whatever form it takes. How can outsiders make decisions about someone else’s heritage when they are unaware of, or do not understand, local values, needs and consequences?  (Adopted from Nicholas 2014c)

15 Archaeological heritage and Hokkaido Ainu Ethnicity and research ethics Hirofumi Kato

The aim of this paper is to reflect on contemporary issues surrounding the archaeological heritage and the Ainu in Hokkaido. More specifically, I would like to focus on the original characteristics of the archaeological past in northern Japan, especially on Hokkaido Island. Through this discussion, I would also like to demonstrate how archaeology can provide an effective and significant mechanism for recognizing the cultural diversity of the archaeological past and its role in the formation of the identity of contemporary Ainu people. Ainu are indigenous peoples who inhabit the northern region of the Japanese islands. Ethnographically, Ainu have been classified as three local populations: Hokkaido, Kuriles (Chishima) and Karafuto (Sakhalin) Ainu. Local populations include smaller local dialect groups. Anthropologically and ethnologically, Ainu are a source of interest as the indigenous population of the Japanese archipelago. However, the Indigenous rights of the Ainu were not recognized for many years. On 6 June 2008, a bipartisan, non-binding resolution was approved by the Japanese Diet, which called upon the government to recognize the Ainu as indigenous to Japan. On the same day, finally, the Japanese government recognized the Ainu as Indigenous people of Japan. In the future, the Ainu will begin to promote their own cultural traditions and will pass these on to future generations. During this process, it is necessary to continue facing the challenges with more of economic and educational issues to regain the rights lost by past assimilation policy and discrimination. Indigenous heritage, including archaeology, also plays an important role in the recovery process of the cultural identity of the Ainu. The archaeology of Hokkaido Island has long been recognized as part of Japanese archaeology, or as a northern variation of Japanese prehistory, without attention being paid to Hokkaido’s particular history. Furthermore, the greater part of Hokkaido history remains outside of Japanese history. The Japanese state created the historical depiction of the Ainu, who do not have their own written history, as a peripheral, undeveloped population or as resistors of the imperial state. However, archaeological information

Archaeological heritage and Hokkaido Ainu 219 accumulated over the last decade suggests that the archaeological cultural sequences in Hokkaido and neighboring islands had an original complex historical dynamism. Now, we must reconsider the normative framework and interpretation based on new perspectives.

Significance of historical and cultural heritage The significance of historical and cultural heritages in host communities has been highlighted in recent years, and a variety of initiatives for their preservation and utilization involving host communities has been implemented. However, researchers have conventionally evaluated archaeological heritage as part of historical and cultural heritage, and the criteria for such evaluation reflect only the individual researcher’s values. For example, important archaeological heritage has generally been championed for its superlative age, scale and uniqueness, with academic evaluation tending to focus on size, scarcity and relative importance. Meanwhile, many historical and cultural heritages evaluated as being less important are destroyed or disappear, regardless of the aspirations of researchers and host communities. What theories and methods can be applied to support the preservation and utilization of historical and cultural heritage in the first place? Are researchers the only ones with the right and the ability to examine and decide the importance of such heritages, whether they should be preserved and how they should be utilized? Today, these questions are being reviewed and discussed on an international scale. The main goal is to clarify the future direction of relationships between researchers and host communities – a task that has become a major challenge which is discussed not only with regard to archaeology but also extensively in relation to various other academic disciplines. Hokkaido has a large number of historical and cultural heritages to which the Ainu, the indigenous people of Japan, have rights in their roles as members of descendant communities. However, opportunities for them to contribute to the preservation and utilization of such resources as stakeholders are not fully guaranteed. On the international front, discussions on indigenous people and on the preservation and utilization of historical and cultural heritages have taken on greater significance at international academic conferences, and indigenous people have assumed a greater role as stakeholders. In Japan, the positioning of indigenous historical and cultural heritage within the discipline of archaeology has not been fully discussed, and it needs to be clarified in future work. To promote related discussions, it is necessary to study debates on the public nature of archaeological heritage in order that they serve as a premise for discussions on such positioning. In this respect, dialogue among stakeholders with an interest in historical and cultural heritage over a wide range of fields is required.

220  Hirofumi Kato

Heritage in terms of location: locations of cultural establishment and development According to geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, “People respond to space and place in complicated ways that are inconceivable in the animal world” (Tuan 1988: 4). Unlike animals, people have a highly advanced sense of symbolism, meaning that their cognition of environments and landscapes is not limited to simple descriptions of their surroundings. People reflect their own experiences, ideas and minds in such cognition, appreciate them as part of culture and incorporate them into their daily lives. People often give names to the characteristics of spaces and landscapes they see. This is a concrete example of man’s behavior in symbolizing such areas. Places with symbolic names are no longer just ordinary landscapes: they become cultural landscapes with special significance and enter the realm of memory. The issue to be addressed in this chapter is the question of how intangible (invisible) cultural heritage resources should be evaluated. Related examples include a variety of indigenous historical and cultural resources. As with the Sámi, the Ainu also relate to use of the natural landscape, such as the mountains and rocks, as sacred sites. They call such natural places ci-nomi-sir (“the place where we pray”). However, as these sites do not have a characteristic artificial arrangement, it is difficult for non-Ainu people to recognize them. These examples highlight the difficulty of accurately evaluating the historical and cultural heritage, which is so important for indigenous communities within the present framework, for its preservation. This is because the framework and related evaluation criteria were developed exclusively from a particular viewpoint and have not been examined in the context of different values and opinions. The very fact that indigenous cultural heritage faces so many such issues highlights how those responsible for evaluating it have not fully incorporated the viewpoints and interpretations of indigenous people themselves. The essential importance of culture is overlooked when exclusively external perspectives are applied. While this problem may seem easy to resolve, it is in fact surprisingly difficult. It is patently clear that the existence of issues involving perceptible and imperceptible aspects of cultural heritages demonstrates a lack of perspective and methodology for the evaluation of specific regional cultures. The preservation and utilization of cultural heritage in Japan requires more understanding than ever regarding the diversity of local cultures and awareness of the fact that the rich and diverse history of this archipelago stands on a foundation built by groups of people with different historical and cultural backgrounds.

The Ainu as anthropological and archaeological past In this section, I would like to discuss the past academic stance towards the Ainu and how the Ainu have been represented by past anthropological and

Archaeological heritage and Hokkaido Ainu 221 archaeological discourses in Japan. In the initial stage of Japanese anthropology and archaeology, when the two disciplines had just been imported from the West, the Ainu were researched as the “living Stone Age inhabitants” of the Japanese archipelago (Milne 1882; Siebold 1881). Since then, many scholars have seen the Ainu as a resource or catalogue for anthropological and archaeological studies on hunter-gatherer society. Also, the Ainu culture has been considered the hunter-gatherer culture that strongly inherited the Jomon tradition of the Japanese Neolithic. Kindaichi Kyousuke1 (1882–1971), who was a famous linguist and ethnologist of the Ainu, explained the significance and aim of Ainu studies as creating a “living catalogue of the primitive society” (Kindaichi 1924: 3–5). This point of view was held not only by Kindaichi but also by many other scholars. We can see this way of thinking in many of their works. Komai Kazuchika (1905–71) was a founder of the Department of Archaeology in the University of Tokyo, and he was the first archaeologist to use the term “Ainu archaeology” in Japan. He repeatedly explained how the study of the Ainu was important as a resource for restoring ancient Japanese culture (Komai 1952). Such a stance on Ainu archaeology was popular not only during the 1950s: Fujimoto Tsuyoshi (1936–2010), who was also an archaeologist from the University of Tokyo, suggested the same significance for Ainu archaeology during the 1980s (Fujimoto 1984). It is well known that historical evaluation of culture has a major impact on image building for each culture. We believe that such a colonial perspective created a negative image of the prehistoric culture in Hokkaido, based on the evaluation of the main island by archaeologists. For instance, the Epi-Jomon culture is the name of the local archaeological culture in Hokkaido, whereas Yayoi culture expanded across the main island. Traditionally, Yayoi culture is presented as the developed and complex society that followed Jomon culture, which is characterized by rice farming and the use of metal. On the other hand, Epi-Jomon culture has been defined as a backward, non-agricultural and undeveloped society because it did not farm rice or use metal. This creates a negative image based on the absence of characteristics rather than positive aspects of the culture. In Japan, the research field of Japanese archaeology as a subject is known to adapt to the territories of the Japanese state. Accordingly, related discussions regarding the Japanese archipelago have long been conducted within the framework of this discipline. The historical, cultural and social diversity of Hokkaido has been debated on an ongoing basis along with that of the Ryukyu (Nansei) Islands, which are located in the southern region of the Japanese archipelago (e.g. Fujimoto 1988; Yoshizaki 1986). Fujimoto Tsuyoshi, however, pointed out that there are three cultural traditions in the Japanese archipelago, namely the northern, middle and southern culture (Fujimoto 1988). While no other scholars have written about the diversity within Japanese culture, his remark can be deemed valid. On the other hand, many scholars since 1988 have discussed the emergence of

222  Hirofumi Kato cultural diversity after the Yayoi period. Even Professor Fujimoto assumed that the homogenous cultural tradition had spread to the Japanese archipelago during the Jomon period, prior to the Yayoi period. Today, based on recent research, we have to reconsider the image of Jomon. Jomon culture is not a homogenous prehistoric culture, nor is it derived from a single genealogy. When we compare the historical dynamism between the Honshu (main island) and Hokkaido Islands, we find significant differences. The historical dynamism of Honshu Island has been represented by the move from a hunter-gatherer society to an agricultural society and on towards the formation of the early state. On the other hand, the historical dynamism of Hokkaido Island has been represented as the continuation of a sustainable hunter-gatherer society throughout time. We should note that this sustainable hunter-gatherer society does not exist independently; they maintained this system by maintaining cultural-economic connections with the different neighboring societies that had dissimilar economic systems. This historical dynamism in Hokkaido Island is unique, and it creates a significant historical record for understanding the diversity of human history. However, past archaeological practice on this island has not successfully described the original characteristics of the archaeological past. This misrepresentation is caused by the perspective of archaeologists of Hokkaido Island. However, as observed by Fujisawa Atsushi, it is unclear why these discussions sometimes produce sweeping observations that ignore temporal scale, as if there were commonalities between the Ainu and Jomon cultures, and evoke aspects of simplified collective genealogy (Fujisawa 2006). Japanese archaeology is traditionally interested in the central region of the archipelago and has not paid much attention to “northern” and “southern” culture. Japanese culture is often described as a homogenous culture, with the northern and southern cultures discussed only as an afterthought to the “history of the mainstream”.

Whose heritage and whose archaeology? The relationships between indigenous communities and archaeologists have become an important theme in contemporary archaeology (Bruchac et al. 2010; Nicholas 2008; Smith and Wobst 2005), and the links between archaeology and society provide significant background to this situation. Archaeology has developed on the basis of public interest in human history, representing intellectual curiosity with regard to antiques and ruins. The Renaissance cultural movement in Western Europe played a major role in positioning archaeology as an academic discipline. In relation to the formation of modern states in Europe, the subsequent movement to establish nation states promoted the preservation of heritage resources as a symbol of the unity of the people and the pursuit of the origins of peoples. It is commonly known that the establishment of archaeology as a modern science was closely related to the formation of modern states in Europe and the

Archaeological heritage and Hokkaido Ainu 223 ensuing spread of colonialism (Kohl and Fawcett 1996; Trigger 1989). In the twentieth century, archaeology changed its style from a discipline based on intellectual pursuits to a discipline which represented a means of promoting the unity of the nation. The expansion of political and economic activity in the European nations led to the development of colonies, and many “unknown” cultures and civilizations were discovered during the colonization processes. The heritage resources “found” by these Western nations include many that are today registered as UNESCO World Heritage sites in recognition of man’s universal heritage. These resources had long been seen as elements of lost cultures or civilizations in archaeological circles. Even though they might have been recognized as important for understanding human history, the negative aspects of such one-sided evaluation and the prospect of opening these artefacts to the general public have seldom been actively discussed. In the meantime, contrasting relationships have been maintained in the discipline of archaeology, with archaeologists one-sidedly evaluating host communities and indigenous people. The unbalanced relationship that has developed between archaeologists and the communities they research has today become problematic. It is clear that the ancestors of local indigenous people around the world left behind a wealth of historical and cultural heritage resources. By the latter half of the twentieth century, indigenous people had begun to express views on how this heritage should be evaluated and managed in their roles as members of descendant communities. As a result, it transpired that evaluations of heritage by researchers and their approaches do not always match today’s recognition of indigenous people. Researchers have also come to acknowledge the need to examine how their work may affect or damage indigenous communities. In the latter half of the 1980s, the relationships between indigenous people and archaeologists were clearly defined and discussed at international academic conferences. At the first World Archaeological Congress (WAC) held in the British city of Southampton in 1986, research ethics were discussed with particular focus on the historical/social roles and impacts of archaeologists’ interpretations and the related political implications. Through discussions like these, researchers are expected more than ever to help build relations of mutual trust between archaeological circles and host/indigenous communities rather than simply engaging in research. Based on the outcomes of such deliberations, the World Archaeological Congress (WAC) presented the first code of ethics for its members, addressing the following considerations: a) responsibility for education on the past; b) relationships between archaeologists and indigenous people; c) research ethics in archaeology; d) the protection of archaeological sites and artefacts; e) the examination of the roles of archaeology in host communities; f) ownership, preservation and utilization of archaeological resources; and g) the development of new technologies for archaeology and archaeological communication.

224  Hirofumi Kato As outlined above, discussions in response to questions such as “who benefits from archaeological research?” and “do archaeologists have a right to control the pasts of others?” highlight the unequal relationships between researchers and host/descendant communities with regard to cultural heritage. As Martin Wobst mentioned, it is necessary to consider the relationship between archaeologists and indigenous peoples as the starting point. He also pointed out that it is necessary to recognize that archaeology is deeply involved in colonialism in its historical lineage (Wobst 2010). In research of all kinds today, consideration for the public nature of work and the securing of informed consent from research subjects and target communities are essential. As discussed earlier, efforts to disclose research information to indigenous people have historically been lacking. As indigenous communities became colonized, they were unilaterally exploited and forced to take on the role of research targets. This historical background and the memories it created caused indigenous communities to harbor a profound distrust of researchers with regard to their historical and cultural heritage. In current archaeological studies on Hokkaido Island, we can find a similar trend. Ainu studies are undertaken without the “native view”, and most of the studies depend on the description of Ainu culture by non-native scholars. Today, scholars should be aware of the inequality between archaeologists and Ainu people in the process of archaeological investigation and the preservation and management of Indigenous cultural heritage. In recent years, the unequal relationship between archaeology and the Ainu is becoming actualized. These issues are as follows: a) archaeological culture and ethnicity; b) descriptions of Ainu culture in museum displays and history textbooks; c) the conservation and management of collections of ancient human remains from Ainu cemeteries; d) the repatriation claims for human remains and grave goods collected unjustly; and e) the participation of the Ainu in preservation planning and archaeological survey.

Human remains and cultural properties of Hokkaido Ainu The most troubling and conspicuous issue facing indigenous communities is the fact that remains of their ancestors, ceremonial objects and other artefacts have been collected for research purposes and stored for many years at museums and university research institutions around the world. Also, in Japan, in 2013, three local Ainu elders appealed to the Sapporo District Court to return the ancestral remains and grave goods excavated from Kineusu kotan (“village” in the Ainu language) by scholars from the Faculty of Medicine in Hokkaido University between the 1930s and 1950s. The movement for the repatriation of human remains and other artefacts began to gain momentum in Australia in the 1970s and in the US in the 1980s (Fforde 2002). In the US, two federal laws mandating the repatriation of such remains and artefacts were enacted. These were the 1989 National Museum of the American Indian Act (NMAI) and the 1999 Native

Archaeological heritage and Hokkaido Ainu 225 American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). These developments had various impacts on the international indigenous movements for the repatriation of human remains and ceremonial artefacts. Countries without legally binding legal systems such as NMAI and NAGPRA were also affected in various ways by the movements in the US, as exemplified by developments such as the establishment of institutions for repatriation and the formation of repatriation policies and guidelines by museums (Indian and Northern Affairs Canada 1996). The challenges facing indigenous historical and cultural heritages are not limited to previously collected human remains and ceremonial artefacts. Further efforts are necessary to ensure the future preservation and management of such resources (including items that have not yet been investigated) and to secure opportunities to reflect the wishes of indigenous people in related work. In the past, researchers have studied reconstruction and interpretation regarding the history of indigenous people based on objective and scientific methods without input from these individuals. Even from a global perspective, the rights of indigenous communities to their historical and cultural heritage are legally guaranteed in only a limited number of cases. In the US, Congress granted Native Americans the right to manage excavations on their land and to demand the return of archaeological resources excavated or removed from such land under the 1979 Archaeological Resources Protection Act. NAGPRA also provides them with authority over archaeological resources excavated or removed from federal or tribal lands. With the introduction of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1992, Congress demonstrated a deeper understanding of the rights of Native American tribes to cultural heritage resources on their tribal lands. Australia has no legal system on the federal level, but a number of state government initiatives have been introduced. In 2003, the Queensland government enacted the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act and the Torres Strait Islander Cultural Heritage Act, which prescribed that Aboriginal people should be recognized as the primary guardians, keepers and knowledge holders of Aboriginal cultural heritage (The Queensland government 2003a, 2003b). The acts also recognized Aboriginal peoples’ ownership of Aboriginal human remains, secret or sacred artefacts and ceremonial items, and the need to return Aboriginal cultural heritage resources to their land. In 2007, the 61st session of the United Nations General Assembly adopted the “Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”. Although not legally binding as international law, its stipulations affirm a wide range of indigenous rights. The declaration also states that indigenous people have rights to resources constituting part of their archaeological heritage, and member nations are expected to develop necessary legal systems. In academic circles, scientific societies are expected to clearly incorporate the declaration into their own codes of ethics and other guidelines. In 2009, the Japanese government established the Council for Ainu Policy Promotion under the cabinet office, and committee members, including Ainu representatives, discussed future Ainu policies. In 2013, the chief

226  Hirofumi Kato cabinet secretary decided to set up a new national museum of Ainu culture and a memorial facility to store unidentified Ainu ancestral remains, which are presently stored at universities across the country in Shiraoi, Hokkaido Island (scheduled to open in 2020). Also, the chief cabinet secretary recognized the need to establish guidelines for the repatriation of Ainu ancestral remains and grave goods as soon as possible. However, some Ainu individuals, including plaintiffs, appealed to the Sapporo District Court for the return of ancestral remains, as they did not agree with the decision to store unknown ancestral remains in the national memorial facility. Issues of repatriation are not so simple. A more complicated issue is the handling of human remains and grave goods which are to be excavated from the graves of historical Ainu by rescue excavations necessitated by land development. Unfortunately, the Ainu have not been given the opportunity to voice their opinions to the academic community. At this time, communication between archaeologists and the Ainu is insufficient.

Indigenous archaeology and research ethics in Hokkaido Indigenous archaeology’s greatest effect on conventional archaeology stems from the diversity of its evaluation and interpretation of historical and cultural heritage. Martin Wobst asserts that sampling bias is introduced as a result of archaeological interpretation from a Western viewpoint in regard to indigenous historical and cultural heritage resources (Wobst 2005). For example, in archaeological site designation, the value of such sites is usually assessed in relation to the density and visibility of artefacts as well as the extent of artificial surface-ground alteration (Wobst 2001). Wobst also asks whether these criteria can be applied to communities with values different from those of archaeologists, and in particular to indigenous communities, pointing out the need to remember that indigenous peoples’ views of the past do not always match those of archaeologists (Wobst 2005). Naturally, archaeologists’ awareness and perceptions come from knowledge based on the experience they gain through education. Using their accumulated expertise, they evaluate and interpret the past according to their own standards and values. However, such judgments do not necessarily equate to the sensibilities of the original users of the archaeological sites they are investigating, and they often also contradict the related sensibilities of indigenous people living in host communities. Against this backdrop, Wobst highlights the concept of visual nature in the evaluation of archaeological sites, and his observations are enlightening. As discussed earlier, natural landscapes are considered sacred in many indigenous communities, and important religious spaces remain in such landscapes without artificial alteration. Is it possible for archaeologists to understand the significance of such spaces without appreciating the worldviews and values of indigenous peoples? Taking into account the current situation and the shortcomings of conventional archaeological viewpoints and approaches,

Archaeological heritage and Hokkaido Ainu 227 Wobst maintains that the significance of indigenous archaeology engaged in by non-indigenous practitioners lies in their critique of the ethnocentric and colonizing practice of mainstream archaeology found in various places when it is implemented as a national policy (Wobst 2005: 20). The above discussions on new approaches to the evaluation of indigenous historical and cultural heritage overseas and on the review of relationships linking indigenous people and archaeology clarify that these are global rather than regional issues, and, of course, they also affect Japan. It was not until 2008 that the Ainu were recognized as an indigenous people of Japan, despite strong demand from the Ainu community, owing to the government’s delay in making such a decision. In related legal systems too, the evaluation of the historical and cultural heritage of the Ainu and the uniqueness of these people have not been fully examined. Accordingly, related discussions regarding the Japanese archipelago have long been conducted within the framework of this discipline. However, as observed by Fujisawa Atsushi, it is unclear why these discussions sometimes produce sweeping observations that ignore temporal scale, as if there were commonalities between the Ainu and Jomon cultures, and evoke aspects of simplified collective genealogy (Fujisawa 2006). As the above discussions have clarified, a viewpoint based on indigenous archaeology is indispensable for the practice of archaeology in Hokkaido. Whether individual archaeologists realize it or not, it is obvious that Hokkaido is a unique place, where the Ainu experienced colonization in the course of modern-state formation. Discussions on indigenous archaeology have highlighted that the image of history stemming from archaeological research and study has direct impact on indigenous peoples today. Archaeological studies are linked even more deeply than previously thought to the historical awareness of indigenous peoples living in places where studies are conducted, and significantly affect their current and future activities geared towards the restoration of related rights. Knowledge of the history of Hokkaido, including that of Ainu culture, is based primarily on archaeological resources and is described from the viewpoint of archaeological culture. Historical perception developed in this way is reproduced intellectually through general publications written by researchers and through museum exhibitions. It should be noted in this context that accounts based on archaeological culture regarding non-state societies adjoining states tend to result, from a comparative historical viewpoint, in a lack of elucidation on the history of the groups constituting the non-state society and in the development of a perception that such people were marginalized in relation to the state. This trend is also seen in periodization based on Hokkaido’s archaeology: while generally conforming to the periodization centring on Japan’s main island of Honshu, that of Hokkaido has emphasized negative overtones according to the logic of state formation, such as the existence of non-agricultural livelihoods and non-stratified society. Such periodization has also presented views on the changing times in

228  Hirofumi Kato which the unique culture that had developed from the post-Jomon, Okhotsk and Satsumon cultures was dismantled amidst growing political and economic influences from the Honshu mainland before Ainu culture became established in the medieval and early modern periods. These interpretations of Hokkaido’s prehistoric culture contributed to the justification of the government’s colonization and assimilation policies for the “unspoiled land” based on the logic of the state, even if archaeologists were not aware of this themselves. The next issue, which is related to that discussed above, is a lack of theoretical and methodological consideration in regard to indigenous peoples’ narratives of their past. The historical narrative of how non-state society was swallowed up by the state economically, socially and religiously represents a one-sided view put forward by the state. On this matter, Ogawa Hidefumi points out that Japanese archaeology had no narratives other than those about human footsteps towards civilization. He also highlights Japanese archaeology’s lack of theoretical and methodological consideration, saying that its narratives centered on artefacts representing the advanced pioneering techniques used in each period and their continuity, and that there were no narratives on the hunter-gatherer societies which existed during the same periods (Ogawa 2000: 285). His observation is astute, and it also clearly demonstrates that viewpoints in discussions on the formation of Ainu culture depend solely on a methodology based on the state-formation framework. Academic interest in the formation and definition of Ainu culture is considerable, and related discussions have been conducted by many archaeologists and anthropologists. However, anthropological and archaeological definitions of Ainu culture as part of the historical formation process are yet to be completed, despite the continuity of the Ainu as indigenous people and the specific aspects of Ainu culture that they preserve and hand down to the next generation. The dynamics of history are always based on mainstream society, and non-state society exists on the periphery of the state. In this way, we see only interpretations from historical narratives, indicating that non-state society has been at the mercy of changing times brought about by the state. In regard to the formation of Ainu culture, too, archaeologists’ viewpoints tend to be limited by boundaries concerning the history of state formation and related methods.

