Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry

Below are summaries of reviews and commentary online and in newspapers in response to the book co-authored by Frances Widdowson and Howard Albert. Widdowson was in Winnipeg on Friday, 30 January 2009, to discuss Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry at a luncheon sponsored by the Frontier Centre of Public Policy.

Article Summaries:
- Review by Kathy Buddle,“Treacherous political path: Look at ‘aboriginal industry’ an inept rant,” 25 January 2009
- Review by Peter Kulchyski, “The Emperor’s Old Clothes,” 4 March 2009
- Review by Robert McGhee, “Blowing the Whistle: Two academics take on the Canadian elites who profit from aboriginal poverty” March 2009
- Other Responses
  - Article by Alexandra Paul, “Book targets aboriginal culture: Author to speak in city,” 28 January 2009
  - Article by Alexandra Paul, “Speaker draws ire of First Nations,” 31 January 2009
  - Response to Alexandra Paul by Frances Widdowson, “Co-author responds Re: Book targets aboriginal culture, Jan. 29,” 2 February 2009
  - Article by Tom Ford, “How you judge a culture depends on your circumstances,” 9 February 2009
  - Response to Peter Kulchyski by Frances Widdowson, "With friends like this, aboriginal people don’t need enemies," 15 March 2009
  - Response to Peter Kulchyski by Robert McGhee, "Should a tailor be asked to review a book on the Emperor’s clothing?," March 2009
  - Response to Critics by Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard, "Development, Postmodernism and Aboriginal Policy: What Are We Afraid Of?" Carleton University, 27-29 May 2009.
  - Response: Offended by Offence: Frances Widdowson's Blog invites discussion about many issues, including those raised in the book Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry.

25 January 2009: “Treacherous political path: Look at ‘aboriginal industry’ an inept rant” [Books/Winnipeg Free Press, 5]
Kathy Buddle, a “non-Native professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Manitoba” reviewed Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry in the Sunday Book section of the Winnipeg Free Press. Her first sentence, “Prepare for the road trip from hell” set the tone for the article. Describing the book as a “recklessly drawn and misleading map through very treacherous political terrain,” she offered this advice to would-be readers,

Buddle provided no documentary evidence for this statement; instead, she claimed that it was impossible “to conduct a rigorous analysis of the painfully inept political rant” that Widdowson and Howard’s assertions represented, lamely adding as justification for her stand that “the ‘argument’ is so fatally flawed as to defy serious treatment.” In spite of that protest, she then went on for ten or fifteen additional paragraphs explaining why she hated the book.

In Buddle’s view, neither the authors nor the book had any redeeming qualities. Widdowson and Howard were “failed government bureaucrats” who had “a paucity of experience in any actual native community,” yet they claimed that their book revealed the “deception behind indigenous cultural preservation” and proposed a number of “central blinders” that prevented a “realistic” view of the Aboriginal “industry.” According to Buddle,

Buddle did not quote from the book to prove these allegations, but went on to make others. Here are three examples.

By now you should have a pretty good idea of what Buddle’s position on Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry is. However, the central point for consideration here is whether or not she has provided a convinced argument for the reader. Do you buy it? Do you reject her analysis? Or are you still not sure?

Discussion: A couple of online comments provide insights into this review. One by “Donna” tersely stated, “Ms Buddle certainly has no ‘paucity’ of wordiness.” What do you think Donna was getting at? “Ranting” is defined as talking in a “noisy, excited, or declamatory manner” and a “rant” is “bombastic extravagant speech or language.” Ironically, this is how Buddle characterised Widdowson and Howard’s book. Take a good look at the language Buddle used in her review. Does it fit the description of a rant? If so, would this be a case of the pot calling the kettle black?

In her online post, Maureen Quinsey agreed with Buddle. Because “Our schools are including Aboriginal traditions, histories and contemporary issues into all curriculum areas,” she felt that “Canadians will be able to make informed opinions regarding the racist stance of these 2 authors.” Maureen is a respected Winnipeg educator, who has concluded that the authors are racist, presumably on the basis of Buddle’s text. However, take a look again at what Buddle actually said. Did she prove racism or merely accuse the authors of racism? What is the danger of asserting claims of racism without solid evidence from the actual work of the accused?

