Haha thank you. Politics of identity and issues of marginalization and the dilemma of the fourth world are topics which I am quite interested in. Indeed it was in Dr Sluka's class Endangered Cultures that I was introduced to the world of Anthropology. I mention this both as a point of interest and to try and better acknowledge my own biases and establish the position I enter this discussion from. For Dr Sluka specializes in ethnic conflict, state terror and the struggles of the fourth world. Although this is hardly a sandbox for me to discuss where my positioning lies, and speculate on how various scholars and academics have influenced me. So returning to the topic at hand.

I would like to address a few points which you raised. Firstly apologies for making it seem as if marginalized peoples simply stand back and allow their subordination to take place. It is not through inaction on their part. But rather as Una so rightly identified, through lacking the required capital to do something about it. If we turn to the fourth world we see that this holds true. Far from being passive victims, fourth world peoples have commonly resisted attempts to take their land, resources and lives. Some small scale people have opted to simply avoid contact with large scale societies.

This is the approach which the uncontacted tribes have taken. However I recall Una mentioning in another thread that there are numerous problems worldwide with deforestation. While she was using this angle to argue against capitalism on grounds of environmental damage, we also find it is quite applicable to a discussion on society. For several uncontacted tribes live in and depend on the ecosystems which these forests provide. By their very nature of opting to remain uncontacted they do not have a means of simply raising their voice. This is just one of the problems which they face to, by virtue of existing in space claimed by society while simultaneously existing outside of society. More difficulties they are confronted with can be found on Survival International . This has not always been the course of action taken.

As times such an option has not been readily available to fourth world peoples. For various reasons such as insufficient resources for them to continue evading contact. When pushed into more desperate situations unfortunately they have had to resort to more drastic measures. As I mentioned earlier one of their major difficulties comes from a lack of capital. As such when they get pushed into such desperate situations and take violent action in order to protect their land, resources and very lives, what is it that we find? Quite simply that they are readily labeled as 'terrorists'. As Dr Sluka identified in the book he edited, Death Squad: The Anthropology of State Terror, 'terrorist' and 'terrorism' are politically charged terms used by nation-states to justify their treatment of fourth world and marginalized peoples. This can be readily identified as he pointed out when you include state terror. Suddenly we are confronted with the reality that a majority of terrorism is state terror, as opposed to anti-state terror. Although the point on the misuse of terrorism provides a nice bridge to where I would like to turn to next.

It is through language that the general public's (mis)understandings are formed. Think for a second if you will of words such as progress, development, or perhaps even tolerance. These all sound like nice words, don't they? Unfortunately much like 'terrorist' and 'terrorism' they are politically charged. Upon closer scrutiny we begin to see them as the cheap smoke and mirror parlor tricks that they are. I turn now to 'progress' and 'development'. As I identified in my earlier post a feature of a nation-state is a national identity. Through the continuous process of said identity being maintained we find certain groups gaining privileged access over this process. Now what does this have to do with 'progress' or 'development'?

Well it is quite unfortunate that despite the tom foolery of nineteenth century evolutionists being dismantled and disproved by Franz Boas and Historical Particularists, their concepts still enjoy far too much authority. I refer specifically to their approach whereby 'progress' and 'development' are pegged to the hegemonic culture. That is the more a culture deviates a way, the less 'developed' that culture gets labeled as. So in a most unfortunate turn of events we find an oppressive system in place which manages to internally justify itself. As peoples who differ from the hegemonic culture are by definition lacking in 'progress' and 'development', any kind hearted and compassionate citizen should support measures to help remedy this. Said remedy is of course the forced imposition of the hegemonic culture upon the peoples identified as lacking 'progress' or 'development'.

Once you identify the ideal course of action to be the imposition of a culture onto a people against their will, you are marginalizing them and treating them as being knowledge-less. This is no different to the marginalization which Trawick identified as being part of the colonial process whereby colonizers
Although I will return to Trawick at a later point in this post. I turn now instead to a report from Survival international, which I believe is quite adequate. Although I caution that it is lengthy (coming in at about 49 pages). If interested the pdf file can be downloaded here on their official site, or failing that there is an html version which I found here. This report looks at the implications which imposed 'progress' and 'development' have had on various fourth world peoples. Like I identified in my earlier post, what we find is that one of the consequences is they are heavily overrepresented in negative statistics. This can also be reflected in the book Victims of Progress, where J. Bodley explores those lovely concepts have had on fourth world peoples around the world. Although they are not the only concepts which prove to be good smoke and mirror tricks. I now take a slightly different angle and turn to tolerance and its role in the multiculturalism discourse.

When we look at the debate on multiculturalism in the general public we readily observe how simplified it has become. You either fall into the tolerant camp in favour of a multicultural society, or the intolerant camp who oppose it. However this is in itself another smoke and mirror trick, which in reality prevents those not belonging to the hegemonic groups from entering the discussion. G. Hage in his work, White Nation: Fantasies of white supremacy in a multicultural society, explored the role which tolerance plays in keeping marginalized from even entering the discussion. He argues that by its nature, tolerance creates a mindset and environment which justifies and supports the hegemonic group's privileged status in society. After all, what are the basic requirements for tolerance to occur? You need an active agent to be doing the tolerating (the hegemonic group) and you need an object (marginalized group) to be tolerated. Therefore Hage pointed out that by focusing on tolerance as an ideal approach you not only justify the objectification of marginalized peoples, but you also provide the mask which it needs. This is a concept which he discussed in an interview here (transcript is also there for those with slower internet). While he uses recognition in the interview the same principle applies. As he argues a more beneficial approach would be to focus on negotiation. Whereby the parties involved meet on equal terms.

So what I have hopefully demonstrated is that marginalized people are facing an uphill battle. It is not so much a case of them shouting louder. As loud voices achieve little if the person shouting does not enjoy any political power. Indeed without the political capital, shouting can make you look just as special as the Westboro church. Let us be quite frank, nobody wants to be look like them! Much like last time, I find that M. Trawick is quite capable of providing a nice wrap up to my post. She starts off by asking us what the best healing system is? A seemingly simple question is quite apt at identifying the power imbalances that exist between the cultural capital of the hegemonic group and other groups which exist in society. I stress that my point here is to not ask questions about which system of healing is 'best'. But rather to demonstrate how unthinkable it can be to even contemplate putting other cultural perspectives on an equal standing to that which enjoys hegemonic status.

Trawick follows this question by going into a few positions briefly. However as my purpose here is to try and provide an example of power imbalance I do not believe it is necessary for me to include all three angles she identifies. If anyone is interested however, I am more than happy to provide the two I have chosen to not present. I have them prepared already in a word document just in case someone is curious! The position I have chosen should come as no surprise, and by virtue of being in support of the hegemonic system I would venture it is the most widely held one (by this I refer to cultures where it enjoys hegemonic status of course).

Looking over that post we essentially find what I have been trying to stress. The hegemonic group enjoys such a strangle hold over the capital that it is unthinkable that other cultural groups could even be part of the discussion table, let along be treated as equals. Turning back to my previous post and a quote from M. Trawick, we are reminded that these people so readily dismissed are those
The result of this is that they are excluded from fully being part of society. But rather exist in the outer realms. As can be demonstrated with the final quote and conclusion to this post where Trawick quickly compares and contrasts the situation between practitioners of two different healing systems.