Hunter-Gatherer Studies and the Millennium : A Look Forward (And Back)
Like the subjects of its study, the field of hunter-gatherers hasshown a remarkable capacity for survival. Making two thousand yearson the Christian calender may have no necessary resonance with thecalendrical systems of the Evenki, the Nayaka, the Arrente, or the Cree.Nevertheless as hunter-gathere...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English |
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国立民族学博物館
1999
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| Online Access: | https://minpaku.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=4121 http://hdl.handle.net/10502/3180 https://minpaku.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=4121&item_no=1&attribute_id=18&file_no=1 |
| Summary: | Like the subjects of its study, the field of hunter-gatherers hasshown a remarkable capacity for survival. Making two thousand yearson the Christian calender may have no necessary resonance with thecalendrical systems of the Evenki, the Nayaka, the Arrente, or the Cree.Nevertheless as hunter-gatherers (along with everybody else) are absorbedinto "global" culture, it is approprite that we take stock offoragers' present condition and future prospects, and at the same timeassess the successes and failures of the scholarly field that has developedaround them. It is remarkable that in spite of economic globalization,bureaucratic domination, and assaults on the cultural integrity of theworld' s "small peoples" something of value has persisted. Against allodds, these societies have maintained some portion of their life-worldsoutside of the capitalist world system, showing that even in this hard-bittenage of globalization other ways of being are possible.Simultaneously, indigenous peoples have emerged as actors on local,regional, and international, political stages. The challenge of the newmillennium for hunter-gatherer scholars is therefore three-fold: to appreciatehow hunter-gatherers operate in the world and yet apart from it;to respect the sheer diversity of contemporary hunter-gatherer lifewaysand adaptations, and finally to acknowledge that sound scholarship mustbe combined with ethical and political responsibility to the people whoselives we chronicle. ... |
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