Description
Book SynopsisFrom a grandmother’s inter-generational care to the strategic and slow consensus work of elected tribal leaders, Indigenous community builders perform the daily work of culture and communalism.
Indigenous Communalism conveys age-old lessons about culture, communalism, and the universal tension between the individual and the collective. It is also a critical ethnography challenging the moral and cultural assumptions of a hyper-individualist, twenty-first century global society.
Told in vibrant detail, the narrative of the book conveys the importance of communalism as a value system present in all human groups and one at the center of Indigenous survival. Carolyn Smith-Morris draws on her work among the Akimel O'odham and the Wiradjuri to show how communal work and culture help these communities form distinctive Indigenous bonds. The results are not only a rich study of Indigenous relational lifeways, but a serious inquiry to the continuing acculturative atmosphere that Indigenous communities struggle to resist. Recognizing both positive and negative sides to the issue, she asks whether there is a global Indigenous communalism. And if so, what lessons does it teach about healthy communities, the universal human need for belonging, and the potential for the collective to do good?
Trade Review“Inspiring and thought provoking,
Indigenous Communalism is both an innovative ethnography of communalism and collectivist life and a conveyor of critical hope for our times. We move with the author along a compelling journey committed to Indigenous rights but also to viewing humanity’s future through the lens of Indigeneity, open to the possibility (if not necessity) of transforming the divisive politics that defines our individualist age into a more socially just communalist world.” -- Mark K. Watson * author of Japan’s Ainu Minority in Tokyo: Diasporic Indigeneity and Urban Politics *
“Indigenous Communalism can serve as an introduction to those interested in indigenous studies, southern epistemologies, and decolonial thinking, as a resource for moving forward contemporary social theory, and as a complement to global south proposals by showing that it is in the complex realm of hybridity and diversity where struggles for sense making take place.” -- César Abadía-Barrero * author of I Have AIDS but I am Happy: Children’s Subjectivities, AIDS and Social Responses in Brazil *
Table of ContentsPreface Positioning
Acknowledgements
Introduction To Begin, What is Communalism?
Politics of Indigeneity - What is Indigenous?
or
Terms, Frames, and Representations
Why is Communalism Missing
The Dangers of Communalism
Communalism and Health
Community with the Name ‘Gila River’
Committing to Communal Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Outline of the Book
Chapter 1 - Belonging Introductions
Relationships and Being Present
Building Consensus
An Introduction to Communalism
The Dangers of Communalism
The Touchstones of Belonging
Conclusion - More than Membership
Chapter 2 - Generation Individuals in a Communal Context
Western Individualism
Pima Individualism(s)
Generating Community Out of Individuals
Chapter 3 - Representation Authority and Representation
Representing Communal Knowledge
Representation & Race - Communal Genetics
Representing Indigenous Diversity
Chapter 4 - Hybridity Hybridity and Human Community
Extremes of Communalism
Individual/Communal Conflict at Gila River
Theories of Hybridity and Divisibility
The Communal Individual
Protecting the Communal Individual
Chapter 5 - Asserting Communalism Case 1 - Communalism in Research
Case 2 - Communalism and the Body
Case 3 - Communalism in Healing
Fostering Communalism
Chapter 6 - Indigenous Communalism - Global Implications Is There a Global Indigenous Communalism?
Place
Global Indigenous Communalism
Foundations in Place
Communalism and Rights
Conclusion - Representing Communalism
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index