After reading of Buddle’s review, one Winnipegger was prompted to go and hear what Widdowson had to say. Why do you think someone would do this?

Propaganda consists of unsubstantiated claims expressed with emotionally-charged words and avoids the reasoned argument. To which is Buddle’s review closer, propaganda or reasoned argument?

It is an all-too-common weakness of educators, teachers and professors alike, to indoctrinate their students rather than teach them how to think critically. In Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, as in other dictatorships, students of History were expected to accept the official interpretation. Unfortunately, that is still a common feature of History classes in so-called enlightened democracies as well. Suggest how teachers interested in teaching their students how to think rather than what to think would handle a controversial subject like “The Indian Industry” or an equally controversial book about it?

4 March 2009: “The Emperor’s Old Clothes” [Canadian Dimension magazine, v. 43, no. 2 (March April 2009)]
Peter Kulchyski, head of the Department of Native Studies, University of Manitoba, wrote a scathing review of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry, which appeared in the March/April 2009 issue of Canadian Dimension. In his first paragraph, he laid out his perspective.

Discussion: Kulchyski aligned himself with “socialist activists and theorists” who were working in “decolonization” and saw Howard and Widdowson’s book as a threat to this “growing oppositional movement.” Why is it important for the reader to have some idea of the writer’s political perspective? How does it help us to evaluate his critique?

Kulchyski noted that the authors “tout[ed] their experience” in the employ of the government of the Northwest Territories as the “basis that inspired the study.” This he dismissed, firstly with a personal remark, “I, myself, would not be so proud of working as a bureaucrat for a colonial institution,” and then with, “The two have no actual community-based experience that they refer to, and may very well have never spent a night in an Aboriginal community.”

Discussion: Critical readers, whether or not they agree with the writer’s position, must subject his arguments to analysis because in the end only valid arguments count. Here are questions you might ask. Is Kulchyski’s emotional response relevant in this context? And, is it rational? For instance, if the government of the Northwest Territories is a colonial institution, would it not logically follow that the government of Manitoba is as well? And if the Government of Manitoba is a colonial institution, should Kulchyski not be ashamed of working as a professor at the University of Manitoba, which is another colonial institution directly funded by the Province of Manitoba? Take a look at his second argument. Why is it necessary to have “community-based experience” among Aboriginal people in order to critique government policy concerning them? Did critics of the Apartheid system of South Africa (which had features disturbingly similar to Canada’s reserve system) need to have “community-based experience” in one of the homelands to validate their arguments? Or, was their own “community-based experience” somewhere else sufficient to educate them to the injustice of systems that segregate people on the basis of ethnicity (or whatever) and treat them differently from their neighbours?

Discussion: Why would a book attack Aboriginal rights in favour of universal human rights, if there were not some implicit conflict between the two? Would it have been helpful to the reader, if Kulchyski had clarified what that conflict was? Would it have clarified issues if Kulchyski had defined what it was about Aboriginal culture that the book found primitive and outdated? How is traditional aboriginal ecological knowledge different from “local knowledge that people from any culture” could have? Kulchyski did not say. Could you explain the book’s argument from what the reviewer said in this paragraph?

In his next paragraph, Kulchyski wrote that the authors were “intellectually dishonest” because “the anthropologists they cite favourably all come from before the 1950s, when the now totally discredited doctrine of social evolution still left traces of its pernicious influence.” In Kulchyski’s view, they reinforced the dishonesty by not engaging the “stronger scholars who deal with the subject matter,” and relying “on newspapers accounts and non-academic works to act as straw dogs they can knock over.” Concerning the issue of Justice, they included “one dismissive paragraph to Rupert Ross’s carefully conceived arguments about traditional justice based on his lifetime of work as a crown prosecutor.” Kulchyski was equally unhappy by the dismissal of Harvey Feit and Fikret Berkes’s work “in a single paragraph.”