Conclusion The Ainu, indigenous peoples in northern Japan, have long inhabited the island of Hokkaido. Although numerous archaeological sites have been researched and studied, it is necessary to ask whether the fairness of and research ethics on the indigenous heritage have been recognized and discussed within the framework of archaeologists’ viewpoints and considerations. Pertinent issues include the political nature of archaeologists’ discourses, cultural heritage ownership and the relationships linking cultural

Archaeological heritage and Hokkaido Ainu 229 heritage and intellectual property rights. When indigenous people demand that their values and wishes be reflected in the evaluation and interpretation of their historical and cultural heritage, to what extent can we maintain the effectiveness of our present theoretical and methodological foundations? Joe Watkins classified approaches taken in research involving indigenous peoples into the following four categories (Watkins 2008; cf. also Watkins 2001): 1) colonial research; 2) consensus-based research; 3) contractual research; and 4) cooperative research. Colonial research is conducted with no consideration for the subjects being observed. It is regarded as undesirable (even when presented as scientific research or when its purpose is genuinely to salvage history) if it is implemented without the involvement of groups closely related to the survey subject or without consideration of their desires, hopes and feelings. Consensus-based and contractual surveys cannot lead to true knowledge sharing if they are conducted based solely on the needs of the government or other authorities. Conversely, Watkins describes cooperative research as a form of research that benefits all parties involved. It requires the relationships between surveyors and survey subjects to be transcended, and the parties involved must work closely throughout the survey to ensure that all stakeholders are satisfied. The direction to be taken should not be one in which history is depicted with a focus on how a non-state society becomes swallowed up by the state economically, socially and religiously. Nor should we lean towards onesided historical descriptions provided by the state. Rather, we should aim to build a new framework for the history created by people who have lived on Hokkaido, an island characterized by long-term historical transition. As Hokkaido is home to many people with different historical backgrounds, archaeologists should strive to treat all local parties involved as equal partners, in order to support the development of programs for local heritage protection and management. They should then work to establish a framework for the expression of Ainu history. It is fully understood today that archaeology is a powerful tool in the creation of cultural identities in the past (Smith and Wobst 2005: 14). It should also be understood that archaeologists cannot survive in the absence of partnerships with host communities (Kato 2009, 2010, 2013).

Note 1 In this chapter, the Japanese convention regarding authors’ names by presenting last name first is used. Editors’ note.

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230  Hirofumi Kato Fujimoto, T. 1984. “Ainu Koukogaku no shomondai” [Issues of Ainu archaeology]. Hokkaido Koukogaku 20 [Hokkaido Archaeology 20]: 75–86. Fujimoto, T. 1988. Mo futatsu no nihon bunka [Two More Japanese Cultures]. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. Fujisawa, A. 2006. “Minzoku no monogatari toshite sengo nihon kokogaku” [Postwar Japanese archaeology as the story of an ethnic group]. Nihonshi no houhou 4 [The methodology of Japanese history 4]: 125–32. Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. 1996. “Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. 1996.” Accessed July 16, 2014. http://www.collectionscan ada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071115053257/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/ sgmm_e.html. Kato, H. 2009. “Senjumin kokogaku to iu shiza – bunka isan, senju minzoku, kokogaku no kadai” [Viewpoints of indigenous archaeology – challenges facing cultural heritage, indigenous peoples and archaeology], Hokkaido kokogaku 45 [Hokkaido archaeology 45]: 31–44. Kato, H. 2010. “Whose archaeology?: Decolonizing archaeological perspective in Hokkaido Island.” In Indigenous Archaeologies: A Reader on Decolonization Reader on Indigenous Archaeologies, edited by M. Bruchac, S. Hart, and H. M. Wobst, 314–21. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2010. Kato, H. 2013. “Indigenous heritage and community-based archaeology.” In Indigenous Heritage and Tourism: Theories and Practices on Utilizing the Ainu Heritage, edited by M. Okada, and H. Kato, 17–32, Sapporo: Center for Ainu & Indigenous Studies, Hokkaido University. Kindaichi, K. 1924. Ainu no kenkyu [Study of the Ainu]. Tokyo: Naigai Shobou. Kohl, P. H., and C. Fawcett, eds. 1996. Nationalism, Politics and Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Komai, K. 1952. Ainu no Kaizuka [Shellmidden of the Ainu]. Tokyo: Fukumura Shoten. Milne, J. 1882. “Notes on the Koro-pok-guru or Pit-Dwellers of Yezo and the Kurile Islands.” Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 10: 187–98. Nicholas, G. 2008. “Native peoples and archaeology.” In Encyclopedia of Archaeology. Vol. 3, edited by D. Peasall, 1660–9. Waltham: Academic Press. Ogawa, H. 2000. “Dai kyusho: shuryo saishu shakai to noko shakai no koryu: sogo kankei no shikaku” [Chapter 9: Exchanges between hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies: a vision for mutual relations].” In Gendai no kokogaku 5: koryu no kokogaku [Contemporary Archaeology Vol. 5: The Archaeology of Interaction and Exchange], edited by H. Ogawa, 266–95, Tokyo: Doseisha. The Queensland Government. 2003a. “Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act.” Accessed July 16, 2014. https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/LEGISLTN/CURRENT/A/ AborCultHA03.pdf. The Queensland Government. 2003b. “Torres Strait Islander Cultural heritage Act.” Accessed July 16, 2013. https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/LEGISLTN/ ACTS/2003/03AC080.pdf. Siebold, von H. 1881. Ethnogische Studien über die Aino auf der Insel Yesso. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie. Supplement z. Bd. 13. Smith, C., and H. M. Wobst, eds. 2005. Indigenous Archaeologies – Decolonizing Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Trigger, B. 1989. A History of Archaeological Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Archaeological heritage and Hokkaido Ainu 231 Tuan, Y. F. 1988. Kukan no Keiken [Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience]. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, Ltd. Watkins, J. 2000. Indigenous Archaeology: American Indian Values and Scientific Practice. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press. Watkins, J. 2008. “Research and field concerns: Ethics, regulation, and repatriation in American archaeology.” Lecture, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, September 21, 2008. Wobst, M. 2001. “Matter over mind: Perishables and the glorification of materiality in archaeology.” In Fleeting Identities: Perishable Material Culture in the Archaeological Record, edited by P. B. Drooke, 43–57. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinoi University Press. Wobst, M. 2005. “Power to the (Indigenous) past and present! or: The theory and method behind archaeological theory and method.” In Indigenous Archaeologies – Decolonizing Theory and Practice, edited by C. Smith, and H. M. Wobst, 17–32. London: Routledge. Wobst, M. 2010. “Indigenous archaeologies: A worldwide perspective on human materialities and human rights.” In Indigenous Archaeologies: A Reader on Decolonization, edited by M. Bruchac, S. Hart, and H. M. Wobst, 17–27. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Yoshizaki, M. 1986. ”Hokkaido ni okeru chiikisei” [Regional characteristics of Hokkaido]. In Iwanami koza nihon kokogaku 5 [Iwanami Lecture Series, Japanese Archaeology Vol. 5], edited by Y. Kondo, K. Amakasu, M. Sawara, M. Tozawa, K. Yokoyama, S. Kato, and T. Tanaka, 289–324. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers.

Appendix 1 Overview of the history of Ainu policy in Japan

1869 Foundation of the office of Hokkaido Development Bureau (until 1882) 1889 Prohibition of deer hunting 1899 Protection Law of Hokkaido Aboriginals (until 1997) 1997  A decision on the Nibutani Dam case (by the Sapporo District Court) 1997 Ainu Cultural Promotion Act (Law for the Promotion of the Ainu Culture and for the Dissemination and Advocacy for the Traditions of the Ainu and the Ainu Culture) 1997  The Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture (FRPAC) (set up by the Japanese government) 2007 The UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2008 Resolution calling for the Recognition of the Ainu People as an Indigenous People of Japan (by both houses of the Japanese Diet) 2009 The Report of the Advisory Council for Future Ainu Policy 2009 The Council for Ainu Policy Promotion (hosted by the chief cabinet secretary) 2012 The Minister of Education decided to build the National Museum in Hokkaido (January 2012) 2012 The council proposed setting up “the Symbolic Space for Ethnic Harmony, as a national centre for revitalizing Ainu culture” (July 2012) 2012 Three local Ainu members appealed to the Sapporo District Court for the return of ancestral remains 2013 Based on a year-long survey, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology revealed earlier this year that the bones of more than 1,600 Ainu are still being stored at 11 universities across the country

16 Power relations and the management of heritage in South Africa Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu

Many publications have focused on the need to bridge the gap between “Us” and “Them” (Phillips and Allen 2010; Watkins 2000, 2008). Some have gone beyond simply stating the need to bridge such a gap, and have focused on how this can best be achieved. In a number of these publications, the definition of “Them” is often not very difficult. Most scholars would generally agree that, in continents/countries such as Europe, Canada and the US, “Them” refers to the First Nations people or the Indigenous people, as they are also called. This is not to argue that there have never been disputes over the identity of such nations (see Kuper 2003). Unlike those instances where the identifying of who is Indigenous, is reasonably easy, this is not the case for the African continent (cf. also discussions in chapters by Shepherd, Lane and Matenga in this volume). The issue of who is Indigenous is not only political but also has implications for heritage management, hence the need to engage in this discussion in this chapter. Such a discussion will indicate the extent to which power relations have an impact on the management of heritage. It is thus significant that, in our attempts to be inclusive in heritage management, we gain a good understanding of indigeneity in our sociopolitical contexts. Throughout human history, people have migrated over various distances. During such migrations, people came into contact with one another and, as a result, different groups became mixed. In South Africa, we know of intermarriage between those who could easily be described as “Indigenous” and the Bantu-speaking people (Francis 2009a, 2009b; Herbert 1990; Prins 2009). As a direct result, there are still communities who define themselves as Indigenous. However, archaeologists continue to write about Bushmen in the past tense. In addition to migrations influenced by general social factors, the colonial and apartheid governments initiated many forced movements of people from one location to another. These people redefined themselves in the new spaces and, in some instances, continued accessing heritage sites (i.e. rock-art sites) for ritual purposes (Ndlovu 2005). The question, therefore, is: if archaeologists acknowledge intermarriage between Bantu and Bushmen as well as politically and socially forced migrations, why do they define their offspring simply as Bantu even though they

234  Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu self-define as Bushmen? I argue that this is about power. In defining Bushmen in the past tense, archaeologists become “owners” of their heritage, and they use this heritage to offer us insights into the people of the past. I am of the view that self-definition is important, and when communities define themselves as Indigenous, it is not for us to challenge this identity because it does not fit within our own thinking of indigeneity. I argue that, considering the political history of the continent, and more specifically South Africa, it is important that heritage managers consider the identity of Indigenous people. Writing of Bushmen in the past tense does not permit this possibility. It is not enough to simply make reference to the need to solicit the opinion of local communities without being critical of their identity. The inclusive approach to heritage management, I would argue, requires us to define the various levels of community involvement.

Indigeneity and heritage management Social consultation is enshrined in the heritage legislation governing the protection of heritage resources in South Africa. In my experience, the role of “Indigenous” people during such consultations is thus equal to that of everyone else. However, should we have a one-size-fits-all approach to the identification of communities? Considering our political history, unmasking these interested and affected parties is not an easy matter and should not follow the one-size-fits-all approach. I argue that there are three categories of people whom we should consider as forming local communities. First, people who claim direct descent from the Bushmen; second, Africans1 who have “taken” ownership of sites linked to Bushmen and consider them significant to their spiritual realm; and third, people of Western and Bantu origin who simply have an interest in a given site near their place of residence or at any other location but attach to it no spiritual significance. I discuss each of these below.

Claiming direct descent I have previously argued (Ndlovu 2005, 2009) that Bushmen are referred to in the past tense. As a result, archaeologists have taken ownership of the heritage they created – heritage which is now part of the national estate. This is problematic, especially when we acknowledge that marriages occurred between Bushmen and Bantu-speaking people. Those archaeologists who are critical of self-identification have previously argued that such claims are influenced by potential financial benefits. This view is strengthened by the number of people who claimed to have Bushmen blood in postapartheid South Africa. While they were secret Bushmen before, they were no longer secret following the foundation of democracy. However, such perceptions should not take anything away from those who identified themselves as Bushmen even at the height of apartheid. The Duma clan in the

Management of heritage in South Africa 235 Maloti-Drakensberg Park2 are one such group (Ndlovu 2009). Considering heritage resources created by Bushmen as part of the national estate means that the role of these descendants is diminished because they are not considered to be related to the original creators. If consulted, their participation equals that of those who are not directly descended from Bushmen (Ndlovu 2009).

Secondary ownership? It has also been shown that, through interaction, culture is exchanged. When African communities were situated in the foothills of Maloti-Drakensberg Park in the 1800s (Vinnicombe 1976; Wright 1971), it was with a view to placing them at loggerheads with the Bushmen who were blamed for raiding activities. Besides hostilities, the two groups intermarried and cooperated closely on social matters (see also Challis 2008, 2009, 2012). Considering these close relations, Africans have “taken” ownership of sites originally linked to Bushmen and consider them significant to hold significance for their spiritual realm. The following three case studies highlight this point. In the first one, I identified a rock-art site at oKhombe in the northern section of Maloti-Drakensberg Park that contains “New Age” rock-art (Ndlovu 2005). This includes paintings of crosses, lines, stars, etc. I managed to locate the painter, a traditional healer (isangoma), and she originally denied having created these paintings (Ndlovu 2005). It was only much later that she accepted responsibility for the ‘New Age’ art and linked its existence in the shelter to the Bushmen rock-art that had been painted there many years previously. Without the Bushmen rock-art, she would not have used the shelter for her “New Age” rock-art. In the second case study, also from the northern section of Maloti-Drakensberg Park at Mnweni, it transpired that one of the traditional healers believed in the spiritual significance of the rockart sites and made offerings every time he approached any such site (Ndlovu 2005). The third case study was that of an elderly man from Mnweni who had a small house within a painted shelter. While constructing his house, he intended for one wall to represent the rock face and include a painted motif, and he would sleep inside the house facing this painted representation. What these case studies reveal is that a number of African communities, particularly the spiritual healers, have identified painted rock-art sites as places filled with spiritual potency.

People with a general interest A number of heritage sites are located near or visited by communities who attach no spiritual significance to them. The significance of the mountain range to these communities serves other purposes, rather than spiritual, i.e. as a source of natural resources or an area to be visited for the tranquility it provides. In my experience of working at Maloti-Drakensberg

236  Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu Park, Africans who attach no significance to painted rock-art sites generally do not intentionally visit such sites. In fact, I was once asked by puzzled members of the eMhlwazini community why “white” people would walk for a long distance to visit painted shelters, and at a cost, too. For the “white” community referred to in this case study, rock-art sites and the mountain range in general offer an ideal holiday setting. Communities discussed in this third case study offer a significant contrast to those discussed earlier. Considering the above descriptions of the three categories of people, I would argue that the failure of heritage managers to make the distinction between the three categories in their management of heritage is problematic. This is emphasized by the one-size-fits-all approach encouraged by heritage legislation. What I am highlighting here is the need for heritage legislation to differentiate between various stakeholders and determine their varying roles under any given circumstances. Failure to do so will lead to meaningless consultations being undertaken only to satisfy bureaucratic processes. Thus, the ideal scenario is to involve these three groups at different levels, on a case-by-case basis. Without such a distinction, I argue that any consultation is bound to fail. Failure to make a distinction will simply continue the current practice, which is clearly indicative of the power relations at play in heritage management. Taking into account the categorization I am calling for here, how can archaeologists best identify people from Indigenous backgrounds in areas where such identification is still challenged by academia? I discuss my views on this subject below.

The debate on indigeneity Indigeneity, as we have come to understand it, is linked to when people arrived at a given place. Based on this view, there is generally no debate on the identity of Indigenous people in Europe, Canada and the US. Yet, other peoples would have arrived much earlier than the Indian population in Canada and the US, but their history has been forgotten. African still contains evidence of the presence of people prior to the African populations. Basing it on when people arrived in a particular area, we would then define Indigenous people as those who arrived before colonization – which is often understood in terms of white people “taking over”. Did the Bantu not colonize land previously settled by Bushmen? If they did, can they ever be Indigenous? I return to this point later when discussing the view expressed by Chirikure and Pwiti (2008). Having established this position – of Indigenous people being defined on the basis of their arrival in a particular location – to what extent should archaeologists consider intermarriage when defining Indigenous people? If intermarriage was considered in the debate on who is Indigenous, then how would Indigenous identity be defined/identified?

Management of heritage in South Africa 237 Regardless of the identity of Indigenous people, one fact remains: identity is undoubtedly political – and so is the definition of who is Indigenous in South Africa. As mentioned earlier, none of the Bushmen people hold powerful political positions, i.e. leading government positions in South Africa or in Africa in general. In the case of South Africa, none of the 11 official languages are of Bushmen origin (although they are related, in terms of the clicks acquired from interactions with Bushmen). As a result, those who consider themselves Bushmen face struggles not only concerning land, resources, recognition and sovereignty, but also with the fragile issue of defining themselves as “Indigenous” (Ndlovu 2005). At the height of apartheid, the identity of any South African citizen (and, much later, homelands) indicated what level of services they received from the government. The African majority was not necessarily considered Indigenous and the various categories did not include Bushmen or Khoisan. This highlights the fact that the Bushmen have been erased from the “pages of existence”, and thus are considered extinct. The discussion on who is Indigenous in the South African context, therefore, cannot escape such political connotations (Chennells and du Toit 2004; Chirikure and Pwiti 2008). If the identification of indigeneity was not political, there would not be two parallel definitions of the term in South Africa. According to Chennells and du Toit (2004), being Indigenous refers broadly to 1) South Africans of African ancestry and 2) the non-dominant groups, which have distinct territorial and cultural identities. According to Chirikure and Pwiti (2008), supporting the relational model of indigeneity as defined by Ingold (2000: 150), there is a general agreement supported by archaeological and anthropological evidence that Bushmen are Indigenous to South Africa. The Bushmen’s Indigenous status is in much the same way as the Sámi are Indigenous to Northern Europe, the Inuit to Canada, the Native Americans to the US and the Aborigines to Australia. This view reaffirms the research findings of Wilmot James and others, which are based on DNA evidence: No one group can lay claim to South Africa. Everyone is a settler . . . In fact, there are all types of settlers in South Africa, with successive waves of immigrants. The ultimate question for us to find an answer to is: what is an African? (Johns 2007) Having noted the Indigenous status of the Bushmen, the challenge is that Africans – who are the majority in South Africa – claim to be Indigenous (see Chennells and du Toit 2004; Lane 2006; Shepherd 2003). Having no political power in modern-day South Africa, Bushmen have “lost” their Indigenous status. Instead, African people, who now have the political power in the previously colonized continent and are the majority in terms of the population, widely define themselves as Indigenous. Thus, when the

238  Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu South African Minister of Arts and Culture, Mr Nkosinathi Mthethwa was giving a keynote address at the launch of the National Heritage Monument in Pretoria (15 September 2015), it was not the Bushmen he was referring to when he said: Historical records, landmarks and national symbols like statues, glorified the deeds of those who were in power and suppressed the voices of the oppressed. The stories of the indigenous people of this land were distorted to reflect the perspective of the oppressor. (Mthethwa 2015) The Indigenous people he was referring to here are the majority Africans in the country. Revisiting the research findings of Wilmot James and others, which concluded that we are all settlers, we must question whether some people are more Indigenous than others? As a potential response to this question, Chirikure and Pwiti (2008) posed an important question: considering the movement of people in the past 500 years within South Africa, for how long must someone occupy an area before the person is considered Indigenous? They argue that the African farmers who arrived in the region only at the beginning of the first millennium AD now consider themselves Indigenous because of how long they have been in this geographical area.

