University of Wisconsin Press, 1998 Paper: 978-0-299-16044-9 | Cloth: 978-0-299-16040-1 Library of Congress Classification F2519.3.G6R35 1998 Dewey Decimal Classification 305.800981
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Indigenous people comprise only 0.2% of Brazil's population, yet occupy a prominent role in the nation's consciousness. In her important and passionate new book, anthropologist Alcida Ramos explains this irony, exploring Indian and non-Indian attitudes about interethnic relations. Ramos contends that imagery about indigenous people reflects an ambivalence Brazil has about itself as a nation, for Indians reveal Brazilians’ contradiction between their pride in ethnic pluralism and desire for national homogeneity.
Based on her more than thirty years of fieldwork and activism on behalf of the Yanomami Indians, Ramos explains the complex ideology called indigenism. She evaluates its meaning through the relations of Brazilian Indians with religious and lay institutions, non-governmental organizations, official agencies such as the National Indian Foundation as well as the very discipline of anthropology. Ramos not only examines the imagery created by Brazilians of European descent—members of the Catholic church, government officials, the army and the state agency for Indian affairs—she also scrutinizes Indians' own self portrayals used in defending their ethnic rights against the Brazilian state.
Ramos’ thoughtful and complete analysis of the relation between indigenous people of Brazil and the state will be of great interest to lawmakers and political theorists, environmental and civil rights activists, developmental specialists and policymakers, and those concerned with human rights in Latin America.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Alcida Rita Ramos is professor of anthropology at the University of Brasilia. She has defended indigenous peoples, particularly Yanomami, acting as expert witness to the Brazilian Attorney General's Office and as mediator between the Sanumá and emergency medical teams working to combat epidemic malaria. She is the author of Sanumá Memories: Yanomami Ethnography in Times of Crisis, also published by the University of Wisconsin Press, and two other books.
REVIEWS
“A gem. The chapters work together beautifully to build up a sophisticated understanding of indigenism in Brazil. . . . Ramos provides vivid detail and anecdote, but also writes in a way that links the ‘indigenous culture wars’ of Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s to battles over citizenship and cultural difference in many parts of the world.”—Jane L. Collins, University of Wisconsin–Madison
“Indigenism is timely, original, and a valuable contribution to the subject of interethnic politics. I can think of no other current book in English that brings together so many facets on this topic in Brazil.”—Catherine V. Howard, Vanderbilt University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Least but Not Last
The Fundamental Question
Hard Facts
Defining Indigenism
Reading This Book
Writing This Book
Part I:
Setting the Stage
1.
Keywords for Prej udice
Child
Heathen
Nomad
Primitive
Savage
2.
The Paradise That Never Was
The Noble Savage in Three Acts
The Civilizing Project and Its Contradictions
Part II:
Speaking to the Whiteman
3.
The Indian against the State
Universalism and Relativism
Universalism and Citizenship
Citizenship and Ethnicity
Indigenism: The Fourth Voice
The Russell Tribunal: The Indian against the State
Indian as Political Banner
4.
Indian Voices
Listen, White!
The Symbolism of Contact
Parts or Whole?
Interethnic Indian: A Political Actor in Search of a Role
Figures of Interethnic Speech
Part III:
Speaking through the Indians
5.
Seduced and Abandoned
The Weapons of Seduction
Positivism, Brazilian Style
State against Society?
The Indians in a Benevolent State of Cordial Men
6.
The Specter of Nations within the Nation
Birth and Growth of the Indian Movement
Officialdom Reacts
The Nature of the Brazilian State
Practice in Theory
Theory in Practice
Controlling the Collective Individual
In Search of the Universal Collective
7.
Development Does Not Rhyme with Indian, or Does It?
Five Hundred Years of "Development"
The Roaring Seventies
The Bright Golden Eighties
The Pragmatic Nineties
Frontiers Unbounded
8.
No Man's Land, Everybody's Business
Amazonia, the Invidious Void
A Residue of Brazil
The Mined Fields of Amazonia under National Security
The Calha Norte Project
Goose Steps in the Jungle
A Political Economy of Waste
9.
Legal Weapons of Conquest
Dawes Act, Brazilian Style
A True-False Test for Indianness
Guarding the Guardian
Deconstructing the Constitution
10.
The Hyperreal Indian
An Affair to Remember
The End of "Communitas"
En Route to the Office
From Generic to Domesticated Indian
Intimate Enemy or Remote Friend?
