Social-Psychological Dimensions of Ojibwa Acculturation

• Published in: American anthropologist 1961-08, Vol.63 (4), p.721-746
• Main Author: James, Bernard J
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acculturation; Acculturation/Acculturated/ Acculturative; Alcohol drinking; Anxiety; Beers; Communities; Indian culture; Society, The, of; Socio; Stereotypes; Treaty lands; Villages; White people
• ISSN: 0002-7294; 1548-1433
• DOI: 10.1525/aa.1961.63.4.02a00040

An attempt to obviate questions, stemming from the work of Hallowell, Barnouw, Friedl & Caudill, concerning supposed persistence of aboriginal Ojibwa personality traits despite extensive acculturation, by analysis of the situational genesis of contemporary personality. Data on employment, income, public assistance, drinking & disorg are examined by means of a conceptual scheme which relates reservation sub-culture, role conflict & accomodation, status inferiority, stereotyping, self-image & anxiety to such response patterns as escape, indirection, truculence, romantic Indianism & ambivalence. It is suggested that the supposed persistence of personality, despite acculturation, is derived largely from projective data & is not supported by observable events on the reservations. Personality is seen to develop as an isomorphic version of soc processes of reservation life, & can be treated within such functional frameworks as those of G. H. Mead & R. Merton. Projective data from the acculturated Ojibwa are found to be consistent with the situational analysis suggested & permit successful theoretical unification of interactional studies of the Ojibwa (Boggs), marginal personality analysis (Kerckhoff), as well as projective data otherwise unexplained. The model described can be applied to other Wise reservations occupied by people culturally allied to the Ojibwa, as well as more broadly to reservations in the US & Canada generally. Phenomena such as pan-Indianism are believed to be responses to common reservation sub-cultural experience of the Indian. Implications of the analysis for federal policy on termination are noted. AA.