Who are the Indians? Reconceptualizing Indigenous Identity, Resistance, and the Role of Social Science in Latin America

Abstract

Social science analysis and representation of the indigenous peoples called "Indians" is undergoing an important transformation.' A new literature is challenging the more established conceptualization of indigenous peoples as precariously balanced on the precipice of cultural extinction. This body of work is represented by several of the titles grouped here for review. The newer perspectives focus on the processual nature of indigenous identities, those always transforming collective self-representations of particular social groups as indigenous. Such identities are 1. Indigenous peoples and movements in Latin America employ the term indigena as a self-description, while indio (Indian) is a deprecating term-except when used to defy hegemonic stereotypes in the same manner that words like nigger or queer are used by radicalized artists, intellectuals, and others in the United States. I am using indigenous people here as a neutral term and Indian only in an ironic and critical sense.