Suspicion
Conclusion: What Would We Do without Them?
References
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
University of Wisconsin Press, 1998 Paper: 978-0-299-16044-9 Cloth: 978-0-299-16040-1
Indigenous people comprise only 0.2% of Brazil's population, yet occupy a prominent role in the nation's consciousness. In her important and passionate new book, anthropologist Alcida Ramos explains this irony, exploring Indian and non-Indian attitudes about interethnic relations. Ramos contends that imagery about indigenous people reflects an ambivalence Brazil has about itself as a nation, for Indians reveal Brazilians’ contradiction between their pride in ethnic pluralism and desire for national homogeneity.
Based on her more than thirty years of fieldwork and activism on behalf of the Yanomami Indians, Ramos explains the complex ideology called indigenism. She evaluates its meaning through the relations of Brazilian Indians with religious and lay institutions, non-governmental organizations, official agencies such as the National Indian Foundation as well as the very discipline of anthropology. Ramos not only examines the imagery created by Brazilians of European descent—members of the Catholic church, government officials, the army and the state agency for Indian affairs—she also scrutinizes Indians' own self portrayals used in defending their ethnic rights against the Brazilian state.
Ramos’ thoughtful and complete analysis of the relation between indigenous people of Brazil and the state will be of great interest to lawmakers and political theorists, environmental and civil rights activists, developmental specialists and policymakers, and those concerned with human rights in Latin America.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Alcida Rita Ramos is professor of anthropology at the University of Brasilia. She has defended indigenous peoples, particularly Yanomami, acting as expert witness to the Brazilian Attorney General's Office and as mediator between the Sanumá and emergency medical teams working to combat epidemic malaria. She is the author of Sanumá Memories: Yanomami Ethnography in Times of Crisis, also published by the University of Wisconsin Press, and two other books.
REVIEWS
“A gem. The chapters work together beautifully to build up a sophisticated understanding of indigenism in Brazil. . . . Ramos provides vivid detail and anecdote, but also writes in a way that links the ‘indigenous culture wars’ of Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s to battles over citizenship and cultural difference in many parts of the world.”—Jane L. Collins, University of Wisconsin–Madison
“Indigenism is timely, original, and a valuable contribution to the subject of interethnic politics. I can think of no other current book in English that brings together so many facets on this topic in Brazil.”—Catherine V. Howard, Vanderbilt University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Least but Not Last
The Fundamental Question
Hard Facts
Defining Indigenism
Reading This Book
Writing This Book
Part I:
Setting the Stage
1.
Keywords for Prej udice
Child
Heathen
Nomad
Primitive
Savage
2.
The Paradise That Never Was
The Noble Savage in Three Acts
The Civilizing Project and Its Contradictions
Part II:
Speaking to the Whiteman
3.
The Indian against the State
Universalism and Relativism
Universalism and Citizenship
Citizenship and Ethnicity
Indigenism: The Fourth Voice
The Russell Tribunal: The Indian against the State
Indian as Political Banner
4.
Indian Voices
Listen, White!
The Symbolism of Contact
Parts or Whole?
Interethnic Indian: A Political Actor in Search of a Role
Figures of Interethnic Speech
Part III:
Speaking through the Indians
5.
Seduced and Abandoned
The Weapons of Seduction
Positivism, Brazilian Style
State against Society?
The Indians in a Benevolent State of Cordial Men
6.
The Specter of Nations within the Nation
Birth and Growth of the Indian Movement
Officialdom Reacts
The Nature of the Brazilian State
Practice in Theory
Theory in Practice
Controlling the Collective Individual
In Search of the Universal Collective
7.
Development Does Not Rhyme with Indian, or Does It?
Five Hundred Years of "Development"
The Roaring Seventies
The Bright Golden Eighties
The Pragmatic Nineties
Frontiers Unbounded
8.
No Man's Land, Everybody's Business
Amazonia, the Invidious Void
A Residue of Brazil
The Mined Fields of Amazonia under National Security
The Calha Norte Project
Goose Steps in the Jungle
A Political Economy of Waste
9.
Legal Weapons of Conquest
Dawes Act, Brazilian Style
A True-False Test for Indianness
Guarding the Guardian
Deconstructing the Constitution
10.
The Hyperreal Indian
An Affair to Remember
The End of "Communitas"
En Route to the Office
From Generic to Domesticated Indian
Intimate Enemy or Remote Friend?
Suspicion
Conclusion: What Would We Do without Them?
References
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE