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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.102244 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Kalshoven, Petra Tjitske. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Anthropology.) |
| Rights | © Petra Tjitske Kalshoven, 2006 |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002571938, proquestno: AAINR27795, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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