ANTROPOLOGIENS SKIFTENDE OBJEKT: Om politisk og kulturel autonomi. Eksempler fra Sydamerika

Resumé

anthropology: on political and cultural

autonomy among Indigenous peoples in

South America

Considering the historical and theoretical

notions of the object of study during the last

flfty years of Danish anthropology it is

sketched how developments in world

politics, in local indigenous societies and in

the discipline of anthropology have forced

anthropologists to take new stands. During

the fnst twenty years the academic establishment

was at the fore, while world politics

was a very dominant factor for the next two

decades. Apparently indigenous peoples

have in the last decade tumed increasingly

explicit about the advisory role of anthropology,

not least in relation to human rights.

Tove Søvndahl Petersen: An Indigenous

people with home rule

The establishment of the Greenland Home

Rule Government in 1979 has meant political

influence for the Greenlanders, after more

than 200 years of colonial rule. Indigenous

peoples today look towards the Greenland

Home Rule as an ideal. Greenlanders’ own

acceptance of an identity as indigenous came,

however, quite late, and the Greenland

identity has throughout history been marked

by the relatively unviolent Danish colonisation.

Home Rule means new challenges to

Greenland identity, at the same time as it provides

freedom to form future strategies for

the Greenlanders in persuasive ways.