We've been talking a lot about rhetorical sovereignty and what role it plays or should play in the imparting of Native stories and struggles. Issues of rhetorical sovereignty ask several questions. Do Native peoples have exclusive rights to their stories, identities, and struggles--to fight their own fights, in essence? Do white people as the majority have a responsibility to aid them in their struggles? Or do we have the responsibility to get the hell out of their business? Most interestingly, what is the role of the anthropologist, who must categorize an entire peoples, but also has a duty to support understanding of who those peoples really are?
I realize that I've already posted about rhetorical sovereignty, but, as I'm taking an anthropology class right now, I'm becoming interested in the unique role of the anthropologist, who must stay objective and categorize groups of people, things that can be detrimental to the advancement of a people, especially groups as heterogeneous as Native American nations.
From reading an ethnography on the !Kung people of Botswana, I have noticed that recording aspects of the lives of a group of people requires much generalization and categorization. Practices, relationships, religions, and other aspects of daily life must be generalized so as to be easily understood by outsiders. Generalization is nearly essential for understanding. At the same time, generalization limits understanding. Individuals in any group are still individuals, not homogeneous automatons who all share the same exact understanding of the world. No reasonable person would categorize a country such as the USA in this way, whose different states sometimes seem like different countries, so why should people in the US categorize others in such a generalized fashion? It's certainly easier for us, but is it helpful for the group being studied?
To have an opinion on the latter question, one must consider whether it's better to have a vague understanding of a people or no understanding at all. I would argue that at least some understanding helps, but, as an addendum to this understanding, one must be aware that this is merely a generalization, that no group is homogeneous. As long as this is understood, anthropology could be helpful for Native American nations and other marginalized or misunderstood groups.
As humans (or at least most people), we seem to have a need to categorize. We want everything to make sense, so we compartmentalize in order to facilitate our understanding of the world. Further, our tendency to judge is evolutionary; as animals we HAVE to judge in order to survive, and every species does it to one extent or another. The difficulty in this predicament is determining whether or not it is necessary to judge or generalize based on the man-made constructs of race, gender, etc. It is impossible to generalize accurately because every single human is different, regardless of their race, nationality, gender, or socioeconomic status. While cultures or subcultures may have general similarities that unite them, they are not universal or authentic truths, and not indigenous only to people in those groups. Further, one individual may relate to various groups. The "hippie" thing to say would be simply DON'T JUDGE. But as this is not realistic, I would say, judge with caution, and with the understanding that generalizations are just that: generalizations. And they must be taken with a grain of salt. -Amber Khallouf
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