Discussion What I aimed to highlight in my discussion of Indigenous people was that social consultation should not be a one-size-fits-all issue. Instead, various historical aspects in a given locality must be considered in identifying how best to involve local communities. I earlier presented three categories of communities: 1) people who claim direct descent from the Bushmen, 2) Africans who have “taken” ownership of sites linked to Bushmen and consider them significant to their spiritual realm, and 3) people of Western and Bantu origin who simply have an interest in a given site near their place of residence but attach no spiritual significance to it. Failure to appreciate the existence of such categories will simply lead to failure in archaeologists’ attempts to bridge the gap between “Us” and “Them”. Indigenous archaeology should represent a significant shift in how communities are involved in the identification, research and management of heritage management. This shift can only be successful when archaeologists begin 1) speaking of Bushmen in the present tense and appreciate their existence in the region discussed in this chapter – which will require a significant change of attitude on their part, and 2) appreciating that Africans became attached to Bushmen heritage, infusing parts of such heritage into their spiritual lifeways. Until that time when these two aspects are addressed, any social consultation will fail to appreciate the complexities of the relationship between Africans and

Management of heritage in South Africa 239 Bushmen over time. The aim of my discussion was not to argue that only the descendants of the Bushmen should have a say in the management of heritage resources created by their ancestors. What I indicated earlier, rather, was that social consultation should be problematized and case-based because of the varying complexities. I argue that the three categories discussed above should be taken into account when managing heritage. Failure to do so will effectively result in a slow rate of transformation and will mean that the language we speak amongst ourselves as archaeologists will have no relevance beyond our inner circle.

Conclusion Generalizing the identity of local communities without considering the categories discussed in this paper will not lead to successful bridging of the difference of opinion between archaeologists and local communities, in particular Indigenous people. Community archaeology can only succeed in an environment where a multitude of voices are allowed to exist. Without doing so, archaeologists cannot even begin to engage in discussions of ethical principles, for they would fail in being inclusive. This is about power in the identification, research and management of heritage.

Notes 1 The word African in this chapter refers to Bantu-speaking people who are South African citizens. I do not support the use of apartheid terminology because it gives undeserved status to the word black. 2 The boundary of uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park (uDP), first inscribed on the list of World Heritage Sites on 29 November 2000, was extended in 2013 to include the Sehlabathebe National Park in Lesotho. The new site is now called MalotiDrakensberg Park.

References Challis, S. 2008. “The Impact of the Horse on the AmaTola ‘Bushmen’: New Identity in the Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains of Southern Africa.” PhD dissertation, University of Oxford. Challis, S. 2009. “Taking the reins: The introduction of the horse in the nineteenthcentury Maloti-Drakensberg and the protective medicine of baboons.” In The Eland’s People: Essays in Memory of Patricia Vinnicombe, edited by P. Mitchell, and B. Smith, 104–7. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Challis, S. 2012. “Creolisation on the nineteenth-century frontiers of Southern Africa: A case study of the AmaTola ‘Bushmen’ in the Maloti-Drakensberg.” Journal of Southern African Studies 38 (2): 265–80. Chennells, R., and A. du Toit. 2004. “The rights of indigenous peoples in South Africa.” In Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Southern Africa, edited by R. Hitchcock,

240  Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu and D. Vinding, 98–113. Copenhagen: International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA). Chirikure, S., and G. Pwiti. 2008. “Community involvement in archaeology and cultural heritage management: An assessment from case studies in Southern Africa and elsewhere.” Current Anthropology 49 (3): 467–85. Francis, M. 2009a. “Contested histories: A critique of rock art in the Drakensberg mountains.” Visual Anthropology 22 (4): 327–43. Francis, M. 2009b. “Silencing the past: Historical and archaeological colonisation of the Southern San in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.” Anthropology Southern Africa 32 (3–4): 106–16. Herbert, R. K. 1990. “The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu.” Anthropological Linguistics 32 (3–4): 295–315. Ingold, T. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge. Johns, L. 2007. “We Are All Settlers in SA.” August 18. Accessed February 8, 2016. http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/we-are-all-settlers-in-sa-1.366860#. VNd-OPmDkyo. Kuper, A. 2003. “The return of the native.” Current Anthropology 44: 389–402. Lane, P. J. 2006. “Comments on Damm (2005) archaeology, ethnohistory, and oral traditions: Approaches to the indigenous past.” Norwegian Archaeological Review 39: 70–9. Mthethwa, N. 2015. Keynote address by the Minister of Arts and Culture, Nathi Mthethwa at the launch of the National Heritage Monument, Groenkloof Nature Plaza, Pretoria. Ndlovu, N. 2005. “Incorporating Indigenous Management in Rock Art Sites in KwaZulu-Natal.” MA dissertation, Rhodes University. Ndlovu, N. 2009. “Access to rock art sites: A right or a qualification?” South African Archaeological Bulletin 64: 61–8. Phillips, C., and H. Allen, eds. 2010. Bridging the divide: Indigenous Communities and Archaeology into the 21st Century. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Prins, F. 2009. “Secret San of the Drakensberg and their rock art legacy.” Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies 23 (2): 190–208. Shepherd, N. 2003. “State of the discipline: Science, culture, and identity in South African archaeology, 1870–2003.” Journal of Southern African Studies 29: 823–44. Vinnicombe, P. 1976. People of the Eland: Rock paintings of the Drakensberg as a Reflection of Their Life and Thought. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press. Watkins, J. E. 2000. Indigenous Archaeology, American Indian Values, and Scientific Practice. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Watkins, J. E. 2008. “Expanding the dialogue between American Indians and nonIndian archaeologists.” In American Indian Places: A Historical Guidebook, edited by F. H. Kennedy, 186–7. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Wright, J. B. 1971. Bushmen Raiders of the Drakensberg 1840–1870. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.

17 Performing “Indigenous” for international tourists who tour the rural poor John Giblin

The political and economic performance of an Indigenous “Us” by particular socially marginalized rural African groups and the consumption of this performance by a touristic non-Indigenous “Them”, who seek a globalized, idealized Indigenous exotic performance, is a recent development in the “being Indigenous” story.1 Indeed, following Bruner (2001), the “Indigenous performance” can be considered a new stage in African ethnic tourism. Thus, this performative scenario, in a Butlerian sense (cf. Butler 1993, 1997), is explored here through examples of Maasai and Batwa Indigenous heritage ecotourism, contrasted with examples of slum tourism to draw out some potentially problematic aspects of this undertaking. This chapter outlines how the economics of this practice may prolong the performance of “being Indigenous” in Africa beyond the rapidly eroding Indigenous political discourse (cf. Hodgson 2009, 2011). In addition, it questions the benevolence of Indigenous heritage ecotourism in postcolonial cultural contexts where colonial conservationism and postcolonial ecotourism are responsible for the displacement and exclusion of the socially marginalized peoples that they now strive to make sustainable. Indeed, the neocolonial continuation of these colonially created power asymmetries may paradoxically be aided by the performance of “being Indigenous” by socially marginalized groups, an undertaking which was originally intended to expose and protest against neocolonialism, not lead to its advancement. What is discussed here is thus less a materially defined archaeology and more an intangible heritage performance of “Us” and “Them”. Nevertheless, because these examples are “unpacked” to expose and challenge inherent power inequalities, through which new meanings are constructed from the component parts, this is archaeology in a Foucauldian sense.

Background The “unpacking” presented here was stimulated by a colleague who, between semesters in the Australian winter of 2012, invited me to present a guest lecture regarding my recent research in Africa for an undergraduate unit, “Tourism and Indigenous Cultures: A Global Perspective”.

242  John Giblin This invitation posed a number of problems, not least a lack of my own ­relevant research. Although I had recently conducted fieldwork at African sites that tourists visit – national museums and memorials in Rwanda and Uganda – the relationship between this tourism and Indigenous cultures was unclear to me, as neither the visitors to these sites nor the people living around them self-identified as Indigenous. Furthermore, the sites themselves, and the objects within them, are nationally constructed and are not claimed by Indigenous discourses. In addition, I was aware that “being Indigenous” in Africa, at least within nationalist discourses, is highly problematic and contested. Thus, I questioned whether any African case was appropriate for this undergraduate unit without a lengthy problematization of the notion of “being Indigenous” in contemporary African nations. Consequently, I expressed my thanks for the invitation and my willingness to participate, if it were not for these reservations. However, my colleague was not swayed by my avoidance strategy and replied that he was happy I had agreed to give the lecture, leaving me to ponder what “Tourism and Indigenous Cultures” means in a contemporary African national context. Consequently, my pondering led me to peruse the Google results generated by the search term “Indigenous tourism Africa”, which quickly identified advertised examples of Maasai and Batwa “Indigenous heritage ecotourism”. Based on a consideration of these examples, within the context of the well-rehearsed problematization of “being Indigenous” in Africa (cf. Hodgson 2009, 2011; Lane 2014), outlined below, I argue here that Indigenous heritage ecotourism in Africa currently equates to a performance of “being Indigenous” for international tourists who tour the rural poor.2

Performing indigenous in Africa The performance of “being Indigenous” refers both to the performativity of identity and the formal theatrical performance of songs, dances, mock hunting parties and warfare specifically for a paying tourist audience by ethnic groups who self-identify as Indigenous. All identities, be they gendered (Butler 1993, 1997), national (Anderson 1991), ethnic (Bruner 2001) or Indigenous, can be considered performed acts necessary for identity manifestation and negotiation. Performance, in this context, is thus a socially constructed, actively expressed and continually reconstituted practice of creating identity through the categories of “Us” and “Them”. Within this cultural production cycle (cf. Hall 1992), heritage acts or processes (cf. Smith 2006), whether theatrical or more embodied ones, are an integral part of identity formation through which cultural transmission, negotiation or resistance takes place and communities become more or less defined in relation to each other. For example, self-identifying as Indigenous or being called Indigenous by an “other” is to adopt and project, or

Performing “Indigenous” for international tourists 243 reflect, an identity of difference based in part on a conception of heritage, of valorized pasts. Indeed, all forms of identity are relational because they say who we, or they, are, whilst also singling “Us” or “Them” out as not belonging elsewhere. However, unlike alternative identity terms, “being Indigenous” within a larger multicultural community, such as a nation, makes a statement of being, or of belonging “more than” others, or being more Indigenous than someone else or some other people (c.f. Shiff, this volume). It is unsurprising, therefore, that “being Indigenous” requires greater cultural work, involving an exaggerated and competitive degree of performativity to mark out and valorize “some” more than “others”. However, in comparison to postcolonial settler states, such as those in the Americas, Australasia and Scandinavia, in most African nations, which were subject to indirect colonial rule,3 the divisions between Indigenous and nonIndigenous – “Us” and “Them” – are less easily constructed, and thus the performance of “being Indigenous” must be even more aggressively imagined and elaborated. Typically in postcolonial settler states, those groups that self-identify as “being Indigenous” are able to make powerful claims regarding their descent from the first, ancient custodians of the land, a claim which is more difficult for subsections of African national populations. Put simply, if essentialized Indigenous groups are sought who can demonstrate cultural and territorial continuity with the first peoples to settle a land, then claiming to be Indigenous in Africa is problematic. Africa, oft-cited as “the cradle of humanity”, has a dynamic settlement history, beginning with the appearance of anatomically modern humans in East Africa circa 150,000 years ago and accelerated following their spread throughout Africa circa 100,000 years later (Trinkaus 2005). Consequently, perhaps no African can establish a claim to be more Indigenous to Africa than any other? Furthermore, unlike postcolonial settler states whose current populations are dominated by descendants of colonial settlers and more recent migrants, postcolonial African nations are overwhelmingly populated by groups with precolonial descent. In other words, if a less extreme essentialized definition of “being Indigenous” is applied, which just refers to the descendants of those peoples that existed prior to colonization, then it includes the overwhelming majority of residents in African nations today, and the term becomes meaningless, as almost everyone becomes Indigenous (cf. Lane 2011, 2014). In addition, because the identification of indigenous Africans has roots in the colonial division of society and the privileging through indirect rule of some non-indigenous, supposedly racially superior, peoples, such as the Tutsi in Rwanda, over indigenous, supposedly racially inferior, or “backward”, peoples, such as the Batwa and Hutu (Mamdani 2001a: 167), the use of the term, without capitalization, is not necessarily empowering but may be deemed derogatory.

244  John Giblin Finally, and perhaps of greatest significance, in the aftermath of divisive colonial racial policies and border impositions where the creation of new unified national identities is the stated priority, ethno-racialized arguments over who is more indigenous, and can thus present claims for enhanced cultural rights, are often undesirable. Indeed, where indigenous claims have been mobilized they have led to ethnic cleansing and genocide, for example, in Rwanda from the 1959 “Hutu Revolution” to the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi (cf. Eltringham 2004; Mamdani 2001b). Thus, within African national populations it is difficult to make strong claims regarding Indigenous “Us” and non-Indigenous “Them”. Consequently, African politicians have argued against both essentialist and constructivist claims for Indigenous status by presenting these as challenges to national equality and unity when in fact, so they say, “all Africans are indigenous to Africa” (cf. Hodgson 2011: 26, 27; see also Lane 2014). However, since the late 1980s “being Indigenous” has increasingly been appropriated and performed by socially marginalized African rural groups who attempt to utilize its political potential to negotiate increased human rights, such as those that have now been enshrined in the UN 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) (Hodgson 2009, 2011). Lane (2014), in his problematization of African “Indigenous Archaeologies”, refers to the listing of 155 self-identifying Indigenous groups in 22 African countries by the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC). As described by Hodgson (2009), these groups recognize and wish to exploit similarities between their predicament and those of Indigenous groups in postcolonial settler states. This association rests on comparative forms of discrimination against “traditional” mobile lifeways, a prejudice which may have roots in the precolonial period but was accelerated by the colonial division of society and land, and which continues today through neocolonial national policies. Consequently, some marginalized rural poor groups have recently constructed themselves as Indigenous and joined the Indigenous rights movement to lend support to that cause and to benefit from its gains. However, few of these groups have been recognized as “being Indigenous” by their national governments, and, where international collectives offer official recognition, it is described in constructivist terms. For example, although the African Union’s African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) steers away from presenting a strict definition of “being Indigenous”, and focuses on self-determinacy, as does the UNDRIP, it states: When some particular marginalized groups use the term indigenous to describe their situation, they use the modern analytical form of the concept (which does not merely focus on aboriginality) in an attempt to draw attention to and alleviate the particular form of discrimination they suffer from. They do not use the term in order to deny all other Africans their legitimate claim to belong to Africa and identify as such.

Performing “Indigenous” for international tourists 245 They use the present day wide understanding of the term because it is a term by which they can very adequately analyse the particularities of their sufferings and by which they can seek protection in international human rights law and moral standards. (ACHPR 2005: 88) Furthermore, as cited by Lane (2014), the “particular marginalized groups” referred to in this statement are made explicit by IPACC (n.d.), which state on its website that Africa’s Indigenous Peoples are those: [p]articular communities, [which] due to historical and environmental circumstances, have found themselves outside the state-system and underrepresented in governance. These “first-peoples” or “autochthonous peoples” have associated themselves with the United Nations’ standards on the rights of indigenous peoples. This is not to deny other Africans their status; it is to emphasize that affirmative recognition is necessary for hunter-gatherers and herding peoples to ensure their survival. (Emphasis added) In these definitions then, all Africans are recognized as being technically indigenous, but special consideration is given to socially marginalized huntergatherers or herding peoples who become Indigenous to help “ensure their survival”. Therefore, in contrast to many self-identifying Indigenous peoples outside Africa who may be socially marginalized and may practice, or wish to practice, foraging or herding lifeways, but whose Indigenous status is not dependent on this predicament, in Africa these are now qualifications. Thus, within this heavily constructed and politicized Indigenous landscape, it is pertinent to question the touristic consumption of, and underlying assumptions regarding, the commoditized heritage ecotourism performance of “being Indigenous” in Africa.

Heritage, tourism and performance The relationship between heritage, tourism and performance is wellestablished (e.g. Bagnall 2003; Edensor 1998). As Staiff et al. (2012: 17) have traced, whilst overt, theatrical and musical performances for tourists became commonplace at heritage sites in the late twentieth century (e.g. Kershaw 2002), other more covert or embodied (cf. Crouch 2010) heritage performances in tourism, such as the touristic performance of national identities, have much longer histories (cf. Winter 2013). Ethnic tourism, where stereotyped theatrical performances of cultural traditions are frequent (cf. Bruner 2005), is thus readily identifiable as a richly performative phenomenon where the explicit purpose of undertaking and witnessing these theatrical acts is both for identity communication and

246  John Giblin for consumption. Consequently, the effects of this cultural work (cf. Smith et al. 2012) are not only economic but also political, as communication and negotiation of identities occur amongst diverse communities with vast global reach. Indeed, as Staiff et al. (2012: 17) describe in relation to Silverman’s (2012) research: A cultural performance of self to self also plays to national and international spectators where tourism is an essential component of the ritual. Tourism is not just a purveyor of economic benefits at Cuzco, but provides the necessary dialogic vehicle that communicates the political/ post-colonial rhetoric of the occasion to a much wider audience. However, the communication and dissemination of identity information is not unidirectional in touristic performances; it is not merely expressed by theatrical performers, absorbed by tourists and carried home so it can be disseminated to friends and family. Instead, following Butler’s (1993, 1997) theory of identity performativity, tourist audiences must also be considered politically and culturally influential actors who are part of the communicative interplay of identity. Aside from the active process of tourist meaning-making at heritage tourism sites (cf. Smith 2012; Staiff 2013), tourists’ imaginations and, to draw on Urry’s (1990) oft-cited concept, tourists’ gazes, also affect the manner in which tourist performances, and thus identities for tourism construction, are constructed. Indeed, as Smith (2012) has demonstrated, tourism’s cultural work is not confined to heritage sites – the specific place of encounter – but may begin, continue or end elsewhere within the much larger geographic field of a tourist’s existence. Thus, a complex performance of “being Indigenous” “Us” and witnessing Indigenous “Them” is in play in African Indigenous heritage ecotourism. In this scenario, groups who originally, and quite separately from touristic concerns, began to self-identify as Indigenous to affiliate themselves with the Indigenous rights movement as a political protest are now entering an Indigenous heritage ecotourism market for economic gain and, directly or indirectly, are undertaking a new means of political communication. However, now their access to and success in that marketplace is not dependent on their shared predicament with Indigenous – First Nations – peoples from postcolonial settler states, as was the basis for their political case. Instead, Indigenous marketability today depends on their willingness and ability to perform a globalized, idealized version of what international tourists assume it is to be Indigenous, which coincidentally has also come to define “being Indigenous” in official African definitions, namely rural and poor hunter-gatherer or pastoralist peoples. Consequently, and paradoxically, the power asymmetries that these groups sought to expose and challenge by becoming Indigenous are now obscured by this negotiated “being Indigenous” touristic performance and are thus unlikely to be critically engaged with and disseminated by tourists who believe they are

Performing “Indigenous” for international tourists 247 witnessing an essential and unproblematic Indigenous culture (cf. Staiff et al. 2012: 17).

Maasai tourism In the introduction to the volume Being Maasai: Ethnicity and Identity in East Africa, Spear describes the typical image of the Maasai: “everyone “knows” the Maasai. Men wearing red capes while balancing on one leg and a long spear, gazing out over the semi-arid plains stretching endlessly to the horizon, or women heavily bedecked in beads, stare out at us from countless coffee table books and tourists’ snapshots. Uncowed by their neighbours, colonial conquest, or modernisation, they stand in proud mute testimony to a vanishing African world” (Spear 1993: 1). However, as Spear (1993) and other contributors to his volume reveal, this description is an idealized snapshot. Instead, historical accounts suggest Maasai antecedents arrived and settled in the Rift Valley area of contemporary Kenya and Tanzania relatively recently, within the last few centuries, only after which did they adopt “pure” pastoralism. Indeed, as supported by Hodgson’s (2011) account of the Maasai becoming Indigenous in recent decades, Maasai identity is not a natural, primordial state, despite its idealized presentation in ethnic tourism, but continues to be dynamically constructed as it has for hundreds of years. Thus, the modern Maasai stereotype can be considered a contemporary performance of heritage and identity, in part constructed and maintained for touristic consumption. Indeed, the suggestion that socially marginalized rural African people, such as the Maasai, have undertaken theatrical and embodied performances of their identities based on tourists’ imaginations is not new. For example, Bruner’s (2001) The Maasai and the Lion King: Authenticity, Nationalism, and Globalization in African Tourism traced how changing Maasai theatrical tourist performances reflected shifting audience perceptions of what it meant to be Maasai (see also Bruner 2005; Bruner and Kirshenblatt-Gimblet 1994). These were largely based on the cultural references of tourists, be they international visitors in the immediate postcolonial 1980s searching for an African “primitive”, or in the 1990s searching for the globalized African “Lion King”, or Kenyan tourists searching for a mixed, unifying Kenyan ethnic performance in an era of nation building. However, since Bruner’s (2001) study, a subtle new form of touristic performance has appeared, which again reflects and exploits international tourist expectations of what it means to be Maasai, namely an Indigenous first people in a manner similar to those from postcolonial settler states. For example, the website for NICE Safaris (n.d.), under the heading “All Indigenous”, advertises the “Maasai voices of Heritage: a lifetime experience!!” alongside experiences with other Indigenous peoples from North America, South America, Australia and New Zealand. Through the Maasai voices heritage experience, tourists can live with the Laikipiak Maasai and witness

248  John Giblin their age-grade ceremonies. This points to the colonial and postcolonial dislocation of the Maasai but fails to mention the relatively recent arrival of the Maasai in the region only a few centuries earlier. Another tourism company, Africa Point Online Travel Agency (n.d.), encourages tourists to take a “cultural safari in Kenya” by reporting the Maasai as “East Africa’s Most Celebrated Indigenous People”. In addition, The Norwegian Resource Centre for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (n.d.), which fights for Sámi rights, an Indigenous first peoples from northern Scandinavia, on their website reproduced an Inter Press Service article (2012) that suggests “Projects with the Maasai in Kenya are some of the ‘best practice’ examples of indigenous tourism” in the world. And this apparently unproblematic framing of the Maasai as indigenous or Indigenous peoples is replicated in many more online heritage ecotourism advertisements and commentaries. Thus, just as Hodgson’s (2011) Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous traces the construction of contemporary Maasai identity and adoption of the term Indigenous from the 1990s, we can also see a later adoption of “being Indigenous” in Maasai tourism whereby the once discarded 1980s version of the noble primitive Maasai (cf. Bruner 2001) has been recycled today into a supposedly empowering presentation of the timeless Indigenous Maasai. However, in contrast to Hodgson’s (2011: 157–80) observation that Maasai political organizations have recently replaced the Indigenous discourse with one based on livelihoods because “being Indigenous” no longer achieves their political aims, it is suggested this is unlikely to be replicated in Maasai tourism while international tourist desires to witness “being Indigenous” persist. A consequence of this marketplace is the obfuscation and worsening of the political plight of these groups through the normalization of their existence as rural, poor and socially marginalized communities. Indeed, it is necessary to ask whether these are examples of benevolent Indigenous heritage ecotourism, whereby tourists contribute to the development and sustainability of Maasai communities, as defined by the Maasai, or is this the exploitation of poor rural herding peoples with little choice but to perform an imagined Indigenous identity? This is a pertinent question because the Maasai that are typically being toured are those that live in the vicinity of game reserves, the very lands from which they were removed due to colonial and postcolonial constructions of conservation areas and to which they have highly restricted access today. At the time of British and German colonization, “self-sustained” Maasailand stretched across both sides of the Rift Valley from northern Kenya to central Tanganyika.4 However, as Adams and McShane (1996: 44) summarize, under colonial rule this territorial unity was short-lived. In the late nineteenth century, railway construction from Mombassa to Lake Victoria cut this land in two, which preceded the British forced relocation of the Kenyan Maasai in 1904–1905 and 1911 (see also Hughes 2006) and the Tanganyikan Maasai in the 1940s to allow white farmers to settle in the Rift Valley. Following these evictions, under pressure from