Discussion: When a review is as negative as this one, it raises questions about the objectivity of the reviewer. For instance, was the evidence Kulchyski submitted sufficient to establish “intellectual dishonesty?” Or, if accurate, was it better evidence for the charge of intellectual or academic incompetence? Did he provide convincing evidence? Why did he not name some of those anthropologists of the 1950s or explain why the so-called “doctrine of social evolution” was “pernicious” and “discredited?” Would it not have strengthened his argument? Who are the stronger scholars? Would it have been helpful if he had cited examples of “newspaper accounts and non-academic works” that were used “as straw dogs?”

In this paragraph, Kulchyski did make at least three specific claims about the book. The first suggested that Howard and Widdowson based their thesis on outdated or questionable sources, a claim that can be checked by reference to the book itself. Chapter Five on Justice, for example, contains 82 citations from newspapers, academic books and journals, and government documents, the vast majority of them written in the 1990s and after 2000. The only 1950s reference was a book by anthropologist Leslie A. White entitled The Evolution of Culture published in 1959. A direct quotation from this book was used on page 138 to further explain “Blood vengeance … an important form of social control in all societies organized according to kinship.” It read as follows:

This certainly suggests social evolution, as Kulchyski noted in his critique, but how has it been discredited? Was blood vengeance not found in kinship societies? Is that why was it a pernicious explanation? Kulchyski didn’t say.

Widdowson and Howard did not mention Rupert Ross in the body of their text, but he was referenced for the statement, “Advocates of community justice maintain that these circumstances [presumably the close-knit family structure of reserves] indicate a capacity for “forgiveness” in aboriginal culture.” They then went on to argue against this position in the remainder of the paragraph. Kulchyski described it as “one dismissive paragraph to Rupert Ross’s carefully conceived arguments about justice based on his lifetime of work as a crown prosecutor.” But why was it dismissive? How were Ross’s arguments “carefully conceived?” Why were they better than those offered by Widdowson and Howard? Are we required to take Kulchyski’s word for it in the absence of evidence?

According to Kulchyski, in the chapter on environmental management, the book “dismisses Harvey Feit and Fikret Berkes in a single paragraph and implies that their work is based on a kind of ‘new age’ spirituality.” The reference on page 218 of the book reads as follows: “Harvey Feit and Fikret Berkes imply that aboriginal peoples have always had the environmental management techniques present in modern society – harvesting sustainable yields determined through the representative sampling of various animal populations.” Nowhere in Kulchyski’s critique is there a hint that Widdowson and Howard were challenging the stereotype of the Aboriginal as Keeper of Mother Earth, a position defended by Feit and Berkes. Why did Kulchyski not address the arguments specific to this issue? Why did he make reference to “‘new age’ spirituality,” when it did not appear in Widdowson and Howard’s text? What did he mean?

Kulchyski continued in much the same vein throughout the balance of his review without addressing the central arguments of the book. Instead they were condemned without substantiation. Further, a review of Widdowson and Howard’s text undermined assertions made by Kulchyski. A good review should reveal a book’s shortcomings with direct references to the text and counter arguments. It would be interesting to see a response from Widdowson and Howard.

March 2009: “Blowing the Whistle: Two academics take on the Canadian elites who profit from aboriginal poverty” [Literary Review of Canada, v. 17, no. 2 (March 2009, 11-13)] A review of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry by Robert McGhee, who is Curator of Western Arctic Archaeology, Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Robert McGhee began his review by stating that, “The problems that beset the majority of Canada’s aboriginal communities are so large, diffuse and apparently intractable that few citizens – aboriginal or non-aboriginal – and fewer government agencies have the energy and fortitude to pursue solutions.” He then went on to briefly summarise past attempts by the federal government to address those problems. One of these was the policy of assimilation, which culminated in the 1969 “white paper” that was designed to “abolish special status for aboriginals and to establish programs designed to integrate Natives into mainstream society.” Even though it represented a “clear plan of action,” the white paper was “universally detested by aboriginal leaders,” and it was subsequently withdrawn. It would be a generation later in 1996 that the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples completed its “massive” report, rejecting the assimilation policies of the past. “Since that report was received,” in McGhee’s view, “federal policies have been vaguely directed to implement the recommendations of the royal commission.” This meant that, “Native communities are increasingly redefined as distinct nations with inherent rights of self-government, each with its own land and resource base defined through nation-to-nation negotiations with the Government of Canada.”

