The Latin American Studies program and the Department of Romance Languages presented an all-day symposium Friday, titled "Indigenous Movements and Intellectuals in the Americas."
Speakers discussed the growing role of political activism in native communities, both within the societies themselves and on a formal governmental level, as indigenous people seek increased representation for their people and their cultures.
The day consisted of three panels and a keynote speaker. The topics of the three panels were Collaborative Articulations: The Challenges of Engaged Anthropology; Politics of Recognition: Media, Arts, and Cultural Revival; and Post-Colonial Encounters: Decolonizing Epistemologies and Politics.
Speakers on the panels included professors from Tufts as well as from institutions such as Cornell University, Harvard University and Peru's Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.
Stefano Varese, Chair of the Native American Studies Department and Director of the Indigenous Research Center of the Americas at the University of California, Davis, was the keynote speaker at the symposium. History Professor Peter Winn introduced Varese in a speech outlining a body of work encompassing over 100 publications, and praised Varese's endeavors as "a model of engaged anthropology."
Varese's speech addressed friction between indigenous anthropologists and people in Peru, a relationship marked by broken dialogue and refusal by each side to acknowledge the other.
In 1971, a stronger relationship began to emerge, and in 1997, for the first time, serious talks between Latin American anthropologists and indigenous people began to take place, Varese said. He emphasized how the indigenous population wanted to establish social equality "on the basis of difference and diversity."
The speech moved to the academic nature of anthropology and its connection with indigenous peoples. Varese noted the different functions of anthropology, saying how indigenous people "use anthropology as a tool borrowed from the dominant society."
Universities could serve a crucial role in incorporating indigenous viewpoints into a greater cultural context, but have fallen short, Varese said. He pointed out that the University of Mexico has a population of nearly 300,000 students, many of them of indigenous background, but does little to lend them a voice.
"There is no native center of study," Varese said, underscoring this point with the lack of opportunities to learn the native Zapotec language in a formal university setting.
"If you want to learn Zapotec you have to ask a native student to sit down with you and teach you Zapotec," he said.
Yet there is still an effort, he said, to organize education programs "along the issue of decolonization." There has also been a movement of ethnogenesis, which has led to the revival of many indigenous cultures.
Varese concluded on a hopeful note, and said that indigenous anthropologists are pooling their resources to make the world "a better one than we have found."
"What better place for academic anthropologists to put their efforts?" he said.
The event was co-sponsored by the departments of American Studies, Anthropology, International Relations, Latino Studies, Native American Studies and World Civilizations and received funding from the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, the Dean of Arts and Sciences Office, the Arts and Sciences Diversity Fund and the Smith Fund.