Performing “Indigenous” for international tourists 249 conservationists, from the 1940s to the 1970s, seven protected areas were constructed in Maasailand, namely Nairobi, Amboseli, Tsavo, Maasai Mara, Serengeti, Tarangire and Lake Manyara (Adams and McShane 1996: 44). Although this was initially aimed at preventing hunting of wild game, by the end of the colonial period conservationists campaigned to “prevent all forms of human use and occupation” of these reserves (Neuman 2000: 117). As discussed by Neuman (2000), the Tanzanian Serengeti National Park, which today covers circa 15,000 square kilometers, is a case in point. From the 1920s onwards, a game reserve was developed in the area, and in 1951 it was gazetted as a national park. In 1940, a new game ordinance removed African hunting and fire land management rights, although it continued to preserve the rights of the reserve’s inhabitants to exploit its grazing and water resources. In 1948, a subsequent game ordinance restricted access to those living within the park, effectively cutting off families that lived outside but who might normally have grazed cattle there. In 1954, the rights of the Maasai to cultivate the land were removed, reducing their adaptive capacity within that landscape. Finally, in 1959 Maasai residents were evicted from the park and moved to the newly annexed Ngorongoro Conservation Area, where they were to remain as human artefacts, practicing a pure pastoralism, within a pristine “primitive” landscape. With the end of colonial rule and the presence of little internal Tanzanian or Kenyan support for the national parks, pressure from international conservation organizations increased. In addition, and arguably of greater significance, the economic value of the conservation areas for tourism was realized by newly independent countries in need of foreign exchange. Consequently, the Maasai were again subjected to policies of exclusion in the postcolonial era. For example, Hodgson (2011: 66) records how the Conservation Act of 1974 removed large areas of grazing land in the Serengeti, Ngorongoro, and Tarangire National Parks from use by Maasai herders in the interests of “preserving” wildlife. However, it is not simply the preservation of wildlife that is at stake here. Indeed, there would be a lot less preservation if it were not so central to the national tourism economy. This situation has led to something of a paradox today, whereby the Maasai, still suffering restricted access to their ancestral land, have now been brought into this industry as a key part of the ecotourism brand. Indeed, as Hodgson (2011: 67) suggests, as tourism, wildlife viewing, and big-game hunting quickly became the primary sources of foreign exchange, the government promoted Maasai in brochures, postcards, guidebooks, and tours as icons of “traditional” “primitive” Africa in order to expand the increasingly lucrative tourist industry.

250  John Giblin Indeed, today the Maasai conservation debate has turned full circle as the new rhetoric of conservation actively promotes Maasai as archetypal sustainable conservationists, albeit ones who are only allowed limited access to conservation areas (Lane 2015). Thus, the fate of these conservation areas, dependent as they are on tourism, is now tied to the maintenance of an image of the “primitive” Maasai for tourist consumption, an ethnic group whose cultural sustainability is actually jeopardized by the creation and sustenance of these conservation areas. As a result, since the 1980s there has been increased public and political pressure to reinstate ancestral land rights in Tanzania, specifically in relation to Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area, not least from Maasai groups who have affiliated themselves with the Indigenous rights movement. Typically, however, this has not resulted in increased access but has instead created Community Based Conservation (CMCs) initiatives on the borders of these gazetted areas, whilst human settlement in big-game regions remains subject to strict controls. For example, as retold by Hodgson (2011: 69), in 2009 the Arusha Regional Commission reported that of the 34,526 square kilometers of the Arusha Region in Tanzania, which includes the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, 13,664 square kilometers (39.6%) was designated as game reserves (no human settlement), over 1,000 square kilometers (2.9%) as national parks (no human settlement), many (unsurveyed) square kilometers as game controlled areas (human settlement allowed, but restrictions on land use), and 923 square kilometers (2.7%) as forest reserves. Thus, colonial conservationism and postcolonial ecotourism have resulted in significant restrictions regarding Maasai settlement, a process which continues today as Maasai communities in Tanzania reportedly face eviction from certain areas so as to facilitate the creation of an exclusive reserve for a UAE business consortium (Guardian March 2013). In turn, this ongoing process of eviction, exclusion and restriction has been a driver behind Maasai Indigenous self-identification as a form of political protest. However, today Indigenous heritage ecotourism is presented as the means by which the Maasai may become sustainable (Lane 2015), a performance, which, it is suggested, obscures the political purpose of becoming Indigenous. This is because the performance of being Maasai desired by, marketed for and consumed by international tourists communicates a naturalized, primitive, timeless Indigenous Maasai removed from the political context of the appropriation of this identity. This situation is not confined to the Maasai, however, and is being experienced by other ethnic groups who first self-identified as “being Indigenous” as part of the Indigenous rights movement in the 1990s but today are being consumed as idealized, unproblematic and depoliticized Indigenous communities.

Performing “Indigenous” for international tourists 251

Batwa tourism Batwa communities are most commonly found today in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Unlike the Maasai, there is not such a strong contemporary relationship between the Batwa, national identity branding and tourism in the region. Indeed, the Batwa are rarely seen in official national tourist brochures and posters. Nevertheless, due to their “Pygmy”, exotic, rainforest-dweller status they have a comparably long historical, and tragic, relationship with tourism. For example, since the 1950s European travelers have sought out Batwa communities for an encounter with the exotic “Other” (Frankland 2001: 242), whilst in colonial and postcolonial periods the Batwa have also been systematically evicted from their forest homes due in part to conservationism and ecotourism (Lewis 2000). Batwa traditions and those of their neighbors suggest they were the first to occupy the forests of Great Lakes Africa as hunters and foragers (Lewis 2000: 6–7). However, due to increased deforestation for farming, and clientship pressures in the precolonial kingdom era, they also came to work as “woodcrafters, tinkers, blacksmiths, potters, day laborers, bards and performers in the countryside, and some groups became the clients of chiefs, serving at the royal courts” (Lewis 2000: 5). Today, some Batwa in DRC continue to have access to the forest regions and may still practice traditional mobile lifeways. However, in Rwanda and Uganda the imposition of conservation areas in the colonial and postcolonial period, to protect endangered and highly profitable mountain gorillas and chimpanzees, has led to the almost total removal of the Batwa from the forest. For example, in the early 1990s the few thousand Batwa remaining in southwest Uganda were forcibly evicted from Semliki National Park and Bwindi and Mgahinga forests, the latter to make way for the endangered mountain gorillas as part a new World Heritage Site: Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Consequently, by 1993 begging had become the major economic activity for 70 percent of the Batwa (Lewis 2000: 5). More recently, Minority Rights Group International (2008) reported that although a few Batwa are allowed to reside in the Echuya Forest Reserve and Semliki National Park, most are left to survive on the edges of these reserves in a desperate state. However, today the “plight” of the Batwa has become the concern of international aid organizations and national governments that are seeking to involve them in Indigenous heritage ecotourism to make them “self-sufficient”. The new Batwa Trail in the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in southwest Uganda is one such example, whereby international tourists are invited by the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Heritage, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) and the US Mission in Uganda to see the forest through the eyes of its “first peoples”. As reported in the New Vision (June 2012), a Ugandan national newspaper, the objective is to increase tourist revenue

252  John Giblin and “to train Batwa people to serve as guides and to improve lighting, walkways, and shelters along the trail”, with “50 percent going to approximately 200 local residents”. In the same article, New Vision reports that: Through this unique initiative, the Batwa tribe regained access to the land that was dispossessed in the 1990s when the Government of Uganda designated it as a national park to protect biodiversity and the endangered mountain gorillas. USAID’s program aligns with the Government of Uganda’s Tourism Strategy to promote ecotourism, protect natural resources, and improve the livelihoods of locals. And in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest a similar tourism product is performed by the Batwa Experience (n.d.), which according to its website: Was created by the displaced Batwa pygmies to educate their children and to share their amazing heritage and traditions with the world. This cultural site is a project of the Batwa Development Program, a community organization that supports the Batwa at becoming self-sufficient. The Batwa Experience is eco-tourism at its best. Thus, in a comparable fashion to the Maasai, the Batwa have entered, or have been entered into, the tourist market as Indigenous first peoples to exploit tourist demand for cultural entertainment to complement big-game viewing, in this case mountain gorillas. In addition, although the Batwa, whom tradition records as the first forest settlers, can make claims to an essentialized Indigenous status more easily than the Maasai, this is nevertheless a status that was first adopted in the 1990s as a self-identifying political statement as part of their fight for human rights and alignment with the Indigenous rights movement, in a similar fashion to Maasai groups (Hodgson 2011: 26, 32, 55). Thus, it is necessary to ask again, does this Indigenous tourism communicate a political message regarding hundreds of years of social marginalization due to ethno-racist misconceptions and recent evictions for conservation parks (cf. Lewis 2000), or a message of happy, traditional, natural, forest dwellers living the good life and benefiting from Indigenous heritage ecotourism? Or, in other words, are the Batwa performing a globalized idealized Indigenous identity to fulfill and benefit economically from tourist desires, whilst tourists are actually visiting a rural, poor group of socially marginalized former hunter-gatherers, whose dire predicament is intimately related to the profitability of ecotourism, and who are only recognized as Indigenous in Uganda because of their predicament? These are important questions not only for Indigenous studies, as we trace the changing construction and manifestation of “being Indigenous”, but also for the ethics of Indigenous heritage ecotourism and its presentation as a form of pro-poor tourism. Thus, to highlight these concerns further a third, non-Indigenous, example of cultural tourism is considered.

Performing “Indigenous” for international tourists 253

Slum tours Slum tours, which typically involve walking around urban slums directed by community members, are comparable with examples of African Indigenous heritage ecotourism because they both involve visiting poor, socially marginalized people, who often live in distinct ethnic groups and who also wish to benefit economically and politically from presenting their lifeways to tourists. Furthermore, if slum communities are essentialized in a similar way to rural poor communities, as in Indigenous heritage ecotourism, the similarities fluoresce with both involving indigenous people, as all Africans are to Africa, who may enjoy dancing and music, cooking over wood and charcoal, telling stories, wearing colorful clothes and who may have cute children. Nevertheless, slum tours are distinct from Indigenous heritage ecotourism. First, slum tours typically differ in locality, being urban rather than rural. Second, there is a likely divergence in tourist motivations, those behind slum tours presumably being to support community development by paying to witness poverty, whilst those behind Indigenous eco-heritage tourism presumably being to witness and celebrate traditional lifeways. Finally, slum tours, in East Africa at least,5 are not as popular as their Indigenous counterparts. Indeed, although there are increasing numbers of tours carried out in the slums of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi (e.g. Frenzel 2012: 54–5; Frenzel and Koens 2012: 198), and Uganda’s capital, Kampala (e.g. AFFCAD n.d.), they remain unpopular in comparison to rural Indigenous tourism, as evidenced by a relative lack of online visibility. A question thus emerges as to why slum cultural tours are not as popular as Indigenous cultural tours, when they are similar in so many aspects and are potentially more accessible to tourists in terms of distance and finances? The answer to this question perhaps lies in the first two differences identified, whereby slum tours are less well suited to the projection or reflection of the globalized idealized form of Indigenous, which international tourists desire. Indeed, it may be more unsettling for international tourists to visit poverty when it is called poverty instead of being called Indigenous and traditional. Thus, because the urban slum population cannot draw upon both aspects of the globalized ideal, and African official definitions, of “being Indigenous”, namely being poor and rural, they are not able to enter that marketplace. The concern here is that, when tourists visit slums as part of slum tours, the poverty is explicit, it is confronting, it is not, in my experience at least, presented as an ideal choice, a lifeway, a tradition. Thus, the tourism performance in these circumstances does not completely obscure the plight of those being encountered by tourists. Although it may be unpleasantly voyeuristic to some (cf. Whyte et al. 2011) and a form of violence to others (cf. Sontag 1977), and the tourism contribution to the development of these communities may be difficult to quantify, the political message of slum tourism is

254  John Giblin clear if tourists choose to listen to their guides and/or use their eyes. This, however, is less likely to be the case when poverty and the political message are disguised behind theatrical performances of Indigenous tradition.

Conclusion In summary, because the appearance of “being Indigenous” in Africa is a relatively recent phenomenon, its practice in heritage ecotourism is not merely a theatrically exaggerated performance of “being Indigenous” but is highly constructed to make necessary claims for human rights and more recently to access economic benefits from international tourists. Of relevance for tourism studies, we are thus witnessing another stage in Bruner’s (2001) expectation-performance model, an idealized Indigenous tourism that builds on and recycles elements of the “African primitive” and “African Lion King” performances desired by earlier sets of international tourists. Of relevance for Indigenous studies, an economic mechanism is described by which the performance of “being Indigenous” may persist in Africa despite the potential discarding of the Indigenous political discourse and its replacement with other discourses, such as that of livelihoods, as described by Hodgson (2011) in relation to the Maasai. Finally, in terms of social impact, the common-sense assumption that Indigenous heritage ecotourism is an inherently good and an ethically acceptable development strategy is questioned when ecotourism is often a defining factor in the impoverished predicament of the rural poor herding and hunter-gatherer peoples that international tourists flock to see. This is not to suggest that the Batwa, Maasai and other socially marginalized rural groups should not exploit one of the few options open to them to enter economic markets by performing Indigenous for international tourists. However, it seems perverse that ecotourism, a root of their oppression, is uncritically presented as their savior, facilitating the displacement of governments’ social responsibilities on to the marginalized themselves and the obfuscation of the political performance of identity as protest.

Notes 1 Indigenous is capitalized when referring to the performance of a constructed Indigenous identity, an Indigenous rights movement or an Indigenous industry, and is used in lowercase when it is used literally to refer to people who are indigenous to a place. For example, a Batwa person may be indigenous to the forests of Uganda but may undertake an Indigenous performance to please tourists or to associate with the Indigenous rights movement. 2 I subsequently retold the story to an editor of this volume, who invited me to present my perspective during their session at the 7th World Archaeological Congress in Jordan, 2013. 3 Possible exceptions include apartheid South Africa and postcolonial Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia). However, these were not technically colonies at this time but were ruled by white settlers.

Performing “Indigenous” for international tourists 255 4 Tanganyika later became Tanzania after it was joined with Zanzibar. 5 In contrast, “township” tourism in South Africa is popular because the promoters can draw on a political cachet associated with the struggle against apartheid that does appeal to the international tourist.

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18 Contested colonial history and heritage in Sápmi Archaeology, indigeneity and local communities in Northern Sweden Carl-Gösta Ojala In this chapter, I will discuss some issues relating to the contested colonial history and heritage in Sápmi, focusing mainly on what is today the Swedish part of Sápmi. Sápmi is the Sámi term for the “land of the Sámi” – which stretches across the present-day national borders between northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in northwestern Russia – where the Sámi are the indigenous people. In the chapter, I will explore some contested issues relating to Sámi history, indigeneity and local communities in the fields of archaeology and heritage management, such as the conflicts over the exploitation of natural resources in northern Sweden, collections of Sámi cultural heritage and Sámi human remains in museums and other institutions, as well as the development of new ways of conducting archaeology in closer collaboration with local communities. In doing so, I wish to point to some of the challenges, but also opportunities, that archaeologists and local communities are facing in this situation.

Sápmi and Sámi histories Sápmi covers a large geographical area, with great variation in the landscape and natural environment. There is great linguistic variation in the Sámi area – there are 10 different Sámi languages (see Lehtola 2004: 11) – indicating that Sápmi is not a homogeneous area with only one culture and identity. Throughout history, the Sámi population has been subjected to colonialization, discrimination, racism and assimilation in the Nordic countries. There is a long history of Sámi cultural and political struggles for recognition, respect and cultural, linguistic and economic rights. The struggle for greater Sámi self-determination also concerns the field of heritage management and representations of Sámi culture and history. As part of four countries with different historical contexts and current political, social and economic processes and conflicts, the Sámi area has been divided by many borders. One of the most important borders within Sápmi has been the border between the Nordic countries and the Soviet Union, the Iron Curtain, which separates Sámi landscapes and communities as well as

Contested colonial history and heritage in Sápmi 259 the understanding of history and identity in Sápmi (cf. Ojala 2009: 179–84, 2014). The level of Sámi self-determination also varies between the different states. In Norway (which is the only country in Sápmi that has ratified the ILO 169 Convention), the Sámi Parliament has more political power, and the debates on Sámi land and cultural rights have come much further than in Sweden. The different states have in many ways affected, influenced and controlled definitions and representations of Sámi identity. As a result of the state politics of identification, many divisions and conflicts within the Sámi communities, such as between reindeer herders and non-reindeer herders, have been created. The need to determine who has the right to vote in the elections for the Sámi Parliaments in Norway, Sweden and Finland has also created contested definitions of Sáminess. In Sweden, the legislation regulating the Sámi village system (which organizes reindeer herding, so that only members of a Sámi village are allowed to practice reindeer herding: a system which itself is a product of colonial state interventions in the late nineteenth century) creates severe tensions within the Sámi population. To a large extent, Sámi history has been marginalized and silenced in the historiography of the Nordic countries. Sámi history has been constructed as “the Other” in relation to the national – Swedish, Norwegian or Finnish – history, as something which was of little or no importance to the national historical narrative (e.g. Hansen and Olsen 2014; Ojala 2009). This has also been the case with museums in Sweden, where Sámi history has been much marginalized in exhibitions of Swedish history (see e.g. a critical review in Spangen 2015; cf. also Mathisen 2014 and Potinkara 2015 about exhibitions of identity, culture and history in Sámi museums). Earlier research has been very concerned with defining the Sámi in time and space. One especially prominent interest has been to determine the “origins” of the Sámi, which has often been described as a mystery or a riddle to be solved. Furthermore, the extent of the earlier Sámi settlement area has been of special interest to researchers. It can be argued that the interest to define the Sámi with regard to space and time has been connected with a wish to define, delimit, contain and control “the Other”. The images of Sámi (pre)history and culture have often been quite homogeneous and static, having been influenced to a great extent by the ethnographical and historical source material from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – ignoring much of the variation and dynamics in time and space. In this context, it is not surprising that the question of Sámi history outside Sápmi (the present-day core settlement area in northern Sweden) has been little acknowledged in historiography in Sweden. There are many traces of Sámi presence and Sámi connections further south in Sweden in the historical and archaeological material, for instance in the central parts of Sweden, near Stockholm. However, it is only recently that researchers have started to explore these traces and their significance for the understanding of Swedish history (e.g. Svanberg 1999; Zachrisson et al. 1997). How should

260  Carl-Gösta Ojala we understand the southern borders of Sápmi and Sámi history in central Sweden? Archaeology in northern Sweden has also, in many ways, been much more controversial than mainstream archaeology in the southern parts of the country because of the connections with issues of Sámi history. Many archaeologists working in northern Sweden have witnessed the controversial character of archaeological interpretations in the area (e.g. Hedman 2007; Wallerström 2006): The archaeologists are constantly confronted with the question “who came first?”, and debates about interpretations of archaeological sites often become heated. In many instances, it is a question of identifying the sites as either Sámi or Swedish/Germanic. To mention just one example, the Stone Age dwelling site at Vuollerim in the county of Norrbotten (from about 4,000 BC) has been at the center of controversies concerning ethnic interpretations of the Stone Age in northern Sweden (see further Hagström Yamamoto 2010; Mulk and Bayliss-Smith 1999). One central issue concerns how to balance the views and representations of Sámi history as, on the one hand, an important part of Swedish history, and, on the other, as a separate, “independent” and alternative narrative. Much of the problem of recognizing Sámi history in Sweden goes to the core of Swedish self-image and self-understanding. In twentieth-century narratives of the Swedish nation, ideas about equality, uniformity, progress and welfare have been very important, while ideas of diversity, difference, injustice and inequality have been downplayed. Sámi histories challenge these images of the Swedish nation and have therefore provoked feelings of unease, leading to the labeling of Sámi (pre)histories as controversial and (too) political by definition in mainstream Swedish archaeology (see further discussions in Ojala 2009).

