August 10, 2001, 10:13 p.m.
I worry all the time. I worry that I underestimate myself. I worry
that I overestimate myself. I worry that either of these tendencies are
immediately apparent and off-putting to those around me. I worry that I
will never be able to present myself as calm and collected, rather than
the spazz I truly am. I worry that I'm a bad bullshitter, and I worry
therefore I will fail as a player in the academic world. I worry that I
am not cunning enough, savvy enough, or ambitious enough. I worry that I
tell myself lies about my ability. I worry that I take my
responsibilities too seriously, and thus I will never be satisfied with
my teaching or my scholarship. I worry that I do not take these
seriously enough. I worry about spreading myself too thin. I worry about
not doing more. And I worry about how I might balance
practical efficacy with political meaningfulness, and if it's even
possible.
9:50 p.m.
The ecological immobility of the native...can be
considered in the context of a broader conflation of culture and people,
nation and nature --a conflation that is incarcerating but also heroizing and extremely
romantic.
On a certain North American university campus, anthropology faculty
were requested by the Rainforest Action Movement (RAM) Committee on
Indigenous Peoples to announce in their classes that "October 21st
through the 28th is World Rainforest Week. The Rainforest Action
Movement will be kicking the week off with a candlelight vigil for
Indigenous Peoples." (The flyer also lists other activities: a march
through downtown, a lecture "on Indigenous Peoples," and a film) One is,
of course, sympathetic with the project of defending the rainforests and
the people who live in them, in the face of tremendous threats. The
intent is not to belittle or deny the necessity of supranational
political organizing around these issues. However, these activities on
behald of "the Indigenous," in the specific cultural forms they
take, raise a number of questions: Why should the rights of "Indigenous
People" be seen as an "environmental issue? Are people "rooted" in their
native soil somehow more natural, their rights somehow more sacred, than
those of other exploited and oppressed people? And one wonders, if an
"Indigenous Person" wanted to move away, to a city, would his or her
candle be extinguished? The dicates of ecological immobility weigh
heavily here.
But something more is going on with the "Indigenous People's Day."
That people would gather in a small town in North America to hold a
vigil by candlelight for other people know only by the name of
"Indigenous" suggests that being indigenous, native, autochtonous, or
otherwise rooted in place is, indeed, powerfully heroized. At the same
time, it is hard not to see that this very heroization --fusing the
faraway people with their forest-- may have the effect of subtly
animalizing while it spiritualizes. Like "the wildlife," the indigenous
are an object of enquiry and imagination not only for the anthropologist
but also for the naturalist, the environmentalist, and the tourist.
-- by Liisa Malkki, "National Geographic," 1992