Decolonizing Britain in the 21st Century?: Chagos Islanders challenge the Crown, House of Lords, 30 June-3 July 2008
This article discusses the anthropological, legal, and political significance of a recent lawsuit before the House of Lords involving the people of the UK-controlled Chagos Archipelago, exiled during creation of the US military base on Diego Garcia. Building on a growing body of anthropological and historical literature about the people and the base, the article reviews the history leading up to the June hearing and describes its proceedings as part of the islander's four-decades-old movement to win a return to their homeland. On the one hand, it represents the closest the Chagossians have come to a return in nearly 40 years. On the other, the case holds implications for the right of return of other displaced peoples, the rights of indigenous peoples more broadly, the limits of government authority, the balance of power in British parliamentary democracy, and the deepening of democracy worldwide. The suit holds significance for anthropologists studying indigenous peoples, displacement and migration, human rights, the law, government officials, and foreign policy.
The Mabo Response in Australia: Reconciliation or Continuing Conquest?
L'A. retrace les etapes du cas Mabo qui fit jurisprudence en Australie : les habitants de l'ile Murray, minorite parmi les indigenes des iles du detroit de Torres se sont battus pour leur titre d'« autochtone » et les droits associes a ce statut.
Working Culture
There is a tension in social theory between approaches which privilege practice and those focusing on discourse. Such dualisms have recently been challenged, for example, in the analysis of social movements, by perspectives which seek to overcome divisions between culture and politics. I argue that these challenges can be promoted by focusing on the tension between culture as a human activity of working in the world, in which the material and the symbolic are unified, and culture as a commodified object in the context of hegemonic constructions of culture which construct it as primarily a set of symbolic representations. I examine this theme in relation to the efforts of young blacks in the city of Cali, Colombia, who use rap music to make a cultural identity as a way of life while at the same time constructing their culture as an object designed to move in circuits of consumer commodities and, especially, state and NGO funding. The local state and the voluntary sector also work on culture as a more limited set of expressions, seeking to depoliticize it.