McGhee then explained that Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard’s Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation was about the “aboriginal industry,” meaning the “network of lawyers, anthropologists, consultants and aboriginal politicians who have assembled to negotiate and implement the land claims, self-government agreements and funding programs relating to this government policy.”

Discussion: A good reviewer provides a context for the book under review. In this case, McGhee oriented the reader by giving a summary of Canada’s Aboriginal policy over the years and briefly explaining the connection between that policy and Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry. Why is this approach useful for the reader?

McGhee then introduced the authors and provided information on their background and motivation as follows.

Discussion: Why is it important for the reader to look for clues concerning a reviewer’s perspective? In this case, the title of McGhee’s article indicated that he acknowledged the existence of an aboriginal industry. He also described the white paper of 1969 as a “clear plan of action,” whereas current government policy was “vaguely directed” at implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. This he later described as an “unmanageable project.” McGhee was also positive about the qualifications of Widdowson and Howard, which gave added authority for what they had to say. What do these clues indicate about his general impression of the book? Why is it important to know this?

McGhee next focussed on a couple of limitations regarding Widdowson & Albert’s study. Firstly, he felt that their thesis mainly applied to Aboriginal people living “on reserves and in isolated northern and rural areas.” In his view, the Aboriginal Industry ignored “the fifty percent or more of Canadian aboriginals, who currently live in cities, the majority of them building lives for themselves and their families that are virtually indistinguishable from those of other urban Canadians.” He felt urban aboriginal people were “of little concern to the lawyers, bureaucrats and policy consultants whose careers are based on arguments relating to an idealized and mythical aboriginal way of life.”

Discussion: A number of questions arise from McGhee’s analysis. Are the lives of urban Aboriginals comparable to that of other urban Canadians, or do they suffer from some of the same problems as their reserve cousins? Also, is it correct to say that the so-called Indian Industry is uninterested in these urban Aboriginal people? Who then is the source for the concept of urban reserves?

McGhee noted that Widdowson and Howard approached the subject through “classic Marxist analysis.” He felt that its emphasis on cultural evolution was a problem, but that its “materialistic ‘follow the money’ focus is ideal for clarifying the tangle of relationships linking government, aboriginal leaders and the army of non-aboriginal mercenaries who are (counter-intuitively) funded by government to fight for the aboriginal cause.”

Discussion: The idea of cultural evolution was problematic as far as McGhee was concerned, and he promised to deal with it later in his review. It was also a problem for Buddle and Kulchyski, so watch carefully for McGhee’s argument on this issue.

Consider McGhee’s use of “mercenary” in his text. A mercenary can be used pejoratively to describe a hireling, who is motivated by money rather than ideals. Is this a fair characterisation of those who work for agencies connected with Indian Affairs in this country? Does it add anything concerning McGhee’s perspective?

Finally, why is it useful to “follow the money”? What does the money trail reveal about the possible motivation of participants in the so-called aboriginal industry?

McGhee agreed with Widdowson and Howard’s assumption that “individual rights relate uniformly to all of humanity and cannot be defined differently for distinct ethnic groups,” adding that this was “the view held by the majority of Canadians.” He then went on to say that this viewpoint was “very much at odds with the perspective of most aboriginal leaders, the mercenaries who write their speeches and supervise their negotiations and the government agencies that deal directly with aboriginal issues.” Indeed, he said, Canadians unfamiliar with aboriginal issues would consider Widdowson and Howard’s description of the “aboriginal orthodoxy” to be “bizarre or exaggerated,” but in fact it resonated with McGhee’s “knowledge and experience of the subject.”

Discussion: Kulchyski mentioned the issue of aboriginal rights versus universal rights in condemnation of Widdowson and Howard, but did not explain. McGhee, on the other hand, zeroed in on this issue. Are Aboriginal leaders attempting to negotiate special rights for Aboriginal people that other Canadians do not have? If so, how is this justified?