Histories of colonialism in the north In general, the colonial history of northern Sweden is little recognized, and knowledge about this history is very limited among the public in Sweden. However, it is a history with far-reaching consequences for many people today, with many connections to present-day conflicts over land rights and cultural rights. It is also connected with the larger, contested issue of the relationship between “Swedish” and “Sámi” history over time. Many Swedes do not recognize the colonial dimension in Swedish history, and the very word “colonialism” in relation to the Sámi areas is still today quite controversial. In recent years, some scholars have pointed to the need to analyze Scandinavian and Swedish history in relation to larger European colonial ideologies and practices, and not as an exception, a history outside of European colonial expansion and exploitation (Fur 2006, 2013; Naum and Nordin 2013). In relation to Sámi history and heritage, this is a most important step towards a deeper understanding of the relationship between the Swedish

Contested colonial history and heritage in Sápmi 261 state and the Sámi people throughout time, which opens up possibilities for examining the complexities and ambiguities in the formation of the modern Swedish state. Although there were contacts and interaction between Nordic and Sámi groups for a long time, throughout the Middle Ages and earlier (including, for instance, the very important fur trade), a more systematic colonial expansion of the Swedish kingdom towards the Sámi areas started in the sixteenth century with the aim of tying the Sámi population more closely to the Swedish state and gaining territorial control over the Sámi lands. Among the most important driving forces behind the Swedish expansion towards the north were, first, the expectations of great riches from mineral and other natural resources, and, second, the desire to Christianize the “heathen” Sámi population. This colonial expansion took place in competition with the Danish-Norwegian kingdom and the Russian state over the Sámi lands and the trade routes in the north. From the early seventeenth century onwards, the Swedish Crown established churches and marketplaces in the Sámi areas. At these nodes in the colonial landscape, trade, taxation, legal matters, church services and affairs were concentrated during certain periods of the year. During these periods, the local Sámi populations were required to be present at the marketplaces. At the same time, programs for the exploitation of natural resources in the Sámi areas were initiated by the Swedish state, with high hopes for future great riches from the mineral deposits in the north (e.g. Nordin 2015; Ojala and Nordin 2015). Silver and copper mines and works were opened, and local Sámi people were forced to work for the mining enterprises – especially with transportation, which in many places had to be conducted with reindeer sledges. Parallel with the exploitation of mineral resources, missionary activities and campaigns against non-Christian Sámi religious beliefs and practices were initiated by the Swedish Church in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During the same period, the first systematic ethnographic descriptions of Sámi culture, religion and ways of life were published. In 1673, the book Lapponia by the professor Johannes Schefferus (1621–79) at Uppsala University was published in Latin (Schefferus 1956 [1673]), a book which was quickly translated into several European languages and which has had great influence on early modern and later views on Sámi culture and religion. The Swedish colonial policies in Sápmi during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – which also included a special school system for Sámi youths (Lindmark 2013) and decrees to facilitate agricultural settlements in the Sámi areas – continued during the nineteenth century with intensified exploitation of natural resources, leading up to the establishment of the large-scale mining complexes in, for instance, Malmberget and Kiruna in the county of Norrbotten (see Figure 18.1). With the development of racial and social Darwinist ideas during the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Sámi population in Sweden was subjected to increasing

262  Carl-Gösta Ojala

Figure 18.1 Industrial landscapes in Sápmi. The iron ore mine in Kiruna, northern Sweden (Photo by author, June 2007)

interference, control and domination by the Swedish state, including state appropriation of Sámi lands, strong assimilation pressure, forced relocation of some Sámi populations, the discriminatory nomad school system (see Huuva and Blind 2016) and demeaning and abusive racial biological studies. In recent years, there has been a renewed boom in mining activities in the Sámi areas in northern Sweden (as well as in Finland and Norway), with many new explorations for mineral resources and plans for new mines (although at present, in early 2016, the international metal industry is experiencing a downturn). This situation has placed a lot of pressure on reindeer herding and threatens reindeer-grazing lands, migration routes and the local environment, adding to other exploitations of land, such as the large-scale damming of lakes and rivers for hydro-electrical power during the twentieth century – which has resulted in enormous areas being flooded so that they can no longer be of use to local Sámi and new settler communities. The mining boom has led to many protests from Sámi groups, as well as from environmental groups. One of the most high-profile cases has concerned the planned mine at Gállok, outside Jokkmokk, but there are also several other similar cases in other parts of Sápmi (cf. contributions in Gärdebo et al. 2014). In these protests, the question of Sámi land rights and the role of indigeneity and indigenous rights in Sweden are central – and history becomes very important. The protests at Gállok have become an important symbol for the Sámi struggle for greater self-determination and

Contested colonial history and heritage in Sápmi 263

Figure 18.2 The cemetery at the Nasafjäll silver mine, in northern Sweden. Silver was first discovered here in the 1630s, at about 1,000 meters above sea level (Photo by author, August 2015)

for a decolonization of the policies and legislation of the Swedish state. The protesters and activists are talking not only about a colonial past in Sweden but also about a colonial present. The history and heritage of mining in Sápmi are contested issues: on the one hand, there are celebrations of the past and future of mining in northern Sweden, and local hopes for new jobs and economic benefits; on the other hand, there is a growing protest movement. In this context, how should we relate to the colonial sites, such as the silver mine in Nasafjäll, where silver was first discovered in the 1630s (see Figure 18.2), or the seventeenth-­ century silver works at Silbojokk, where the local Sámi people were forced to work with transportations, and where the Swedish missionaries converted the local Sámi by force and destroyed their ceremonial drums and sieidis (sacred stone and wooden objects)? What stories are told about these places, and who tells them?

Colonial collecting in Sápmi and debates on cultural rights and repatriation Perhaps the most emblematic early modern Sámi object is the Sámi ceremonial drum, which was a very important element in Sámi indigenous religion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (e.g. Christoffersson 2010; Kroik 2007; Rydving 1995). The drums have, in many ways, been at the

264  Carl-Gösta Ojala center of the colonial and religious encounters and conflicts. For the colonial authorities and missionaries, the drums were upsetting symbols, and tools, of Sámi sorcery and worship of evil forces. Use of the drums was forbidden by the Swedish Crown and the Swedish Church, with the threat of serious punishment, even the death penalty. A large number of drums were confiscated, and many drums were destroyed, along with Sámi sacred sites, sieidistones and sacred wooden objects. At the same time, the Sámi drums also attracted a lot of interest and curiosity and were sought after by scholars and collectors around Europe as exotic and magical objects – and some of the confiscated drums ended up in collections in different parts of Europe (Nordin and Ojala 2015; Snickare 2014). For instance, in the book Lapponia by Johannes Schefferus, the Sámi drums are discussed and depicted (Schefferus 1956 [1673]). Schefferus also built a museum in Uppsala, where he kept his collection of drums, sieidis and other Sámi objects, as well as, for instance, geological samples. After his death, part of his collection of Sámi objects was transferred to the College of Antiquities in Stockholm, which later formed part of the basis of the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm (see further Nordin and Ojala 2015). In the eighteenth century, the famous Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707– 78), a professor at Uppsala University, dressed up in Sámi clothing with a Sámi drum (for instance, in a painting by Martin Hoffman from 1737; see Kuoljok 2006), another example of the early modern scholarly interest in the Sámi and Sámi sacred objects. The drums that have survived in different museum collections have become important symbols of Sámi identity and culture, and symbols of the time before colonization and Christianization – and the drums have been at the center of debates on the control over and the repatriation of Sámi cultural heritage (cf. Duoddaris 2002). However, the most discussed issue in recent years concerns the collections of Sámi human remains, which are kept at different museums in Sweden (Edbom 2005; Harlin 2008; Ojala 2009). This has been an especially emotionally and symbolically important issue in the Sámi communities. In 2007, the Sámi Parliament in Sweden decided, after demands from Sámi activists, to request, first, a complete survey of all Sámi human remains in state collections and how they became part of these collections, and second, repatriation and appropriate reburial of the human remains (Sametinget 2007). When discussing these issues, it is important to take into account the historical background, including the racial biological research, the measuring of skulls, the grave plundering of both ancient and recent Sámi graves to find genuine Sámi skulls, and the international trade in Sámi skulls, which took place in the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, and which form a traumatic and painful history in many Sámi communities. There are also many accounts about local protests against the digging of Sámi graves during that period, and of the ways in which the excavations took place, often in secrecy and with bribes (see further Ojala 2009, 2016). Although

Contested colonial history and heritage in Sápmi 265 archaeologists in Sweden today do not wish to be associated with that kind of research, I believe it is an important part of our scientific heritage that we do need to deal with today. There are today collections of Sámi human remains at different museums and institutions in Sweden. Many of these human remains, in particular human skulls, come from old collections gathered for anatomical and craniological research in the nineteenth century and racial biological research in the early twentieth century (see Ojala 2016). In recent years, partly as a result of demands from Sámi and other groups, institutions and researchers have started to map the old collections and their history, for instance the collections of the old Department of Anatomy at Uppsala University (Ingvarsson Sundström and Metz 2012; Svanberg 2015) and at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm (Ljungström 2014). In recent years, there have been a few cases of reburial of Sámi human remains in Norway, Sweden and Finland. In Sweden, the first reburial of Sámi human remains concerned the so-called “Soejvengeelle’s grave” (the grave of the Shadow Man) in Tärna parish in the county of Västerbotten in 2002 (Heinerud 2004; Ojala 2009: 252ff; Stångberg 2005). A second case was the reburial in 2011 of the human remains from a grave at Gransjön, near Frostviken in the northern part of the county of Jämtland (Hansson 2012). One important case is the Skolt Sámi Orthodox churchyard in Neiden in northern Norway, where in 2011 remains of almost 100 individuals, which had been stored in the Anatomical Institute at the University of Oslo, were reburied (Svestad 2013). In Norway, there are also special arrangements concerning the management and study of collections of Sámi human remains (Holand and Sommerseth 2013). There are also other cases being discussed, for instance concerning the human remains from the churchyard at Rounala in northern Sweden, which used to be part of the collections of the Department of Anatomy at Uppsala University – at present, it is not known exactly what will happen with these human remains (Aronsson 2013; Ojala 2009; Wiklund 1916). In these debates in the Nordic countries, many references are being made to the international indigenous movement – in which Sámi activists and politicians have played an important role – and the repatriation and reburial debates in other parts of the world. References to discourses on human rights and international law also play an important role. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples from 2007, which Sweden voted for, contains several statements relating to heritage and indigenous cultural rights, for instance recognizing the right of indigenous peoples to the repatriation of their human remains. However, how these statements should be applied in practice in heritage management in Sweden has not yet been much discussed and still remains highly unclear – and needs to be discussed in more depth in Sweden by different authorities and parties. In my view, these debates are not only relevant in the context of indigenous history and heritage but are also relevant for the much wider fields of

266  Carl-Gösta Ojala archaeology and heritage management. The debates challenge the practice and theory of traditional archaeology and heritage management and force researchers and museum and other heritage workers to rethink how they excavate, store, study and exhibit human remains, as well as the ways in which they interact and engage with groups outside of their own profession. Moreover, the repatriation and reburial debates remind archaeologists and heritage workers that there are many ways of relating to and valuing the materialities of the past.

New approaches to archaeology? The practice of community-based, collaborative, participatory archaeology (cf. e.g. Atalay 2012; see also the contribution by George Nicholas in this volume) is not very well developed in Sweden, especially in relation to Sámi (pre)history. Nevertheless, there have been some recent initiatives in the Sámi areas that point to the possibility of developing new approaches to archaeological studies, studies that address the needs, interests and priorities of local communities, and not only those of archaeologists and state institutions. In the South Sámi area – the southern regions of present-day Sápmi in Sweden and Norway – archaeology has been especially controversial, with many discussions taking place on the possibilities of ethnic interpretations of archaeological sites and artefacts from the Iron Age and the early medieval period (Bergstøl 2008; Ojala 2009; Zachrisson et al. 1997) as well as conflicts relating to Sámi land rights. In several court cases since the 1990s, Sámi villages have been sued by local landowners and have had to defend their rights to grazing lands – as well as their very presence in the historical past of this region, which has been questioned in the courts. In these court cases, archaeology has also played a role, and archaeologists have taken part as expert witnesses (Rumar 2014; Zachrisson 2007). These conflicts have also created quite a lot of interest in archaeology as a way of exploring local history and making one’s own history and heritage visible. In recent years, there have been several collaborative projects surveying and documenting landscapes, local knowledge and traditions, language and archaeological remains – which have been initiated from within local Sámi communities or in collaboration between researchers, museums, local communities and local Sámi tradition bearers (for examples of communitybased collaborative projects in the South Sámi area, see Ljungdahl and Norberg 2012; Norberg and Winka 2014). There are also projects in other parts of Sápmi, which are conducted in close cooperation with researchers and local communities (e.g. Barlindhaug 2013). There is a growing interest in and concern about traditional and local knowledge, in which archaeological methods and archaeological remains and materials also play a role, as part of ongoing cultural and linguistic revitalization processes aiming to counteract a long history of assimilation and discrimination (e.g. Nordin-Jonsson 2010; Utsi 2007).

Contested colonial history and heritage in Sápmi 267 In Sweden, it is problematic that there are no structures or agreements on how to conduct research into Sámi cultural heritage; for instance, how to handle Sámi human remains or sacred objects in collections. Here, there is a great need for more discussions on the structure of Sámi heritage management, and the roles and authority of Sámi museums and institutions. In Sweden, the Sámi Parliament has very limited power, mostly in the fields of cultural and language promotion and the management of reindeer herding – but no real power when it comes to questions of land and cultural rights. In contrast, the Sámi Parliament in Norway has broader authority, including responsibility for the management of Sámi cultural heritage (cf. Holand and Sommerseth 2013; Mannela Gaup 2007).

Conclusions Everything is somehow related and everything is in motion. —(Eidlitz Kuoljok 1999: 15, my translation)

In discussing issues of indigeneity and Sámi history in Sweden, there are many challenges, but also many possibilities. In order to be able to start “decolonizing” archaeology as a field in Sweden, we have to deal with and recognize archaeology’s colonial history and present, and the power relations involved in archaeological research and heritage management. Here, notions and understandings of colonial history and heritage in Sápmi are central. The colonial history, and its importance today, need to be explored more thoroughly – in relation to European colonial ideologies and practices elsewhere in the world – and also include Sámi voices and experiences in order to view and analyze Sweden as a colonial power, as part of the larger European colonial history. It is also important to acknowledge and analyze Sámi agency, participation and opposition in the colonial processes. Furthermore, central to the controversies surrounding colonial history and heritage management in Sápmi is the need to recognize Sámi indigenous land and cultural rights – not only in theory but also in practice. Taking community-based and community-initiated research in archaeology seriously has, I think, huge potential to transform the field of archaeology in Sweden in order for it to become more open, respectful, engaging and relevant – and this is not only in relation to Sámi history and heritage but also on a more general level. One challenge, however, is how to avoid creating static and homogeneous representations of Sámi pasts, which has been the case so often in the past. Sáminess is, of course, not only one thing – and there is not just one Sámi history, but rather many Sámi histories and prehistories. One of the most fundamental issues concerns the power relations in (pre) history writing – the ways in which time, space and people are formed, arranged and transformed: who has the power to write and rewrite history?

268  Carl-Gösta Ojala The power dimensions of archaeology and the politics of inclusion and exclusion – also in community-based and community-initiated collaborative archaeological approaches – constantly need to be critically examined, from different points of view and different positions. Which voices are heard in archaeology, and which voices are silenced? To conclude, I think there is a lot to be learned from the experiences in other parts of the world, from the debates on Indigenous and postcolonial archaeologies – and from different cases of community-based and ­community-initiated archaeological projects around the world – both positive and more negative experiences. At the same time, it is important to recognize that there is great variation in historical experiences, and present sociopolitical contexts, in different parts of the world. It is also important to relate to concepts such as “Indigenous” and “Indigenous archaeology” in a careful and critical manner, in order to avoid creating new dominant hegemonic structures and norms which can be used to silence and oppress other voices and experiences. In examining the colonial histories and power relations in northern Sweden, it might be possible to open up, and challenge, the borders between “Us” and “Them” in Sweden and Sápmi, and to explore connections, entanglements and dependencies, as well as inequality, dispossession, oppression and opposition in the past and the present.

Acknowledgements This article was written as part of the research projects “Arctic Origins – Archaeology and the Search for the Origins of the Northern Peoples in the East and the West” (project no. 421–2010–1583) and “A Colonial Arena – Landscape, People and Globalization in Inland Northern Sweden in the Early Modern Period” (project no. 2013–1475), both funded by the Swedish Research Council.

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270  Carl-Gösta Ojala Ljungström, O. 2014. “Swedish Golgotha: Anders Retzius’ collection of human crania at the Karolinska Institutet according to an 1862 manuscript.” Lychnos 2014: 159–71. Mannela Gaup, K. 2007. Samisk kulturpolitik i ett nordiskt perspektiv. Umeå: ­Vaartoe – Centrum för samisk forskning. Mathisen, S. O. 2014. Etnisitetens estetikk: Visuelle fortellinger og forhandlinger i samiske museumutstillinger. Oslo: University of Oslo. Mulk, I. M., and T. Bayliss-Smith. 1999. “The representation of Sámi cultural identity in the cultural landscapes of northern Sweden: The use and misuse of archaeological knowledge.” In The Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape – Shaping your Landscape, edited by P. J. Ucko, and R. Layton, 358–96. London and New York: Routledge. Naum, M., and J. M. Nordin. 2013. “Introduction: Situating scandinavian colonialism.” In Scandinavian Colonialism and the Rise of Modernity: Small Time Agents in a Global Arena, edited by M. Naum, and J. M. Nordin, 3–16. New York: Springer. Norberg, E., and U. S. Winka, eds. 2014. Sydsamer – landskap och historia: ett dokumentationsprojekt på sydsamiskt område under åren 2012–2014. Östersund: Gaaltije – Sydsamiskt kulturcentrum. Nordin, J. M. 2015. “Metals of metabolism: The construction of industrial space and the commodification of early modern Sápmi.” In Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism (Revised Edition), edited by M. P. Leone, and J. Knauf, 249–72. New York: Springer. Nordin, J. M., and C. G. Ojala. 2015. “Collecting Sápmi: Early modern collecting of Sámi material culture.” Nordisk museologi 2015 (2): 114–22. Nordin-Jonsson, Å., ed. 2010. Árbediehtu: samiskt kulturarv och traditionell kunskap. Kiruna: Sametinget, and Uppsala: Centrum för biologisk mångfald. Ojala, C. G. 2009. Sámi Prehistories: The Politics of Archaeology and Identity in Northernmost Europe. Uppsala: Uppsala University. Ojala, C. G. 2014. “East and West, North and South in Sápmi: Networks and boundaries in Sámi archaeology in Sweden.” In Sounds Like Theory: XII Nordic Theoretical Archaeology Group Meeting in Oulu 25.-28.4.2012, edited by J. Ikäheimo, A. K. Salmi, and T. Äikäs, 173–85. Helsinki: The Archaeological Society of Finland. Ojala, C. G. 2016. “Svenska kyrkan och samiska mänskliga kvarlevor.” In De historiska relationerna mellan Svenska kyrkan och samerna, edited by D. Lindmark, and O. Sundström, 983–1018. Skellefteå: Artos and Norma bokförlag. Ojala, C. G., and J. M. Nordin. 2015. “Mining Sápmi: Colonial histories, Sámi archaeology, and the exploitation of natural resources in northern Sweden.” Arctic Anthropology 52 (2): 6–21. Potinkara, N. 2015. Etnisyyden rakentuminen kahden saamelaismuseon perusnäyttelyissä. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä. Rumar, L. 2014. Historien och Härjedalsdomen: en kritisk analys. Umeå: Centrum för samisk forskning. Rydving, H. 1995. The End of Drum-Time: Religious Change among the Lule Saami, 1670s–1740s (Second Edition). Uppsala: Uppsala University. Sametinget. 2007. Sametinget, Sammanträdesprotokoll 2007:1, Sammanträdesdatum 2007–02–20–2, Lycksele. Kiruna: Sametingets kansli. Schefferus, J. 1956 [1673]. Lappland. Acta Lapponica VII. Uppsala: Gebers.

Contested colonial history and heritage in Sápmi 271 Snickare, M. 2014. “Kontroll, begär och kunskap: Den koloniala kampen om Goavddis.” Rig 97 (2): 65–77. Spangen, M. 2015. “Without a trace? The Sámi in the Swedish history museum.” Nordisk Museologi 2015 (2): 17–32. Stångberg, A. 2005. “Soejvengeelle: En samisk grav i Vapsten.” In Efter förfädernas sed: Om samisk religion, edited by Å. V. Kroik, 40–56. Göteborg: Boska. Svanberg, F. 2015. Människosamlarna: Anatomiska museer och rasvetenskap i Sverige ca 1850–1950. Stockholm: Historiska museet. Svanberg, I. 1999. Hästslaktare och korgmakare: Resursutnyttjande och livsstil bland sockenlappar. Umeå: Johan Nordlander-sällskapet. Svestad, A. 2013. “What happened in Neiden? On the question of reburial ethics.” Norwegian Archaeological Review 46 (2): 194–222. Utsi, P. M. 2007. Traditionell kunskap och sedvänjor inom den samiska kulturen – relaterat till bevarande och hållbart nyttjande av biologisk mångfald. Kiruna: Sametinget, and Uppsala: Centrum för biologisk mångfald. Wallerström, T. 2006. Vilka var först? En nordskandinavisk konflikt som historiskarkeologiskt dilemma. Stockholm: Riksantikvarieämbetet. Wiklund, K. B. 1916. Rounala kyrka. Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksell. Zachrisson, I. 2007. “Arkeologi inför rätta – sydsamernas äldre historia.” In Historisk rätt? Kultur, politik och juridik i norr, edited by I. Lundström, 137–57. Stockholm: Riksantikvarieämbetet. Zachrisson, I., V. Alexandersen, M. Gollwitzer, E. Iregren, L. K. Königsson, C. H. Siven, N. Strade, and J. Sundström. 1997. Möten i Gränsland: Samer och germaner i Mellanskandinavien. Stockholm: Statens Historiska Museum.

