Indian hobbyism, or Indianism, is an expression of a typically European fascination with Native American peoples which involves crafting "museum-quality replicas" of clothing and artifacts as well as reenactment of slices of Native American nineteenth-century life by non-Native practitioners in an effort to produce knowledge and meaningful experience through experimentation. Drawing on fieldwork data collected in 2003 and 2004 among play communities of Indian hobbyists in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and the Czech Republic, I formulate an understanding of the social, performative, and mimetic dynamics of this phenomenon by conceiving of Indianist practices as forms of play that constantly shift between different play frames. In terms of knowledge production, I argue that the Indian hobby provides a space in which different (epistemological) traditions meet, as Indian hobbyists draw on, and enact, a hybrid reservoir of indigenous and European knowledge systems and art forms. Especially interesting is the relationship between Indianism and the dynamics of museal display in the West, both historically and contemporaneously. In general, I found that two different approaches to the right way of representing may be distinguished in Indianist methodological practice: a "Renaissance" and a "Translational" mode. / Because of its striking mimetic aspects, Indianism raises questions of identity play and cultural appropriation. An important element of the hobbyist quest for knowledge and experience consists in investing the self in an "other" in ways that elicit criticism from outsiders, including anthropologists. Indian hobbyism is a controversial example of "playing at" cultures that (by all conventional standards) belong elsewhere and to someone else, providing interesting insights for debates on identity politics and the construction of "race"---also among Indianists themselves. Rather than longing to embody someone else's identity, however, Indianists, almost in spite of themselves, enact a social world that is filled with action and life in their European present. Indianist practice and desire for authenticity revolve around craftsmanship and reenactment, resulting in skillful replicas, in the here and now.

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Orientador: John Manuel Monteiro / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-04T22:03:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CasasMendoza_CarlosAlberto_D.pdf: 3717468 bytes, checksum: 6008cb691d4e6d4f5d7a9dd120bfcca2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: Esta pesquisa procura analisar os processos de construção do nacionalismo e a forma como nesses processos foram articuladas as populações indígenas de dois Estados nacionais da América Latina: Brasil e México. A tese concentra-se no período que vai de 1940 até 1970; porém, na análise adota-se uma perspetiva histórica de larga duração que me permite explicar com maior profundidade, os fenômenos institucionais e sociais estudados. Junto ao nacionalismo, analiso o impacto que teve o processo de modernização, o qual se traduziu na implementação de um conjunto de técnicas e medidas institucionais orientadas por iniciativas políticas que visaram o desenvolvimento. Estes «pacotes desenvolvimentistas» foram dirigidos à reorganização sociocultural e econômica das populações indígenas. A estrutura educativa e a relação entre saberes científicos e práticas administrativas são analisadas ao longo da tese visando entender o papel que esses processos tiveram na construção das agências indigenistas de cada país. Da mesma forma, são estudados os processos concomitantes de reforço do nacionalismo e da formação de quadros de profissionais e especialistas. Em função disto, são analisadas as práticas administrativas dos «sertanistas», dos «professores rurais», dos «promotores indígenas» e dos «antropólogos», tentando entender, tanto a construção dessas categorias quanto também sua incorporação dentro das lógicas institucionais indigenistas. Finalmente, a tese aborda o desenvolvimento dos «projetos cívico morais» que serviram de plataforma para a afirmação dos discursos nacionalistas nas comunidades indígenas. Na tese é analisada a difusão desses projetos «cívico morais» e a criação de formas de representação socioculturais através de distintas mídias, como a fotografia e os curta-metragens / Abstract: This research seeks to analyze the processes of construction of nationalism and the way in which the indigenous populations of two national States of Latin America, Brazil and Mexico, where articulated into these processes. The focus of the study is a period 1940-1970; however, in order to achieve a greater depth in the explanation of the institutional and social phenomena, many times I adopt a wider historical perspective. Beside nationalism, I analyze the impact that the modernization process had. This modernization process, that ended to be a set of institutional techniques and measures oriented by political initiatives aiming development ¿known as ¿developmental packages¿¿, were addressed to the socio-cultural and economic reorganization of the indigenous populations. The educational structure of that period and the relationship between scientific knowledges and administrative practices are discussed here, sighting a better understanding of the roll of these processes in the construction of the indigenist agencies in each country. In the same spirit, two concomitant processes, that of reinforcement of nationalism and that of formation of professional staff and specialists, are studied too. In relation to this, the administrative practices of ¿sertanistas¿, of ¿rural teachers¿, of ¿promotores indigenas¿ and of ¿anthropologists¿ are also analyzed. The aim is to understand how these categories have been constructed and how they have been incorporated into indigenous institutional logics. Finally, this study explores the development of the ¿moral-civic projects¿ that served as a base for the affirmation of the nationalist discourses at the indigenous communities. The diffusion of these ¿moral-civic projects¿ and the creation of socio-cultural forms of representation through different media, as photography and documentary films, are as well analyzed. / Doutorado / Doutor em Antropologia Social