Discussion: This is a facetious characterisation of the “aboriginal orthodoxy,” but there are kernels of truth in it. For example, the idea of the Aboriginal as Keeper of Mother Earth is an embarrassing modern version of the old stereotype of the Noble Savage. Environmentalists often beat this drum, and some naïve Aboriginal spokespersons have adopted this romanticised idea of their past. The other stereotype is that of the Aboriginal as holistic thinker, a characterisation that was used to explain why Aboriginal students failed in non-Aboriginal school systems. When the American Nobel prize-winning scientist William Shockley suggested that African-Americans be educated differently from non-Africans because their brains were wired differently, African-Americans were outraged because they understood the implications. In Canada, however, the idea of Aboriginal as holistic thinker was adopted without much thought by educators concerned with finding an answer to the lack of school success by Aboriginal students. What negative implications could be associated with a separate educational programme for Aboriginal children based on the idea that their brain function is different from the mainstream?

McGhee explained that the “aboriginal orthodoxy” developed because “the late 20th-century era of academic postmodernism provided an atmosphere in which assertions of impenetrable cultural difference were encouraged.” He cited the example of Dale Turner, whose 2006 book This is Not a Peace Pipe: Towards a Critical Indigenous Philosophy, urged “aboriginal intellectuals to defend the legitimacy of indigenous ways of knowing the world” and “recognize that indigenous philosophies cannot be articulated in English (and presumably in other non-indigenous languages).” According to McGhee, Turner argued “that empirical evidence in the sense familiar to the narrowly rationalist scientific tradition is irrelevant to an understanding of indigenous thought,” a “mode of argument” that had become “fairly standard in the writings of current aboriginal scholars.”

Discussion: For a detailed summary of Dale Turner’s book and questions that it raises, see the review by Jamie Paris, University of Regina. It seems a stretch to suggest that an indigenous philosophy can’t be articulated in English. Does this apply to all cross-cultural exchanges, or only to those involving Aboriginal people? Those of us who are descendants of European and Aboriginal ancestors often marvel at the musings of well-meaning academics about the “other.” Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal people have been communicating on many different levels since 1492.How could a belief that communication is nigh to impossible between indigenous and mainstream cultures affect negotiations between the Canadian government and Aboriginal leaders?

McGhee defined cultural relativism as a postmodern development based on the assumption that “all cultures are equally developed, just different from one another” and noted that this viewpoint is “an affront” to the Marxist interpretation of cultural evolution espoused by Widdowson and Howard. Cultural evolution in this instance means that “societies progress at different rates through a set of fixed stages, from primitive hunting to ancient farming societies to feudalism, capitalism and ultimately communism.” McGhee was unconvinced by the cultural relativism that underpinned the central assumptions of the “aboriginal orthodoxy,” but equally unconvinced by the cultural evolutionary approach taken by Widdowson and Howard. He argued that they assumed 16th century Canada was occupied by small primitive hunting bands, when in fact there were heavily-populated agricultural societies stretching from Southern Ontario as far south as the Mississippi, Mexico, and Peru, and densely-populated, socially complex societies along the coastal region of British Columbia as well. Although all of these cultures were decimated by disease and took generations to recover, McGhee maintained that “only in the northern forests and tundra were small hunting-based bands the dominant social unit, as they were at the same time in similar regions of northern Eurasia.”

Discussion: Questions naturally arise. How relevant are McGhee’s references to the more advanced cultures of the Mississippi, Mexico, and Peru, when Widdowson and Howard were focused on the aboriginal industry in Canada? Also, since hunter-gatherer cultures dominate in Canada, was that an unreasonable focus for Widdowson and Howard?

McGhee’s reference to the widespread depopulation from European diseases also encourages new questions. What happens to culture when 9 out of 10 people of a society die, as was the case in some parts of North America? How much of a culture survives under such circumstances? Would the impact be cultural evolution or cultural disintegration? If disintegration occurred, would stressed cultures have reverted to earlier and presumably more primitive levels? What impact could this possibility have on Widdowson and Howard’s thesis?

McGhee acknowledged that “four hundred years ago there certainly were significant differences in social complexity and technological attainment between Europeans and aboriginal North Americans,” but, “both were far less sophisticated socially and technologically, than their descendants of the present day.” He used his Irish and Scottish forebears to illustrate this point, noting that their way of life was “much closer to that of 17th-century Native Canadians than it is to that of their present-day descendants.”