19 Reindeer herding as heritage in the Kola Peninsula, northwestern Russia Vladislava Vladimirova

The statement “Reindeer herding is a unique legacy of humanity, representing a distinctive, pastoral, originally resilient and continuously developing human-coupled ecosystem, and based on this, [we support granting] . . . reindeer herding UNESCO Cultural Heritage Status”, appears in the declaration made at the 5th World Reindeer Herders’ Congress (Aoluguya 2013: 20). This is a step towards reshaping worldwide thinking about heritage from a materialist and elitist perspective, in a way that benefits living practice and overcomes rigid ethnic, national and class boundaries (Skounti 2009). At the same time, it is innovative for reindeer husbandry practitioners themselves to claim confidence in reindeer herding’s universal value in a globalizing, heavily industrialized and capital-dependent world, in which they occupy marginal economic and cultural domains. In this chapter, I will reflect on the epistemological possibilities for a category such as heritage, which is sustained by an international effort to promote the value of certain human cultural achievements to play a positive role in the re-­conceptualization and preservation of reindeer husbandry in Russia. The effort to establish a relationship between reindeer herding and heritage is not new in Russia, as evidenced by statements, such as: “Reindeer herding is a masterwork of intangible heritage in the human world” (Evenkiia 2014). Even legal documents regulating the reindeer economy in some regions provide grounds for the conceptualization of reindeer herding within a framework of heritage, at least acknowledging its role in reproducing a certain kind of material and spiritual culture that locally counts as heritage, such as folklore or handicrafts (Herding 2002). As Russian reindeer herding legislation hints, the rhetoric of husbandry as heritage is less widespread in comparison to other cultural elements, such as language, handicrafts and folklore. While this tendency is global and follows the evolution of the politics of heritage whose origin is in material culture, i.e. historical monuments, buildings, sites and towns, I suggest that it also has Soviet roots. Soviet conceptualizations of indigenous culture provide interesting insights into contemporary ideas about herding practice, on the one hand, as oscillating between primitive ethnic economy and unregulated “shady” business, and of reindeer cultural symbolic, on the other, as

Reindeer herding as heritage 273 a culturally distinct traditional livelihood. This Soviet legacy will be briefly discussed below in order to explain the physical and epistemological split between reindeer herding and other cultural forms that were connected to it in the past, which challenges its present representation as cultural heritage. Such challenges are neither unique to Russia nor insurmountable, as the example of the Laponia World Heritage Site in Sweden demonstrates. The contradictory attitudes that reindeer herding raises by claiming to present a genuine tradition while, at the same time, extensively depending on the latest transport technology have been the subject of many debates since the 1970s (Pelto 1973). While the establishment of Laponia, where nature and Sámi culture are safeguarded as an ecological whole, was accompanied by such debates (Dahlström 2003), it provides a precedent for the cultural value of the practice of herding being upheld on a national and global scale. The political and epistemological context of the establishment of Laponia as a World Heritage Site will be discussed below in order to point out the differences between the political and ideological processes that impact on reindeer herding in Russia and can hinder its preservation under the legal and popular banner of heritage. Finally, I will reflect upon the question of reindeer herding’s cultural and ethnic authenticity, forged by the preoccupation of heritage with this authenticity (Skounti 2009). The conflict between the analytical deconstruction of authenticity’s role and meanings in different political contexts, such as UNESCO’s nomination procedures and Sámi ethnic politics, on the one hand, and the acknowledgement of its meaningfulness, significance and people’s strong feelings as to its social reality, on the other, have been recognized in anthropology as the “trap of authenticity” (Theodossopoulos 2013: 338). While I am aware of the polysemy and fluidity of the concept, as it “encompasses diverse sets of meaning that range from genuineness and originality to accuracy and truthfulness . . . [it] encodes the expectation of truthful representation”, my analysis resides mostly in what Theodossopoulos identifies as the fourth dilemma of authenticity, which is posed by the criteria used to define a practice as authentic (Theodossopoulos 2013: 339). In this way, I connect constructivist and materialist approaches to authenticity, because, even though as an anthropologist I am tempted to deconstruct its social reality, as part of my effort to promote reindeer herding practice I need to think in a framework where practical solutions are necessary to respond to UNESCO’s requirements for authenticity of heritage. For this purpose, I draw upon Marcus Bank’s version of the distinction between “nominal” and “expressive” authenticity. Nominal authenticity is identified on the basis of confirmation of origin, while expressive authenticity captures a sense of the truthfulness of the nature of things in themselves, i.e. it relates to the ontology of a practice (Banks 2013). As Banks admits, such a distinction is not absolute or easy to make, because these categories can overlap in some cases: one looks for nominal authenticity in order to find proof of the true nature of a thing or practice. The claim of an ancient origin for reindeer

274  Vladislava Vladimirova herding makes sense only in a social setting where the true nature of the practice has a value, so nominal authenticity is often premised on expressive authenticity, and the latter is implicated in the former. Nevertheless, I find the distinction useful, since it helps to show that UNESCO’s quest to justify heritage is too much focused on the field of nominal authenticity, while the value of present-day reindeer herding lies in its expressive authenticity. This chapter will explore discourses and practices of reindeer herding within the framework of heritage, focusing on one particular part of the Russian North. The Kola Peninsula is home to two ethnically different reindeer herding cultures, only one of which has been officially acknowledged as indigenous by contemporary Russian legislation, and thus entitled to support for developing its traditional culture. At the same time, located in one of the most industrialized and ethnically diverse areas in the north, local reindeer herding has undergone extensive transformation and is currently being subjected to severe economic pressures. In this context, I find it important to look for legal and conceptual frameworks that could surmount the ascription of value and justification of support to reindeer herding on the basis of either narrowly defined authentic ethnic culture or market economy logic, which have both been revealed as threats to its future existence.

Reindeer herding in the Kola Peninsula Russian Sámi, who belong to the international indigenous and Nordic Sámi oecumene, are a group of circa 2,000 people who have been continuously involved in reindeer herding. Of a number of former state reindeer enterprises, two have survived the crisis of post-Soviet liberalization: Tundra, with an administrative office in Lovozero, and Olenevod, with an administrative office in Krasnoshchel’e. Both are now cooperatives, but, nevertheless, reindeer, as well as many of the rest of their assets, are indivisible property, and no member can go private, withdrawing his share from the common pool, or has ever received dividends by virtue of his share. The complete reorganization of the reindeer economy in Soviet times has led to a complex set of conditions and practices that shape post-Socialist configurations of herding. Reindeer herding is organized following the example of industrial production where work is standardized and divided between employees working for wages. A powerful rhetoric was the introduction of progressive scientific technology. The political methods used to achieve such results were the relocation of people, the centralization of settlements and liquidation of many old Sámi villages, and the general sedentarization of the population. Reindeer herders’ work in the tundra was defined as productive nomadism, and it was conducted on a shift principle, i.e. one group of people works with the herd while another stays with their families in the village, after which the groups change places. In this context, reindeer herding has lost its character as an ethnically distinct economy, and people with diverse ethnic and geographical ancestry are working in the sector. Administration

Reindeer herding as heritage 275 employs the repertoire of Soviet patterns of management, and the reindeer herders, as low-level employees of physical labor, use informal practices to maximize their profits (Konstantinov and Vladimirova 2002). This dominant perception of reindeer herding as a state-organized economy hinders privatization. Several attempts to establish enterprises, called obshchinas and based on the legal provision of special rights to indigenous peoples, have failed, even though they received generous financial support (Vladimirova 2006). In light of this long-term radical transformation, Kola reindeer herding today resists straightforward definition as a tradition, at least in the popular (local) sense of the word. How this general idea of ethnic traditions was formed in a Soviet context is the subject of the next section.

Indigenous culture as folklore and reindeer herding as a symbol The Soviet state undertook to reorganize diverse reindeer herding traditions in the north into an efficient unified economy and social reformation on a large scale. This was rooted in an ideology of linear evolutionary and Marxist materialist thinking that envisaged a progressive movement through stages beginning with primitive economy and ending with modernity and communism. One of the pronounced consequences of this social engineering has been a separation of reindeer herding from other spaces of collective life. Meanwhile, spheres of indigenous culture such as folklore, dance, costume and objects, which used to be largely inseparable from reindeer herding, became accommodated in village and urban environments in a variety of ways. Slowly, the modernization processes in the north alienated indigenous communities and individuals from their previous lifestyles and the material and folklore worlds belonging to them. Those traditional ethnic cultures became the subject of study of Soviet ethnography and a field of “cultural reinterpretation” to numerous professional and amateur cultural performers. Only a small number of individuals remained employed in reindeer husbandry and more or less engaged in a related lifestyle. The role of Soviet ethnography in the separation of reindeer herding from other indigenous culture has not been fully analyzed. Certain studies of northern peoples’ ethnography point out how epistemological shifts and focus on areas of study were influenced by changes in Soviet politics (Slezkine 1994; Ssorin-Chaikov 2003). The late 1940s are an important point of departure, when the main task of Soviet ethnography was a strictly Party-based . . . discriminatory approach to the cultural heritage of each people, an ability to differentiate between progressive phenomena that . . . enter the treasury of the national socialist culture of each group and those phenomena that reflected the old, backward, stagnant way of life . . . and subject to the speediest elimination. (Tolstov 1949: 6, in Slezkine 1994: 313)

276  Vladislava Vladimirova Following this program, ethnographies became structured along a spectrum from backward primitive economy and religion of the past to progressive socialist reformation of economy, material and cultural life in the present. Their contents were divided into three larger categories: 1) “material culture”, including economy, tools, dwellings, food, clothing and transportation; 2) “social organization”, which encompassed kinship and gender relations; and 3) “spiritual culture”, encompassing communist consciousness and folklore. Only the first and the last were considered “culture”, whereas the middle sphere remained notoriously understudied (Slezkine 1994: 315–18). Cast in such a mold, ethnographies reasserted the progressive achievements in the sphere of indigenous material culture and the effort put into the development of communist Soviet consciousness. To mention two examples from the limited literature on Kola: the two choices were to write about Sámi material culture alone and mainly from a historical perspective (Luk’ianchenko 1971) or to describe the contemporary “new life, new culture” using metaphors such as “knowledge and light” and “new horizons” (Kiselev and Kiseleva 1987). What this framework hints at is that in the 1970s a careful selection of material culture history, exhibited in the museum, became legitimate for preservation. Soviet literature about the Sámi mostly celebrated their “acculturation” to contemporary Soviet cultural values, such as mass education, and television, radio and public libraries. Soviet Sámi culture, which was “ethnic in form and socialist in content”, was reflected in those performative styles that were institutionalized by the authorities, such as dance ensembles and choirs, which performed songs and dances created by contemporary educated musicians, with the use of “stylized” ethnic motifs (Kiselev and Kiseleva 1987: 162–73). Usually, such cultural activity would be relegated to the previously mentioned museum, the House of Culture and boarding schools (King 2011; see Figures 19.1–19.2). Indigenous languages underwent a complex history of purges and periods of revitalization (Vakhtin 1992: 18–19). As a result, of the 2,000 Sámi people in Russia today, only 800 have knowledge of the Sámi language, 100 of these are fluent speakers who use the language in everyday life, and 200 are potential speakers (Scheller 2011: 82–3). Nevertheless, part of the Soviet Sámi intelligentsia has been involved in indigenous language studies, documentation and teaching, which provides the language with the status of an ethnic cultural emblem. As a consequence of these processes of social and cultural transformation, the primary belief of the majority of people in Russia nowadays is that indigenous culture revolves around language, folklore and material culture. These genres and elements of culture are more easily articulated as heritage. Reindeer herding, as a practice that in many cases continues to follow its Soviet production methods and rationale, less easily qualifies as heritage, even among indigenous people themselves. A description of their work as tradition can even be experienced as derogatory by herders, because it is translated as primitive and backward (Figure 19.3).

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Figure 19.1 The Regional History Museum (kraevedcheskii muzei, Rus.) became the home of indigenous peoples’ culture (Photo by Vladislava Vladimirova, Poronaisk, Russia, August 2009)

Figure 19.2 “Stylized” ethnic dance and music performances, created by conservatoryeducated musicians, were institutionalized as indigenous culture, while indigenous economy was collectivized, reorganized and modernized (Photo by Vladislava Vladimirova, Narian Mar, Russia, March 2013)

In the process of spatial and conceptual separation of the practice of herding from ethnic culture, and especially from the field of folklore, herding has become a symbol that is disconnected from its previous sources of meaning. Part of this process was achieved through separating the life-environment of

278  Vladislava Vladimirova

Figure 19.3 Reindeer herders do not want to be associated with “the Stone Age”, as one of them puts it. Their preferred image is that of courageous men who know how to survive in the Arctic wilderness, who are experienced in herding animals, and competent with modern technology. In the picture: Vladimir Khatanzei, the team leader of Brigade 8 of Cooperative “Tundra” of Lovozero, Russia (Photo by Vladislava Vladimirova and Yulian Konstantinov, January 2008)

reindeer, the tundra, from the villages and urban centers where such cultural practices flourished. Preventing herding families from migrating within the tundra should be blamed for a state of alienation between reindeer herders’ lifestyles and those of their wives and children, between reindeer and herders, and, finally, between the economic basis and performative culture of a community. Such alienation occurred even between the practical and the symbolic dimensions of reindeer herding as a lifeworld. This created a context in which archaeological petroglyphs interpreted as reindeer and humans or artefacts belonging to a past herding livelihood exhibited in a museum are seen as legitimate instances of cultural heritage, while the role of contemporary herding as heritage is questioned. This alienation became even more visible in the 1990s, with the growth of the Sámi movement for ethnic and cultural revival. The driving force of Sámi ethnopolitics justifiably came from the group of indigenous intelligentsia, created in Soviet times in the so-called process of “indigenization”. The politics of “indigenization”, the rationale behind which will not be

Reindeer herding as heritage 279 discussed here, produced educated local cadres within indigenous groups that were supposed to occupy the leading administrative positions in their places of residence (Vakhtin 1992: 17). This ethnic elite, which in the case of Kola consists mostly of urban residents (Øverland and Berg-Nordlie 2012), started developing the objectives of Sámi ethnic revitalization in the 1990s, using the cultural terms inherited from Soviet times, including mostly language and folklore (Afanas’eva and Rantala 1993). Reindeer played a mostly symbolic role. Only later, in a process of adaptation to the expectations that supporters and sympathizers from abroad articulated, did the elite attempt to accommodate reindeer herding. As a result of different obstacles, the inclusion of herding has been complicated, and again, mostly in the sphere of symbols and ideology. The practice of reindeer herding remains alienated and underrepresented in the realm of ethnic politics, as empirical research demonstrates (Konstantinov 2015; Vladimirova 2006). While the symbolic role of reindeer and herding in Sámi life and politics is beyond question, my conviction is that it is not enough to help reindeer herding practice survive the challenges posed by a capitalist economy (Golovnev and Osherenko 1999). Furthermore, my prediction is that the symbolic weight of reindeer will not remain the same if the role of the reindeer herding economy is further dismantled and devaluated. More than two decades of attempts to restructure the sector in different regions of Russia have predominantly resulted in failure, with a few exceptions (Anderson 2006; Krupnik 2000). Neither private nor cooperative forms of ownership lived up to the expectations of their ideologues. Regional and cultural specifics are too diverse for the kind of unified reindeer legal provisions replicated in the regional laws to provide an efficient legal basis and protection for reindeer husbandry in the face of an aggressive extraction economy, which is prioritized by a state whose financing is fully dependent on the latter. The international acknowledgement of reindeer herding practice as a World Heritage might also increase its symbolic value on a national level, and provide an initiative for more favorable politics in the sector, or serve as “conceptual diplomacy” as the worldwide spread of the “indigenous” category contributes to their quest for equality, as Ronald Niezen demonstrates (Niezen 2010).

Is reindeer herding intangible heritage? At first glance, UNESCO’s definition provides all the necessary preconditions to include reindeer herding (UNESCO 2003). It is a practice, representation and expression of culture that requires special cultural knowledge and skills. It includes culturally specific instruments, and cultural spaces are associated with them. The limited success of Soviet attempts to prepare reindeer herders through the national educational system, i.e. in professional schools in the villages, has proven that herding skills are best transmitted from generation to generation through practice, through membership in a

280  Vladislava Vladimirova profession and a lifestyle in direct contact with the reindeer in their natural habitat. More radical commentators would even assert that one learns to be a herder only if one is born “in the tundra”, to a herding family and grows up alongside the reindeer. The ancient origins and cultural continuity of the practice (UNESCO 2011c), however, seen in the historical context of the convention, raises the question of authenticity, which was avoided in the convention of 2003 after prolific criticism of UNESCO heritage policies throughout the 1990s (Labadi 2010). Its spirit, however, has been preserved, not only in national level interpretations of the convention, but through replacement concepts, such as tradition, ancient origins and inheritance, to mention but a few. As these concepts hint, there is an inherent expectation that a practice should be identifiable by its origin, to which it stays true. Such an expectation corresponds to Bank’s distinction between nominal and expressive authenticity. In a way, nominal authenticity is expected to be proof of the expressive authenticity of a practice (Banks 2013). How reindeer herding opposes the demands of nominal authenticity, I will demonstrate in the last section of the paper. Reindeer herding is the perfect example of a culturally specific economic adaptation to an extraordinary natural environment, i.e. the Subarctic. Reindeer herding involves characteristic patterns of interaction with nature that evolved throughout history. Reindeer herding has symbolic meaning and inhabits spaces far beyond its distribution as an economic practice (King 2002). Even though as a practice and a lifestyle it is meaningful for a minority, it continues to serve as a symbol for ethnic and local identities, and provides a sense of rootedness for many people, even when their ancestors came to the north from other regions only relatively recently. Although few people volunteer to become reindeer herders, there is a consensus in northern communities that reindeer herding should be preserved, or, as one person from the Kola Peninsula once concluded, “there will be no people without reindeer here” (interview with Ivan Chuprov 2003; see also Figure 19.4). Problems appear when attempting to determine to which domain of intangible heritage reindeer herding belongs. Reindeer herding incorporates aspects from two of the domains in the framework for identifying intangible cultural heritage: knowledge and practices concerning nature and, perhaps even closer, traditional craftsmanship (UNESCO 2003). Even though the convention points out that these categories are “inclusive” and “not meant to be complete”, the list of intangible cultural heritage contains entries of a different nature. For example, the former domain, knowledge and practices concerning nature include “knowledge, knowhow, skills, practices and representations developed by communities by interacting with the natural environment” (UNESCO 2011b). Reindeer herding fits such a definition because it presents a specialized adaptation to and interaction with nature, and a peculiar natural cosmology. The UNESCO information kit on applying the convention, however, suggests as examples in this domain: “traditional ecological wisdom, indigenous knowledge, healing, rituals, beliefs,

Reindeer herding as heritage 281

Figure 19.4 Reindeer herding is a culturally specific economic adaptation to an extraordinary natural environment. It involves dynamic practices in ongoing interaction with nature, while simultaneously sustaining the symbolic basis of indigenous culture and identity. In the picture: Petr Terent’ev, a reindeer herder in Brigade 8 of Cooperative “Tundra” of Lovozero, Russia (Photo by Vladislava Vladimirova and Yulian Konstantinov, November 2007)

initiatory rites, cosmologies, shamanism, social organizations, festivals, languages and visual arts” (UNESCO 2011b). All of these spheres are components of a larger cultural adaptation such as reindeer herding. Reindeer herding as a livelihood includes cultural forms that can fit within some of the above-listed domains, but it is reductive to attempt to squeeze the whole set of practices into one of these domains. The separation of craftsmanship as a domain raises similar confusion. It is a step in the right direction that the convention aims to safeguard “the skills and knowledge involved in craftsmanship . . . and encouraging artisans to continue to produce craft and to pass skills and knowledge” (UNESCO 2011b). However, the suggested expressions are still envisaged as material culture. Reindeer herding involves unique material culture; however, it is hardly acceptable to reduce it to this (i.e. material culture). Herding includes subsistence, a lifeworld and a sociality, and it shapes culture. It also plays an important role in transforming nature, including both animal behavior and the distribution of flora and fauna in ways that help reproduce the practice for the future.

282  Vladislava Vladimirova A look at the items on the list of intangible heritage reveals that even though they constitute only a minority within cultural performances, a few economic practices have been included in the UNESCO list, such as carpet weaving, traditional silk production, etc. (UNESCO List). What is implied as being worthy of safeguarding in these cases is the activity as part of a whole cultural world, i.e. a holistic view of culture is inherent. As the convention promises, it is concerned with the bearers of intangible cultural heritage; it sees heritage in “processes and conditions . . . placing emphasis on living heritage that is performed by people, often collectively, and communicated through living experience . . . that communities themselves deem important” (UNESCO 2011a). A reformulation of the domains of intangible cultural heritage to accommodate holistic cultural adaptations, such as reindeer herding, can enhance this spirit of the convention, which involve the regeneration of cultural skills, knowledge and creativity in a sustainable way – sustainable in terms of providing a livelihood for communities, in moderating its impact on nature and in gaining support to resist more dominant and nature-destroying economies. The convention also provides space for redefinition. This may involve incorporating sub-domains including “traditional games”, “culinary traditions” and “animal husbandry” (UNESCO 2011b). It is up to the different states and their tradition in the sphere of culture protection how they should look. This point is of great significance in relation to reindeer herding, and its implications will be discussed in the next section, in which I comment on Russia’s attitudes towards the 2003 convention.

Intangible cultural heritage and indigenous people in Russia UNESCO’s definition of intangible heritage explicitly aims to preserve knowledge and skills that are important to “minority groups and for mainstream social groups within a State”. Its target is not just “inherited traditions from the past” but also contemporary practices in which “diverse cultural groups take part” (UNESCO 2011a). The democratic character of heritage requires that it does not reaffirm a practice’s cultural belonging but rather its transcultural and cross-border significance that contributes to social cohesion and gives rise to identities that transcend narrow definitions and are inclusive. The last point becomes important in light of the dominant Russian views on intangible heritage. Russia is striving to translate international concepts and ultimately laws in ways that are culturally sensitive and locally meaningful. This is its excuse for not ratifying the convention of 2003 while, simultaneously, it “by its free will accepts the separate conventions and replicates their norms in its national legislation independently, in order to balance the international and national traditions in cultural heritage” (Stashkevich et al. 2007: 40). Russia also asserts that a distinctive feature of its heritage legislation is ethnic tolerance that takes into consideration the interests of all ethnic groups residing in the country (Stashkevich

Reindeer herding as heritage 283 et al. 2007: 40). At the same time, Russia assesses the UNESCO definition of intangible cultural heritage as too limited because it excludes such phenomena as the theater school of the famous Russian director Stanislavsky, art styles and literary heritage. Russian people experience problems interpreting the concept of intangible heritage, or rather its relation to the traditional Russian division of heritage into the material and spiritual. In the opinion of Russian experts, UNESCO intangible heritage mostly concerns ethnic culture and thus does not include the full variety of intangible heritage. Russian legislation about culture aims to amend this in its broader definition of “objects of spiritual culture”, which include moral and aesthetic ideals, languages, ethnic tradition, literature, art, etc. (Sidorova et al. 2014: 52). Thus, Russian understanding of intangible heritage, while pointing to the problem of the separation of “high culture” and “ethnic culture” inherent in the convention and its lack of easily applicable criteria for the category, tends to revert to previous ideas of heritage that reify “high culture”. The sphere of heritage in Russia is regulated by the federal law on culture, in which heritage is redefined as “cultural heritage” that includes material and spiritual values, created in the past, as well as monuments and historical-cultural territories and objects important for the preservation and development of the originality of the Russian Federation and all its people and their contribution to the world civilization. (Law 1992) Constraints of space do not allow me to specify the multiple heritage spheres listed in the law, but even though instances of folk culture such as folklore and handicraft are included, an activity like reindeer husbandry might only fit in the last entry: “other activities as a result of which cultural values are preserved, created, and spread” (Law 1992). The law reaffirms “the equal value of the cultures” that different ethnic groups in the country have and guarantees freedom in exercising them. The state also promises support for minority groups in preserving their cultural distinctiveness (Law 1992). In the same democratic sense as UNESCO, it stipulates elements traditionally singled out in Soviet times as proper domains representing ethnic culture, such as handicrafts, language and folk customs, together with national literature, art, theater and music. At the same time, its conceptualization of cultural heritage is temporally marked – heritage is the product of the past. Even though Russia states that it worries about traditional practices disappearing under the pressure of globalization and it shares UNESCO’s concern for the preservation of heritage, in the Russian context this is understood as creating museums that “fill objects of heritage with new meaning and life” (Stashkevich et al. 2007: 53). This does not correspond to UNESCO’s objective to keep heritage alive through maintaining its relevance in cultural contexts that ensure its transmission to new generations (UNESCO 2011a). In this sense, the dominant ideas in Russia

284  Vladislava Vladimirova about heritage and culture limit the possibility of thinking of reindeer herding as intangible heritage. In the next section, the context for reindeer herding as heritage will be extended beyond UNESCO and Russian legislation. I will introduce the precedent of Laponia World Heritage Site in Sweden, which has singled out reindeer herding along with the nature (flora and fauna) of the area to be protected. It should be specified that Laponia falls under a category of heritage which was established earlier than intangible heritage and was subject to evaluation under different criteria. Nevertheless, since my purpose in this chapter is to explore the general epistemological basis of heritage thinking promoted by UNESCO, Laponia is an important example.

