Complicities and Collaborations

Abstract

California's statehood and assimilation into the United States during the 19th century were accompanied by genocide against the indigenous population; among those peoples that survived, a large number were officially erased by a federal policy of non‐recognition in which anthropologists and anthropological knowledge played a role. At the end of the 20th century the descendants of these peoples, the "unacknowledged tribes," are engaged in struggles both to gain federal recognition and to revive their languages and cultural heritage, processes in which anthropologists once again are involved. This paper explores the relationships between the unacknowledged tribes and anthropologists in both eras, focusing upon the mixture of essentialist and constructionist approaches to indigenous identity which underlies contemporary collaborations between indigenous intellectuals and leaders and anthropologist interlocutors.