Discussion: Is Widdowson and Howard’s claim of cultural evolution confirmed or rebutted by McGhee’s assertion that Europeans and aboriginal North American today are more sophisticated socially and technologically than their 16th century ancestors? Presumably both have gained from change, but surely the more significant question should be: Has the gap that existed between “Europeans and aboriginal North Americans” in the 16th century been erased today?

In an effort to equate agricultural cultures of America with those of Europe, McGhee cited Irish and Scottish examples. But, were they representative of European agriculture as a whole? Scottish agriculture, outside of the lowlands, was extremely primitive until the enclosure movement of the 18th century, and Irish agriculture was equally so until after the Potato famine in the 19th century. How significant would his argument have been if he had used English and Dutch examples?

McGhee argued that it is not the differences between “aboriginal and European societies,” but our perception of those differences, that leads to “problems of social adjustment.” Members of the “aboriginal orthodoxy,” as defined by McGhee, believe that “differences in social and technological complexity” are irrelevant “because the history and culture of First Peoples are singular and not to be critiqued or even understood by those outside the magic circle.” Those on the other side (presumably people like Widdowson and Howard), assume that what we call the “Western way of life” is a superior European or Euro-American model that can correct the “problems” inherent is less developed cultures.

Discussion: According to McGhee’s argument, how might the perceptions of the “aboriginal orthodoxy” actually foster “problems of social development”? How might the perception that the “Western way of life” is superior also foster such problems?

In McGhee’s view, cultures from all over the world, including America, have contributed to the global culture and economy we have today. What perception concerning cultural difference needs to be dominant for this kind of merger to take place? Does McGhee have an important argument here?

McGhee cited the food plants that Aboriginal Americans contributed to modern society, but since most of these were developed outside of Canada, how does this negate the arguments made by Widdowson and Howard regarding hunter-gatherer societies here?

McGhee rejected the “false historical assumption” that a huge cultural gap existed between European and aboriginal cultures at first contact. Rather, he believed that exposure to European assumptions of cultural superiority over many generations had produced a greater negative impact on Aboriginal people than had any gap in cultural development suggested by Widdowson and Howard. However, like them he rejected the continuing “intellectual atmosphere” that alienated Aboriginal people from Canadian society. He felt Widdowson and Howard had correctly challenged the “current aboriginal orthodoxy that began to replace the colonialist paradigm about 50 years ago.” This orthodoxy has created a “myth of aboriginal exceptionality” reinforced by “fashionably romantic euro-Canadian” stereotypes like that of the “Noble Native and Savage Whiteman” which hold “aboriginal leaders and Canadian governments” hostage. McGhee agreed that Widdowson and Howard had clearly analysed this phenomenon, which he believed to be completely divorced from reality.

Although he regretted that Widdowson and Howard “chose to replace current stereotypes with those of aboriginal simplicity that prevailed during the colonialist past,” he still felt their book was worth reading. In his concluding paragraph, he wrote,

Discussion: Compare this review to those of Buddle and Kulchyski. Which did the best job of illuminating the contents of the book Disrobing the Indian Industry? How can the reading of reviews help orient you to the contents of a book? Why is it important to have more than one perspective represented?

28 January 2009: “Book targets aboriginal culture: Author to speak in city” [Winnipeg Free Press, B2]
Journalist Alexandra Paul introduced her article by stating that Frances Widdowson would be in the city the following Friday to promote her book “that calls aboriginal healing “quackery,” the culture “mythology” and “Indians” “barbarians.” She added that the book “challenges the use of government grants for aboriginal interests on the grounds there really is no such thing as aboriginal culture.”

Paul noted that reaction was “predictably” polarised in Winnipeg, which has “one of the biggest aboriginal populations of any Canadian city.” Widdowson was the guest of the “right-leaning Frontier Centre for Public Policy,” and “fifty people shelled out $45 a head” to attend a luncheon at the Convention Centre to hear her speak. Members of the aboriginal community, on the other hand, were “outraged,” the book having been widely publicised nationally in a supportive but controversial Globe and Mail article by columnist Margaret Wente and by a positive National Post article identifying Widdowson and co-writer Albert Howard as “Marxist.”