Reindeer herding as indigenous culture: the case of the Laponia World Heritage Site The inclusion in 1996 of Laponia in the UNESCO World Heritage List is indicative of the trend to include local and indigenous peoples in conservation work (Green 2009). The justification is based on natural criteria such as a “variety of natural phenomena of exceptional beauty and significant biological diversity”, and cultural criteria: the site has been occupied continuously by the Saami people since prehistoric times, [and] is one of the last and unquestionably largest and best preserved examples of an area of transhumance . . . which dates back to an early stage in human economic and social development. (UNESCO List) Laponia was the first reindeer herding site to be added to the UNESCO list. This happened at a moment when UNESCO was shifting to a new emphasis on preserving living cultures through the creation of a new program, that of cultural landscapes (Dahlström 2003: 230), which is more inclusive of indigenous people and non-Western cultures (Thitchen 1995). The process of nominating Laponia had been ongoing for a long time, during which it was once rejected. Obviously, sensing the political change within UNESCO, a Swedish official realized that the inclusion of Sámi culture in the nomination would make the site more attractive and solve the ongoing conflict with indigenous residents who were not unanimously supportive (Green 2009: 101–23). To mention just a few of the points of conflict, the Sámi people feared that being listed as a protected area would limit their access to land resources and an increased tourism flow would interfere with reindeer herding (Dahlström 2003: 248). The example of Laponia points to some problems that are also relevant for reindeer herding in Russia. As Carina Green stresses, the inclusion of Laponia on the UNESCO list changed the configuration of relations between the stakeholders. The Swedish authorities had to take into consideration

Reindeer herding as heritage 285 UNESCO’s affirmative politics for indigenous culture, which empowered Sámi politicians (Beach 2001; Green 2009). Such results will not be new in the Russian context, where the indigenous movement has grown, partly with support from abroad. In the last few years, the government has put effort into limiting such support, but nevertheless Russian legislation acknowledges, at least nominally, the primacy of international law in the protection of indigenous rights. Laponia demonstrates UNESCO’s failure to address the contradictions that exist in certain cases between nation states and the indigenous communities residing in them (Kuutma 2013). Nominations for the World Heritage List are made by national representatives, a mechanism which does not take into consideration possible polarization between indigenous people and governments. Minorities are put in an unequal position in lobbying for their heritage. Furthermore, the foundation of a heritage site is its uniqueness, which ascribes value to it. This nomination stands not only for the locality, but for the whole nation (Green 2009: 91). This can lead to a struggle over identity symbols within a nation, which will easily be turned against minorities. One possible scenario is of a nation being ashamed to be represented by a heritage that the majority of people find “primitive”; another possibility is that the majority of people cannot see a practice as genuine heritage because it does not correspond to their standards of authenticity. Such scenarios in the case of reindeer herding are realistic in the epistemological context of popular ideas about indigenous people, which are based on an opposition between tradition and contemporary technology unfolded in a popular quest for authenticity within the indigenous domain (Muehlmann 2009). Nominal authenticity, i.e. the historical importance and ancient origin of herding, has been decisive in the establishment of Laponia as a heritage site. Such (constructed) emphasis reifies popular representations of Sámi people as primitive nomads out of the civilized world. These representations have origins in linear evolutionism and colonialism (Green 2009: 82–6). Nominal authenticity, in this case, requires not only historical confirmation of Sámi as “the custodians” of northern Sweden and of reindeer herding, but also resemblance to an invented earlier ideal: Sámi and reindeer herding can prove authentic only if they look the same as they did in the past. The imposition of such expectations through an international institution such as UNESCO can be an impediment to the future of an economy such as herding. The pressures that the popular quest for nominal authenticity creates for reindeer husbandry in the Kola Peninsula will be discussed in the next section.

The authenticity of the herding tradition The notion of authentic tradition surrounds indigenous people and delimits “legitimate indigenous life” or a “tribal slot” (Armstrong-Fumero 2009; Hale 2005; Larchenko and Popkov 1989; Murray Li 2000). This is

286  Vladislava Vladimirova often constructed through nominal authenticity and by different, coexisting, understandings of authentic tradition, or the “negotiation of parallel authenticities in tension” (Theodossopoulos 2013: 339). According to Soviet ideologists, indigenous people needed help to make “a leap” from backward communal social order to communism, thus skipping two evolutionary phases – feudalism and capitalism. A necessary condition was the reorganization of a “primitive economy”, such as reindeer herding, into an organizationally and technologically advanced production. Ideologists who celebrated the successes achieved during this reorganization achievements also admitted that, because of its nature, reindeer herding poses challenges to reformers and practitioners: the process can only be mechanized to a slight extent, and work cannot conform to norms in the same way as other enterprises, as there are too many unpredictable natural factors (Larchenko and Popkov 1989). Soviet ideologists understood social problems, such as alcoholism and disobeying work discipline, to be associated with the backwardness inherent to reindeer husbandry. They explained such problems as connected with the nature of ¨the traditional¨ domain that resists progress and hinders social development. The concept of tradition in this context had negative connotations (Markhinin 1989). Local authorities were advised how to overcome such “tradition”. In this discourse, the main problem confronting development in the socialist north was the conflict between “the traditional” and “the new”, as represented by nomadic lifestyle, high-tech industrial production and urban life. This contradiction is inherent to socialist reindeer herding, and it is an unavoidable consequence of the encounter between two social orders that are on different levels of development, as asserted by Soviet scholars. On the one hand, reindeer herding cannot be truly reformed; on the other hand, it is highly dependent on contemporary technology in order to fit the latest social and economic arrangements, such as sedentary life in the village. This representation poses serious problems to the operation of nominal authenticity logic. This tension remains prominent in post-Soviet times in connection to the Sámi political movement. Reindeer husbandry bears the label of an ethnic economy (or “culture-forming”, to use the local term), but the Soviet idea of authentic indigenous culture focuses on folklore and material culture that easily conform to nominal authenticity requirements. Folklorists’ representations of herding impose an “ethnographic present” character, i.e. they claim to portray true herding tradition at a point of time in the past when its authenticity cannot be questioned. Such an implicit claim is a paradox given the interpretative, “stylized” and dynamic character of folklore in Soviet times. Such atemporal representations constitute the standard against which the living practice of herding is now judged as authentic or not. This symbolic realm of herding that haunts urban and village spaces is convenient when a demand for the nominal authentication of Sámi culture is posed. Such demands are channeled through Russian or international legislation, which promises special rights to indigenous people on the basis

Reindeer herding as heritage 287 of authentic cultural identity and traditional economy. Nordic Sámi and NGOs reinforce this search for nominal authenticity as the main criteria for deserving support. In the competition for resources allotted on the basis of nominal authenticity, the practitioners of herding are doomed to be the losers. Reindeer herding practice cannot easily fit the requirements of nominal authenticity, especially in its genuine space, the wilderness, where powerful snow scooters and old military tanks, used to cross large distances of marshlands in the summer, and their endless requirement for supplies of smelly fuels and spare parts are overwhelming. The current organization of reindeer production, with its Soviet character, attracts criticism from Western reindeer herders and NGOs. The unwillingness of local communities to reorganize according to the supposedly better Western model is beyond the understanding of foreign partners (Vladimirova 2006). Another line of contention is the expectation that herding is an ethnic culture, a strictly Sámi domain. The history of the Kola Peninsula, however, is complex, and different herding systems intermixed at the time of collectivization in the 1920s: Sámi and Komi, and even a third ethnic group, Nenets. This legacy challenges dominant ideas of discrete groups with clear cultural boundaries. In Russia, the perception of ethnicity as an ontological reality, accompanied by primordialist ideas about belonging to a group and having an essentialist identity, were reaffirmed in the 1950s (Slezkine 1994: 315) and continued to dominate academic thinking in the early 1990s (Tishkov 1992: 380). Such attitudes are common in the communities I have worked with, and among indigenous people themselves. Collective reindeer herding in the Kola, however, is a contested field in terms of ethnic tradition. On the one hand, if Sámi tradition is emphasized, people point to the only herding team where Sámi form a majority and claim that they have preserved traditional husbandry. Others would emphasize that the majority of herders today are Komi, which means that Komi herding tradition is more enduring. All members of the community insist on the preservation of collective husbandry as in the Soviet days, under the protection of state authorities. Most people are opposed to the idea of presenting herding as one ethnic tradition. The quest for indigenous tradition and nominal authenticity, to which the Sámi revival movement seems to ascribe, as Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov cautions, represents ethnic traditionalism which is analogous to the modern nationalist creation of high culture but claims to revive folk culture. This is a product of Soviet reforms; thus, at the roots of such culture revitalization the constructs of Soviet development discourse can be detected (Ssorin-Chaikov 2003: 171). Yet another issue related to authenticity in reindeer herding has been debated under the singularity-plurality dichotomy in heritage literature. The debate evolves from the expectation that heritage belongs to a discrete culture, to a group or a community, in other words, that it is local. Debates about ownership over heritage among neighboring or even distant communities are common. Reindeer herding, in which approximately 18 different

288  Vladislava Vladimirova peoples are involved in Russia alone (Klokov 2007), resists strict ethnic and geographical definitions. In one community in the Kola, three different ethnic groups with diverse origins and systems of husbandry live together. As Lourdes Arzipe suggests, since “the problem of authenticity in intangible cultural heritage cannot be solved by isolating a single form of performance of a given practice”, authenticity needs to be re-conceptualized to reside in the “framework of the strategies of singularity and plurality of a cultural heritage practice” (Arizpe 2013: 20). She also introduces the idea of polyculturality to describe syncretic heritage practices that contain elements of many different cultures and are shared by many peoples (Arizpe 2013: 20). This last concept can perhaps better describe reindeer herding. All heritage is simultaneously material and intangible: because of its constructed character (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2004), conceptions about material heritage are intangible, while intangible heritage is related to material objects and practices (Kuutma 2013). In this sense, intangible heritage, and even tangible heritage, has a processual dimension – the constructed ideas about it can change through time. Thus, the search for nominal authenticity is misguided, as are attempts to restore authenticity, which can indeed damage heritage and are politically and epistemologically loaded (Labadi 2010; Skounti 2009). Reindeer herding tradition in the Kola Peninsula is a good example. The values that can be justifiably pinpointed as original and continuous are the ways that reindeer-based livelihood sustains a relationship with nature. A herder’s identity is built upon these kinds of relations and practices to a greater extent than on the formal organization of material production (Anderson 2000). Thus, we need to shift our focus to expressive authenticity if we wish to prove that reindeer herding deserves to be classified as “heritage” by UNESCO’s formal standards.

Conclusions Heritage is the “canonization” of a practice; it attributes “high social value” and “fosters positive identification within groups” on a global level (Bendix 2008: 263). The paradigm of intangible heritage that is inspired by relativism and cultural justice is supposed to make it democratic, pluralistic and inclusive for human achievements outside the Euro-American world. Heritage is expected to be established by its “bearers” but, since the participation of communities is mediated by the state through the national validation process, many factors hinder the agency of indigenous groups (Bortolotto 2010: 98). In the case of Laponia, Sámi people resisted the creation of a Natural Heritage Site as they considered it a threat. Later on, state officials invited them to take part in the process by promising to include reindeer culture. The initiative, however, did not come from the community, so UNESCO has not yet embraced a true bottom-up approach to heritage preservation. Russia joined ranks with countries such as the UK in postponing the ratification of the convention of 2003. In the case of the UK, one of the most

Reindeer herding as heritage 289 advanced countries in the management of its heritage, “intangible heritage” is not relevant because it is seen as targeting “non-Western or non-European culture, and something that is ethnically, culturally, politically and socially distinct” (Stashkevich et al. 2007: 289). In the case of Russia, an important consideration is what local commentators define as the limitation of intangible heritage to indigenous cultures, instead of including “high culture”. In this context, I can only repeat the question raised by Kristin Kuutma, an expert in the field of cultural heritage: To what extent would protecting or safeguarding mechanisms go beyond securing the interest of state parties, in order to be capable of addressing localized needs and delivering culturally appropriate safeguarding mechanisms? (Kuutma 2013: 6–7) To extend this concern to the domain of reindeer herding, how can the state reconcile its economic interests in the Arctic, where most natural resources are extracted and reindeer-grazing lands and territories are constantly encroached upon, with its role as a guarantor of indigenous culture, provided in federal legislation (Federal 1999)? Ascription of the status of heritage is a political project with many ramifications for all involved parties (Bendix 2008; Kuutma 2013). In the case of Laponia, an international platform for communication created during the process resulted in unexpected empowerment of indigenous participants, who shaped their role through the articulation of identity based on marginalization and the role of “the Other”, in contrast to Swedish majority identity (Green 2009). Intangible cultural heritage is striving to establish an instrument for a more equal distribution of status and cultural capital in a world still influenced by colonial legacies and divisions. It can improve its mission, however, if more direct ways of inclusion and bottom-up participation are incorporated. This may prove particularly important in cases when civil society mechanisms are not strong enough to ensure representation of indigenous people, as in Russia. Heritage is an intersection of different temporalities (Kuutma 2013: 18); it explicitly operates within a temporal framework with its demand to justify the value of the nominated objects on the basis of their history, i.e. it often calls for the production of nominal authenticity. At the same time, ascribing a heritage status implies an atemporal existence, of conservation in eternity – it claims to reproduce expressive authenticity. Thus, UNESCO’s message when it comes to authenticity is ambivalent. The simultaneous reference to mythical and historical temporalities can produce political and ideological effects. In the case of reindeer herding, I see certain risks if it is to be re-conceptualized through the optics of UNESCO’s epistemological framework. These create a range of vulnerabilities for present-day reindeer herding, especially in relation to the still-dominant

290  Vladislava Vladimirova idea of authenticity, even though it is less openly expressed in heritage perceptions worldwide. Post-Soviet legacies make reindeer husbandry susceptible to negative influences, even in its evaluation as heritage, since it is in a double-bind situation. On the one hand, its economic vulnerability and predominant quest for modernist development create pressure for further modernization of the practice, which transforms it further from its atemporal representation in folklore and urban culture. On the other hand, predominant modernist ideology and linear evolutionary thinking which is common in Russia, repels the practitioners of herding from traditionbound representations.

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Index

Aboriginal: concept of 97, 140 – 56; history and heritage 143, 150; peoples 199, 225 Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act, Queensland 225 Aborigines 237 activism 207 adaptation: cultural 98, 281 – 2; economic 280 adaptive challenge 183 Afghanistan 204 Africa 113 – 21, 127 – 37, 233, 242, 245; East Africa 118, 243, 247 – 8, 253; Southern Africa 117, 127 – 37, 196 – 7; West Africa 119, 128, 132 – 3 African American 110, 159 – 72 African Union’s African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) 244 agricultural society 222 Ainu 196, 218 – 22, 227 – 9, 232; ancestral remains 226; Hokkaido 218; Karafuto (Sakhalin) 218; Kuriles (Chishima) 218; national museum 226; policy in Japan 232; studies 224 Alaska 68 – 9; Native history 69; Western Alaska 68 – 9 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) 70 alienation 278 alterity 9, 34 – 5, 46, 191 alternative: archaeologies 114; ethnicities 150; histories 7; narratives 8 Alton Coal Development Company 58 – 9 Amboseli 249 American Anthropological Association 210

anatomical research 196, 265 animism 182 antiguo 187 – 8,  190 Antofalla 187, 189 – 91 Antolín 189 – 90,  192 apartheid 234 Arctic 278, 289; Canada 97, 99 – 102; North America 98 Arusha Region 250 Arusha Regional Commission 250 Arzipe, Lourdes 288 assimilation 54, 69, 135, 144 – 5, 153, 199, 218, 228, 258, 262, 266 Atalay, Sonya 4 – 5, 67, 113 Australia 140 – 55, 207, 209, 224 authentic: cultural identity 287; indigeneity 146 authenticity 9, 22, 25, 39, 43, 181, 197, 273, 280, 285, 287 – 90; expressive 273, 280, 288 – 9; nominal 273, 280, 285 – 9 authority 39 autochthonous 115, 118 – 19 Avdat 80, 82 – 7, 91 – 2; UNESCO World Heritage 16, 87, 91 Avi-Yonah, Michael 81 Baker Lake aboriginal title case 100 Bamiyan Buddhas 80, 204, 206 Banks, Marcus 273 Bantu 127 – 37, 233, 236; migration 132 – 3, 135, 137; origin 234 Barth, Fredrik 2 Batwa 197, 241 – 2, 254; communities 251; tourism 251 Batwa Development Program 252 Batwa Trail 251 BC Association of Professional archaeologists 210

Index  295 Bedouin 80, 83, 87 – 8, 89 – 92; community 89; heritage 80; indigenous population 89 Before They Pass Away 53 – 4,  60 binaries: Aboriginal peoples-archaeologists xvii; cultural-natural heritage 60; ontological-moral 191 binary: Us-Them xvi; Western self-Indigenous Other 36 Birket-Smith, Kaj 99 Bolivia 26 – 7 border theory 192 boundaries, colonial 136 boundary 176, 183 bourgeoisie 203 British Columbia 203 – 5, 205, 210; Heritage Conservation Act 204 Bronze Age 178 Bryce Canyon, Utah 58 – 9 burial: grounds 203, 212; sites 209 – 10 Burra Charter 43 Burrup and Maitland Industrial Estates Agreement (BMIEA) 56 Bushmen 127, 233 – 4, 236 – 9; heritage 238 Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, World Heritage Site 251 – 2 Canada 196, 203, 205, 207, 209; Aboriginal rights law 210 capacity building 39 – 40 capitalism 286 capitalist economy 279 cemeteries 224 Césaire, Aimé 8 Christianization 264 Christianize 261 ci-nomi-sir 220 civic engagement 207 Clavir, Miriam 47 collaborations with Indigenous peoples 201 collaborative: approach 113; or community-directed projects 209; and community-driven initiatives 212; projects 64, 75, 207, 266 collecting 5, 141, 263 collections 196, 264, 267; of ancient human remains 224; of Sámi human remain 264 – 5; of scientific data  210 collective claims of difference 25

collective rights 19 – 27; claims 20 – 1; movement 23 – 4 collective self-representation of distinctiveness 22 collectivization, Soviet 287 colonial: approprition 64; archaeology 20; authorities 264; collecting 263; conservationism 250; construction 65; cultures 10; ethnography 36; hegemony 127; history 22, 197, 258, 267; landscapes 9, 55; legacies and divisions 289; legacy 47; narrative 64; notion 69; past 97; power 267; research 229; in the research process 200; scientific theory 4; societies 90; structures 1, 7, 66; system 7 colonialism 4, 34, 36, 66, 127, 141, 207, 260, 285; scientific 212 colonialist discourse 9, 34 colonization 3, 70, 97, 101, 115 – 16, 153, 177, 192, 223, 227 – 8, 236, 243, 264; British 248; German 248 communism 275, 286 communist Soviet consciousness 276 community 9, 58, 208, 282; archaeological 65; archaeology 67, 113, 196, 206, 239; engagement 55, 71; local see local community; oppressed 26 community-based: archaeology xvii, 5, 72, 75, 196; collaborative archaeological approaches 268; collaborative projects 266; conservation 250; heritage 200; heritage research 208; participatory research (CBPR) 208; research 267 community-defined heritage goals 207 community-developed research projects 207 community-informed research 212 community-initiated: archaeology 5; collaborative archaeological approaches 268; research 267 community-orientated heritage research 212 conceptual diplomacy 279 consensus-based research 229 consent, free, prior and informed 207 conservation 39, 42 – 4, 47 – 8, 210, 224, 248 – 52, 284, 289; organizations 249 conservationism 241, 251 consultation 207 contractual research 229

296 Index cooperative research 229 corporate heritage discourse 54 – 5, 59 – 60 corporate social responsibility (CSR) 54 cosmopolitan 34, 109 Council for Ainu Policy Promotion  225 craniological research 265 Cranz, David 97 cultural: affiliation 28; and creativity 282; differences 33; ecology, paradigm of 101, 104; frontier 82; justice 288; knowledge 72; landscape 58; loss 69; property 200; protection 21; representation 25; revitalization 70, 266; rights 195, 197, 244, 259 – 60, 263, 265, 267; sensitivity 48; survival 23, 27; tourism 208 – 9; urban 290; virtue 25 culture-based rights 202, 212 Culture Wars 199 Dampier Archipelago 56 – 7 Danish-Norwegian kingdom 261 De Beers Mine 55 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples see UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Declaration on the Safeguarding of Indigenous Ancestral Burial Grounds as Sacred Sites and Cultural Landscapes 210, 211 decolonial archaeology 34 decolonization 120, 263 decolonizing: archaeology 5, 267; conservation practices 47 – 8; practice 1, 4, 64, 70 deconstruction 1, 7, 15 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) 251 descendant communities xvi, 66 – 7, 70, 196, 200, 202, 212, 219, 223 development discourse 119 dialectic: immigrant-native society 89 dichotomy: indigenous-non-indigenous 66; knowledge producer-consumer 42; nature-culture 217; San-Bantu 110, 128; Us-Them 8 digital archiving 209 discrimination 3, 21, 117, 120, 218, 244, 258, 266 discursive space 59 disenfranchisement 201

