On Thu, Jan 24, 2002 at 10:56:56PM -0500, ravi wrote:
>
>
> thiago, thanks for your detailed response. here is an interesting bit
> from bodley which addresses some of the points you raise:
>
> reproduced from victims of progress pp16-18:
>
> --------------------------------
>
> It now seems appropriate to ask the obvious question: How do autonomous
> tribal people themselves feel about becoming participants in the progess
> of industrial civilization? Because of the power at their disposal,
> industrial peoples have become so aggressively ethnocentric that they
> have difficulty even imagining that another life style - particularly
> one based on fundamentally different premises - could possibly have
> value and personal satisfaction for the people following it. Happily
> arrogant in their own supposed cutural superiority, many industrial
> peoples assume that those in other cultures perhaps realize their
> obsolescence and inferiority and eagerly desire progress toward the
> better life. This belief persists in the face of abundant evidence that
> independent tribal peoples are not anxious to scrap their cultures and
> would rather pursue their own form of the good life undisturbed. Peoples
> who have already chosen their major cultural patterns and who have spent
> generations tailoring them to local conditions are probably not even
> concerned that another culture might be superior to theirs. Indeed, it
> can perhaps be assumed that people in any autonomous, self-reliant
> culture would prefer to be left alone. Left to their own devices, tribal
> peoples are unlikely to volunteer for civilization or acculturation.
> Instead:
>
> Acculturation has always been a matter of conquest...
> refugees from the foundering groups may adopt the standards
> of the more potent society in order to survive as individuals.
> But these are conscripts of civilization, not volunteers.
> Diamond, 1960
>
> <...>
>
> Those who glibly demand choice for tribal peoples do not seem to realize
> the problems of directly instituting such a choice, and at the same time
> they refuse to acknowledge the numerous indicators that tribal peoples
> have already chosen their own cultures instead of the progress of
> civilization. In fact, the question of choice itself is probably
> ethnocentric and irrelevant to the peoples concerned. Do we choose
> civilization? is not a question that tribal peoples would ask, because
> they in effect have already answered it. They might consider the concept
> of choosing a way of life to be as irrelevant in their own cultural
> context as asking a person if he or she would choose to be a tree.
>
> It is also difficult to ask whether tribal peoples desire civilization
> or economic development because affirmative responses will undoubtedly
> be from individuals already alienated from their own cultures by culture
> modification programs, and their views may not be representative of
> their still autonomous tribal kin.
>
> Other problems are inherent in the concept of free and informed choice.
> Even when free to choose, tribal peoples would not generally be in a
> position to know what they were choosing and would certainly not be
> given a clear picture of possible outcomes of their choice, because the
> present members of industrial cultures do not know what their own
> futures will be. Even if tribal peoples could be given a full and
> unbiased picture of what they were choosing, obtaining that information
> could destroy their freedom to choose, because participation in such an
> "educational" program might destroy their self-reliance and effectively
> deny them their right to choose their own tribal culture.
>
> <...>
>
> At this point we will again ask the question posed earlier regarding
> whether tribal people freely choose progress. This question has actually
> been answered many times by independent tribal peoples who, in
> confrontations with industrial civilization, have (1) ignored it, (2)
> avoided it, or (3) responded with defiant arrogance. Any one of these
> responses could be interpreted as a rejection of further involvement
> with progress.
>
> Many of the Australian Aborigines reportedly chose the first response in
> their early contacts with members of Western civilization. <...> Among
> contemporary tribal peoples who still retain their cultural autonomy,
> rejection of outside interference is a general phenomenon that cannot be
> ignored. The Pygmies of the Congo represent a classic case of determined
> resistance to the incursions of civilization.
>
> <...>
>
> Direct avoidance of progress represents what is a widespread,
> long-established pattern of cultural survival whose implications should
> not be ignored by those who promote culture change.
>
> Throughout South America and many other parts of the world, many
> nonhostile tribal peoples have made their attitudes toward progress
> clear by choosing to follow the Pygmies' game of hide-and-seek and
> actively avoiding all contact with outsiders. In the Philippines, a term
> meaning "those who run away" has been applied to tribal peoples who have
> chosen to flee in order to preserve their cultures from government
> influence (Keesing & Keesing, 1934).
>
> Many little-known tribal peoples scattered in isolated areas around the
> world have, in fact, managed to retain their cultural integrity and
> autonomy until recently by quietly retreating farther and farther into
> more isolated refuge areas. As the exploitative frontier has gradually
> engulfed these stubborn tribes, the outside world periodically has been
> surprised by the discovery of small pockets of unknown "Stone Age"
> peoples who have clung tenaciously to their cultures up to the last
> possible moment. <...> In South America throughout this century, many
> different groups, including the Xeta, the Kreen-a-kore in Brazil,
> various Panoan speakers such as the Amarakaeri and Amahuaka in headwater
> areas of the Peruvian Amazon, and the Akuriyo of Surinam, have been
> found using stone tools and deliberately avoiding contact with outsiders.
>
> <...>
>
> After [a] brief encounter the Akuriyo remained out of sight for nearly
> thirty years until American missionaries began to find traces of their
> camps. The missionaries were determined to make contact with them in
> order to win them for Christianity, but it was three years before they
> finally succeeded with the assistance of ten missionized Indians,
> shortwave radios, and airplanes. <...> The Indians allowed the
> missionary party to remain with them only one night. <...> The mission
> Indians sang hymns and tried to tell them about God, but the Akuriyo
> were unimpressed. According to the missionaries:
>
> The old chief commented that God must really be good. He said
> he knew nothing about Him, and that he had to leave now to get
> arrow cane.
> Schoen, 1969
>
> Obviously these people were expressing their desire to be left alone in
> the most dignified and elegant terms.
>
> <...>
>
> Whereas the Akuriyo are an example of a group avoiding contact in a
> remote area, many other examples can be cited of small tribes that have
> survived successfully on the fringes of civilized areas. One of the most
> outstanding of such cases was the discovery in 1970 that unknown bands
> of Indians were secretly living within the boundaries of the Iguazu
> Falls national park in Argentina (Bartolome, 1972).
>
> Some observers argue that these cases do not represent real rejections
> of civilization and progress because these people were given no choice
> by their hostile neigbours, who refused to share the benefits of
> civilization, and so they were forced to pretend that they didn't desire
> these benefits. Critics point out that such people often eagerly steal
> or trade for steel tools. This argument misses the real point and
> represents a misunderstanding of the nature of culture change. Stability
> and ethnocentrism are fundamental characteristics of all cutures that
> have established a satisfactory relationship with their environment.
> Some degree of change, such as adopting steel tools, may well occur to
> enhance an ongoing adaptation and to prevent greater change from occuring.
>
>
> --------------------------------
>
>
> --ravi
>
>
>
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu