Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation

• Published in: Arctic 2009, Vol.62 (3), p.356-357
• Main Author: Lemelin, Raynald Harvey
• Format: Review
• Language: English
• Subjects: Albert, Howard; Corruption; Culture; Native American studies; Native culture; Nonfiction; Preservation; Resource management; Reviews; Widdowson, Frances; Wildlife
• ISSN: 0004-0843; 1923-1245

Much like Cairns's Citizens Plus (2000) and Flanagan's First Nations? Second Thoughts (2000), [FRANCES WIDDOWSON] and Howard's Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry is sure to stimulate discussion in aboriginal research in Canada. The book is a comprehensive and critical examination of what the authors suggest is a deceptive network known as aboriginal cultural preservation in Canada. By examining education, social work, health, environmental and wildlife resource management, and governance structures, the authors conclude that many of the problems in aboriginal communities are due both to internal factors, such as oral societies, tribalism, spiritualism (i.e., shamanism), and animism, and to external factors like postmodernism, revisionism, and opportunism (whereby researchers, consultants, and lawyers benefit most from the process of land claims and self-governance). All of these factors have contributed to a "neolithic gap" in aboriginal communities-an abrupt change from a primitive society to a modern welfare state, a dysfunctional society where racism, patriarchy, corruption, and nepotism run rampant. The authors borrow heavily from Morgan's studies on the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) confederacy (1984) and cultural evolution (2007), which suggest that all human cultures evolve from savagery or barbarism to civilization. The "neolithic gap" concept assumes that contemporary Western culture represents the pinnacle of evolutionary achievement. Missing however, from this discussion on the "neolithic gap" is the critique of this concept (see for example, Sharer and Ashmore, 2002).