DNA studies, ancient 217 double-bind situation 175, 290 Duma clan 234 Eagle Mine 58 Eagle Rock 58 Echuya Forest Reserve 251 ecotourism 249, 251; heritage 245, 254; indigenous heritage 197, 242, 250 – 4; postcolonial  250 eMhlwazini community 236 Epi-Jomon culture 221 episteme 35 epistemic 33 – 6 epistemology 192 essential indigeneity 9 essentialism 36 essentialist: identity 287; scientific ideals 7 essentialized: connection to the past 30; identity 3, 33; images 147; Indigenous status 252; representations of the Other 141; science 33 ethical principles 239 ethics 209, 252; archaeological 195; research 226, 228 ethnic: cleansing 243; culture 283, 287; groups 128, 250, 288; tradition 287 ethnicity 2, 60, 135, 197, 224; perception of 287 ethnographic: conservation 47 – 8; descriptions 261; heritage field 47; research 64, 68 – 9; turn 46 ethnography 36, 47 – 8; northern peoples’ 275 ethnohistory 128 ethnopolitical movement 197 European colonial ideologies 260, 267 evidence: archaeological 104, 106, 133, 237; scientific 202 evolutionary thinking, linear 290 evolutionism 285 expert: knowledge 23; local 39 feudalism 286 Finland 197, 259, 262, 264 – 5 First Nations 47, 116, 204 – 5, 207, 210, 233, 246 Flaherty, Robert 98 folklore 275 – 7, 279, 283, 286, 290 Francis Hopu and Tepoaitu Besserd v. France 21 – 2 Frostviken 265 fur trade 261

Index  297 Gállok 262 genocide 243 – 4 gentrification 161 – 2 Getty Conservation Institute 44 global: indigenous movement 23 – 4, 27; movement 115 Global Indigenous Movement (GIM) 23 globalization 9, 186, 283; late-capitalist 34 – 5; logic of 36 Golub, Alex 57 Gosden, Chris 7 Grace Islet 204, 205, 209 – 10,  212 Grand narrative 8 Gransjön 265 grave plundering 264 Great Barrier Reef 140, 146 – 8, 150, 152 – 3,  156 Great Lakes Africa 251 Great Zimbabwe 119 – 20, 127 Green, Carina 284 Greenland 97 – 103 Hall, Stuart xi handicraft 283 hegemony 111, 127, 188 Heiltsuk 21 heritage 10, 212, 217, 219, 245, 258, 276, 278, 283, 287; benefits from 200; bodies 55; category 272; collective rights claims 27 – 9; concept of 195; conceptualization 283; construction of 5; contested 4, 195, 197, 258; destruction of 80; discourse 43, 57, 109; discourses of 59 – 60; as evidence 19 – 20; harms 204; holders 217; as a human right 200; immaterial 110, 175, 183; industry 58; intangible 200 – 1, 208, 217, 280, 282, 284, 288 – 9; justice 25; legal approaches 20 – 2; legislation 208, 210, 282; living 4, 75; local 91; local values and needs 203; management 39, 41 – 3, 48 – 9, 195 – 7, 200, 258, 267; national 88 – 9, 92; ownership 287; paradigm 42; participation in 19; perception 290; policies 202; political use of 26 – 7; politics of 272; practices 47; preservation laws and policies 201; protection 202, 206; research 197 – 8, 200 – 1; resources 223; rights claims 26; scientific 265; site 285; studies 208; subjects 38, 40 – 1; tangible 72, 201, 208, 288; tourism 197; unequal

access to 200; utilization of 219 – 20; values 38, 45, 48, 200, 212; world 24, 87, 90 – 1 Heritage Diamond Route 55 High Arctic resettlement 105 history: contested 4, 195, 197, 258; doing 104; local 64, 159, 162, 166, 266; presenting 60; reconnecting with 71; retelling of 55; and state power 26 – 7; therapeutic  30 Hoffman, Martin 264 Hokkaido 218, 221 – 2, 224, 226, 228 – 9 Hokkaido University 224; Faculty of Medicine 224 Honshu 222, 227 – 8 host communities 219, 229 House of Culture 276 human remains 5, 35, 196, 208, 210, 224 – 5,  258 human rights 19, 23 – 7, 30 – 1, 199 – 201, 252, 254; in relation to heritage 202 Human Rights Committee 21 human rights movement 22 hunter-gatherer society 116, 222 Hutu 243 – 4 hybridity 8, 66; cultural 7 ICMM 59 ICUN 55 identity 199, 212, 242; building 88; collective 19, 31; concepts of 1; constructions of 53, 248; cultural 144 – 5, 150, 153, 176; dialectic 89; global 97; national 25, 89, 177, 251; notions of xvi; politics 43; sense of 75; social 24 ILO 169 Convention 259 image, photographic 140 – 1, 152 – 4 immaterial 7, 175 – 6, 183 immigrant: society 90 immigrant/immigration 23, 89, 99, 128, 135 – 6, 163, 165, 237 imperialism 20, 46, 127; cultural 26 Indian Rock 164 – 5, 167 indigeneity 1 – 3, 6, 9, 26, 64, 196 – 9, 236 – 7, 258, 262, 267 indigenization, Soviet 278 I/indigenous 2, 8 – 9, 33 – 7, 53, 64 – 8, 97 – 8, 104 – 5, 199, 233, 238, 242, 247, 253; authority 196; backgrounds 236; being 113, 242 – 3, 245; category 279; communities

298 Index 196, 206, 212; concept of 64 – 5, 97; conceptualization of 34; conservation 44; consultation with xvii; cultural heritage 195, 224; cultural rights 265; culture 275 – 6, 277, 286, 289; economy 277; epistemologies of 113, 121; expert 39; groups 243 – 4, 279; groups, agency of 288; heritage 1, 10, 43, 46, 53, 142 – 3, 175, 199, 201, 207, 209, 218, 228, 265; history 29, 71, 140, 150, 265; the idea of 36; identity 90, 110, 116, 117, 236 – 7, 252; intelligentsia 278; international vs. colloquial concept of 116; knowledge 5, 20, 113 – 14, 119, 207; land and cultural rights 197; material culture 276; methodological and ethical framework 208; notion of 33 – 6; partnership with 212; performing 197; perspective xvii; protection of 285; rights 5, 114, 116 – 17, 195 – 6, 198 – 9, 210, 218, 245, 262; self-determination 196; societies 89 – 90, 97, 201, 217; studies 252, 254; tradition 287; voices 38, 41 – 3, 46 – 7; worldview 9,  203 Indigenous archaeology xvi – xvii, 2, 4 – 8, 65 – 7, 113 – 14, 206, 226, 268; critics of 206 Indigenous movement 35, 265, 285 Indigenous peoples xvii, 2 – 5, 7 – 9, 17, 20, 23, 26, 53, 65, 67, 70, 90, 97, 104 – 5, 109, 113 – 14, 116 – 17, 119 – 20, 135, 140 – 1, 144, 153, 155, 175 – 7, 192, 196, 199, 200 – 7, 209 – 10, 212, 217 – 20, 223 – 9, 232 – 4, 236 – 9, 245 – 8, 253, 258, 265, 276, 277, 282, 284 – 7, 289; inclusion of 201; in Russia 282; special rights 275, 286 Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC) 244 – 5 Indigenous rights movement 250,  252 inequality 196 – 7,  207 intellectual property 208; laws 201; rights 229 Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural heritage (IPinCH project) 196, 208, 210 International Council on Mining and Metal 55

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 21 International Society of Ethnobiology 210 Inuit 68, 76, 97 – 106; art industry 99; culture 98; history 97, 99; language 100; people 207, 237; societies 97 Inuktituut 100 Inuvialuit 209 Inuvialuit Pitqusiit Inuuniarutait, Inuvial Living History website 209 Iron Age 266 Iron Curtain 258 isangoma 235 ISIS 204 Israel 80 – 92 Jämtland 265 Japan 196, 218 – 21, 224, 227; diet 218; government 225 Japanese archaeology 196 Jewish identity 83 Jokkmokk 262 Jomon: culture 222, 227; period 222; tradition 221 justice lobbying 24 Kampala 253 Karolinska institutet 265 Kennewick Man 28 – 9 Kenya 247 – 9,  253 Keweenaw Bay Indian Community 58 Keweenaw National Historic Park 58 Khoisan 117, 237 Kineusu kotan 224 Kiruna 261, 262 knowledge: archaeological 20, 27, 33; claims xvii; consumers 38, 42; cultural 72; disciplinary 33; producers 38, 42, 54, 59; production 203; research-based 21; rights 22; shared 47; system 22, 29 – 30; traditional 208 – 9; traditional and local 266; transmission of 25, 46 Kola Peninsula 197, 274, 279, 287 – 8 Komi 287 Krasnoshchel’e 274 Kuper, Adam 106 Lake Manyara 249 Lake Victoria 248 land rights 195, 250, 260, 262, 266 – 7; claims 59

Index  299 Langton, Marcia 59, 150, 154 Laos 175 – 83 Laponia, UNESCO World Heritage Site 197, 273, 284, 288 – 9 Lapponia, by Johannes Schefferus 261, 264 learning, shared 45 legal particularism 20 – 1 legislation 202, 282; international 286; national 282 Linnaeus, Carl 264 local community 66, 72, 178; communities 4, 54, 57, 120 – 1, 192, 197, 234, 238 – 9, 258, 266, 287 Lovozero 274, 278, 281 Lundin Mining Company 58 McGhee, Robert 6, 206 Maasai 118, 197, 241 – 2, 247 – 9, 254; communities 248; conservation 250; Laikipiak 247; tourism 247 – 8 Maasailand 248 – 9 Maasai Mara 249 McGhee, Robert 6, 206 McNiven, Ian 6 Madagascar 54 Malaurie, Jean 99 Malmberget 261 Maloti-Drakensberg Park 235 Mapungubwe National Park 40 – 1 marginalization 197, 289 marginalized: groups 117 Marxist materialist thinking 275 material culture 109, 110, 272, 276, 281, 286 materiality 35, 120, 181, 187 Mathiassen, Therkel 99, 100 Métis people 207 Mgahinga forests 251 Mgahinga Gorilla National Park  251 Michigan Department of Environmental Quality 58 Middle Ages 261 migrants/migration 119, 127, 135 – 6, 153, 233, 243 mineral resources, exploitation of 261 mining 54 – 9, 178 – 81, 261 – 2 minority groups 3, 81, 88, 92, 117,  283 Minority Rights Group International 251 Minthorn, Armand 29

missionary activities 261 Mnweni 235 modernist: development 290; ideology 290 modernity 34, 36, 275 modernization processes 275 Mombassa 248 Mon-Khmer 176 – 82 Morales, Evo 26 Mountain gorillas 251 Mthethwa, Nkosinathi 238 Mukuto 209 multiculturalism 186, 191 multicultural states 209 Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation 56 – 7 Murujuga National Park 56 – 7 museum 47, 225, 259, 264, 266, 276; collections 208; virtual 209 Musqueam Nation 209 Nabatean: culture 80 – 2; kingdom 81 – 2 Nairobi 249, 253 Nanook of the North 98, 105 narrative: alternative 8; different 75; historical 109 – 10, 228; master 60; national 87, 90; new 19 Nasafjäll silver mine 263, 263 National Museum of the American Indian Act (NMAI) 224 National Park of Avdat 83, 91 Native American 28, 66, 116, 159 – 72, 225, 237 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) 28, 225 nativism 36 natural environment 280, 281 natural resources: exploitation of 197; extraction 261, 289 Negev, Avraham 81 – 2 Negev, UNESCO World Heritage Site 87 Negev desert 80 – 2, 91 Négritude movement 8 Neiden, Orthodox churchyard 265 Nelson, Edward 68 Nelson, Jimmy 53 – 4 Nenets 287 neocolonialism 241, 243 Ngorongoro Conservation Area 249 – 50 NGOs 287 Nicholas, George 5

300 Index Niezen, Ronald 97, 279 nomadism 274 Nordic countries 196, 265 Norrbotten 260 – 1 Norway 197, 259, 262, 264 – 5 Norwegian Resource Centre for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 248 Nunalleq 71 – 5 Nunamiut Inuit 105 obshchinas 275 Ogawa, Hidefumi 228 oKhombe 235 Okhotsk culture 228 Old Bering Sea Culture 100 Olenevod, Cooperative 274 ontology 121, 188, 191 – 2 oral: history 69, 99, 206 – 7; tradition 20, 28, 46 Other 34, 155, 175 – 7, 181, 289 otherness 36, 142, 175 – 6, 186 – 9,  191 Papua New Guinea 57 participatory: archaeology 266; conservation 47 – 8; models of heritage management 38 partnership research 20 pastoralism 116, 247 petroglyphs 55, 278 photographs 140 – 55; as colonial collections 141; as illustration and evidence 141 Plateau People’s Web-Portal 209 politics: of difference 19; of inclusion and exclusion 268; of indigenism 27; of shame 25 polyculturality 288 postcolonial 113 – 14, 120, 127, 175, 186; approaches 81; archaeologies 268; archaeology 20, 30, 206; critique 6, 19, 128; discourse 90; era 249; heritage management 41; heritage studies 41; liberation 26; postmodern 35 – 6; PR 48; theory 7 – 8, 66 – 7, 75; turn  27 post-Jomon culture 228 postmodernism 7 postmodern theories 8 post-processual archaeology 47 post-Socialist 274 post-Soviet: legacies 290; times 286; world 197

poverty 197, 253 – 4 Powell, Joseph 28 power 234; dimensions 196, 268; imbalance 1; inequalities 197; position of 54; practices, economic 282; relations 81, 199, 267; relationship, unequal 203; state 26 – 7; structures, in archaeology and heritage 200; struggles 17 preservation: of historical and cultural heritage 219 – 20; of Indigenous cultural heritage 224 Pretoria 238 primitive: economy 286; man 97 – 8; nomads 285 primordial 127; origins 28; utopism 26 primordialism 34, 36 primordialist ideas 287 privatization 275 processual archaeology 104 – 5 Progera Mine 57 proletariat 203 public archaeology 113, 206 Qanirtuuq Inc. 71 Qausuittuq 106 Quinhagak 71 – 5 race 99, 135, 145 – 6, 155, 199, 201 racial: biological research 196, 264 – 5; classification 135, 140; ideas 261 reburial 5 – 6, 196 – 7, 206, 264 – 5 Reciprocal Research Network 209 Recommendations on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore 43 reconciliation 92, 207 Regional History Museum (kraevedcheskii muzei) 277 reindeer 261, 274, 278 – 9; herders 259, 274, 278; herding 262, 272 – 81, 281, 284 – 9; husbandry 272, 275, 286, 290 reindeer-grazing lands 197, 262, 289 relatedness, theory of 187 – 8, 191 relational 120, 185, 188 – 91 religion 89, 110, 261, 263, 276; popular 176, 181 – 2 religious: ceremonies 120; encounters 264 relocation 274 Renaissance cultural movement  222

Index  301 repatriation 5 – 6, 114, 196 – 7, 206, 208, 224 – 6, 263 – 5; claims 224; guidelines 225 – 6; policies 225 rescue excavation 226 revisionism, archaeological 128 revitalization processes, cultural and linguistic 266 Rift Valley 247 – 8 Rio Tinto 55, 58, 59 Rio Tinto/QMM 54 rock-art 110, 117, 127; New Age 235; sites 233, 235 rock engravings 129 rock paintings 40, 127, 130 rock shelters 129, 130 Rounala 265 rural communities 253 Russia 276, 278, 281, 283 – 4, 288 – 90; federal law 283; legislation 272, 286 Russian Federation 197 Russian North 274 Russian state 261 R. v. Gladstone 21 Rwanda 242 – 4,  251 Ryukyu (Nansei) Islands 221 Saami see Sámi Sacred objects 181 – 2, 267 Safe spaces 4 Sámi 115, 197, 220, 237, 258 – 60, 274, 279, 287; agency, participation and opposition 267; ceremonial drums 263 – 4; communities 266; cultural heritage 264, 267; culture 259, 284, 286; ethnic politics 273; ethnic revitalization 279; ethnopolitics 278; groups 261; history 267; human remains 265, 267; identity 259; indigenous land 267; indigenous religion 263; land rights 266; language 258, 276; material culture 276; museums 267; origins 259; political movement 286; politicians 285; (pre)history 259 – 60; revival movement 278, 287; sacred sites 264 Sámi Parliament 259, 264; Norway 267; Sweden 267 Sámi people 284 – 5, 288 Sámi traditions bearers 266 Sámi village 266; system 259 San 117, 127 – 31 San-Bantu conflict/relationship 134 – 7 Sápmi 258 – 60, 262 – 3,  267

Sapporo District Court 224, 226 Satsumon culture 228 Schefferus, Johannes 261, 264 school system 261; boarding schools 276 Science Wars 199 Seagle, Caroline 54 segregation 117, 144, 153 self-definition 23 – 4 self-determination 5 – 6, 196, 258 – 9,  262 self-identification 97 self-identified 24, 242 self-representation 22, 186 Semliki National Park 251 Serengeti National Park 249 Setauket, New York 110 settler: countries 200 – 1; community 115, 116; nations 203; states 209; states, postcolonial 243 – 4 Severo Reales 187 – 8, 190, 192 Shiraoi 226 sieidi 263 sieidi-stones 264 Silbojokk silver mine 263 Silliman, Steven 19 – 20 silver 261 Simon Fraser University 196 Sivan, Renee 84, 86, 87 skin color 140, 144 – 6, 152 – 4 Skolt Sámi 265 slum tours 253 social: engineering 275; exclusion 197; justice 201; organization 276; problems 286 social Darwinist ideas 261 Society for American Archaeology 210 Soejvengeelle’s grave 265 “soft law” 20, 22 Somenos Creek 205 South Africa 55, 233 – 4, 237 – 8 Southampton 223 South Sámi area 266 Soviet 273, 275, 287, 283; conceptualizations of indigenous culture 272; development discourse 287; ethnography 275; ideologists 286; ideology 197; politics 275; Sámi intelligentsia 276; state 275 spiritual: culture 276; heritage 175 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty xi, 7, 9, 175 stakeholders 38, 41, 44 – 5, 46, 54, 208, 219; as a category in heritage

302 Index 43; consultation 39 – 41, 44, 46; legitimization 46; marginalized 45, 48 Stefansson, Vilhjalmur 98 stewardship: policies and practices 203 Sto:lo Nation 209 Stockholm 259, 264 Stone Age 98 – 9, 129, 260, 278 strategic essentialism 7, 9 subaltern: consciousness 33 Subarctic 280 sub-Saharan Africa 113, 116 – 18 subsistence practices 68 Sweden 197, 258 – 9, 264 – 5, 267, 284; College of Antiquities 264; northern 260; self-image 260; self-understanding 260 Swedish: archaeology 260; Church 261, 264; Crown 264; expansion 261; kingdom 261 symbol 275 symbolic meaning 280 Tahiti, French Polynesia 21 – 2 Tanganyika 248 Tanganyikan Maasai 248 Tanzania 247, 249 – 50 Tarangire 249 Tärna 265 technology, prehistoric Eskimo and Inuit 102 Temple of Kalasasaya 26 temporalities 289 Terra Nullius 154 theatrical performances 245, 247 third generation rights 19 third space 33 – 4 Thule: culture 101 – 2; migration 101; technology 102 Tiwanaku 26 – 7 Torres Strait Islander Cultural Heritage Act 225 tourism 241, 245, 249; see also cultural, tourism; ecotourism tradition: concept of 286 traditional: craftsmanship 280; economy 287 transnational 109, 115 Tsavo 249 tundra 274, 278, 280 Tundra, Cooperative 274, 278, 281 Tutsi 243; genocide 244 Uganda 242, 251, 253; Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Heritage, Uganda 251

Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) 251 UK 288 U’mistra Cultural Society 209 UN 114, 116 unconventional 159, 161 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) 23, 43, 195, 201, 210, 225, 244, 265 underground 159, 161 – 2, 189 un-disciplining 8, 187, 191 – 3 UNESCO 55, 274, 279 – 85, 288 – 9; Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage 42; Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict 42; Convention on the Means of Prohibiting the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property 42; Convention on the Protection of the Intangible Cultural Heritage 43; Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expression 43; definition of intangible cultural heritage 283; heritage policies 280; Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity 202; World Heritage 279; World Heritage, List 284 – 5; World Heritage, Site 223, 273 Union of BC Indian Chiefs 210 United Nations 201, 245; General Assembly 225 Universal Declaration of Cultural Diversity 43 University of British Colombia’s Museum of Anthropology 209 University of Oslo, Anatomical Institute 265 University of Tokyo 221 unlearning 161, 171 unofficial heritage 47 Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan 5 – 8 Uppsala University 261, 264 – 5; Department of Anatomy 265 US 28 – 9, 224 – 5, 236 – 7; Archaeological Resources Protection Act 225; Mission in Uganda 251; National Historic Preservation Act 225 value-based assessment 39 – 41, 45 Västerbotten 265 Venice Charter 43 Vermillion Accord 33

Index  303 violence: against history 204; definition of 205 – 6 Vuollerim 260 Warumungu community 209 Watkins, Joe 229 websites, as cultural hubs 209 well-being 212 Western: archaeological science 4, 113; construction 65; imperialism 46; knowledge 34; method and theory 1; model 287; needs 210; notion of heritage 207; perspective 6; position of dominance 47; science 33; scientific theory 6; self 34, 36; stereotypes 199; symbolic place 92; values 203; viewpoint 226; worldviews 9 Western and Indigenous societies 201 Western Australia 56 – 7 Western-centric position 20

Western Europe 222 Why Cultural Heritage Matters 55, 59 – 60 Wobst, Martin 224, 226 – 7 Woodside LNG 56 works, copper 261 World Archaeological Congress (WAC) 33, 195, 223; WAC first code of ethics 33 World Health Organization 205 World Intellectual Property Organization 201 World Reindeer Herders’ Congress  272 Yayoi: culture 221; period 222 Yup’ik 64, 68, 70 – 5; cultural heritage 70 – 1, 75; culture 69 – 70,  72 Zionist: heritage 92; ideology 89; narrative 83; national archaeology 80