Paul went on to quote a number of Winnipeg people opposed to the book. An unidentified doctor was quoted as saying, “In my opinion the authors need to be charged with hate crimes under the Criminal Code,” and Anishinabe writer Niigonwedom Sinclair “dismisses the book and its authors as beyond ignorant,” adding that “Others should be ashamed that she is getting paid to circulate her dated, ungrounded, myopic theories.” Anishinabe communications specialist Renata Marsden argued that Widdowson was a “hypocrite” because she was making money from a book “about non-aboriginal people financially gaining from aboriginal culture.” What was even worse, she had added “insult to injury by discrediting a culture that has been working very hard to revive itself.”

31 January 2009: “Speaker draws ire of First Nations” [Winnipeg Free Press, A10]
Alexandra Paul’s introduced her second article on Widdowson’s reception in Winnipeg with the statement, “Frances Widdowson says she’s misunderstood” and quoted her as follows.

Nevertheless, the book had outraged aboriginal groups across the country, and at the Convention Centre in Winnipeg “about 20 aboriginal women sang ceremonial songs to the accompaniment of hand drums” in celebration of the culture “they believe the book attacks in the process of exposing corruption.”

Mae Louise Campbell, a Winnipeg aboriginal elder, said “aboriginal people are outraged with the book’s outdated anthropological attitudes,” adding,

On the other hand, the organizers from the Frontier Centre of Public Policy, which Paul described as a “local conservative think-tank,” said they were “eager to open debate about the costs of the multibillion industry that’s grown up around the aboriginal rights disputes.” Ojibway Mervin Key, who works for the Frontier Centre and is also a member of the Key First Nation in Saskatchewan, said “it was too bad corruption is exposed at the expense of the culture”; however, “there are problems on First Nations, a lot of mismanagement, a lot of people hired who are not qualified to do the job.” Key added that his band “accepted a $21-million land claim settlement based on a 2007 referendum result even though it included votes from 25 deceased band members.” The vote was challenged, but in the end it stood. Nevertheless, Key “draws a marked distinction between the corruption and poverty he sees at home and the culture his ancestors bequeathed.”

In spite of the controversy, Widdowson did better than expected. According to Paul, “the consensus was she came off as dignified and fair,” and “people who expected to hate her said she impressed them.” In conclusion, Paul noted that the “first run of 2000 copies of her book has sold out, and McGill-Queen’s University Press is printing a second run.”

Discussion: Compare the two reports. What changes in tone occurred in Paul’s second report after Widdowson had given her address at the Convention Centre? What might account for those changes?

2 February 2009: “Co-author responds Re: Book targets aboriginal culture, Jan. 29” [Winnipeg Free Press, Letters to the Editor, A10]
Frances Widdowson responded to Alexandra Paul as follows [quoted in full]:

Although Alexandra Paul is entitled to “give voice” to those who are unhappy with the book I co-wrote with Albert Howard, Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry, as a journalist she should avoid allowing these unjustified criticisms to misrepresent the book’s actual content. The book does not call Indians “barbarians” (although it does refer to barbarism, a stage all cultures, including those in pre-contact North America, passed through), or make statements that “there is really no such thing as aboriginal culture.” It also does not oppose the use of government funds in support of aboriginal interests. In fact, it maintains funding will probably have to be increased to truly address the aboriginal question.

The interests the book opposes are those of the aboriginal industry – a parasitical group of non-aboriginal lawyers and consultants who are preying on aboriginal vulnerability to pursue the legal and bureaucratic processes they have masterminded.

The self-serving research undertaken by this group is intent on disguising the differences in development that exist between hunting and gathering/horticultural cultural features and the requirements of modern societies. This is because the promotion of atavism^[1] in culture keeps aboriginal people isolated from the mainstream and perpetually in need of the aboriginal industry’s “help.”

Discussion: Widdowson was critical of Paul’s first article because the negative comments about the book misrepresented its actual contents. Is that criticism justified? Consider Paul’s role as a journalist. Would she identify a balanced review of a controversial book as her major responsibility? Or is her job confined to getting the news story related to that book? In your view, what is the appropriate role for a journalist to take? Consider also what people read. Does negative news appeal to them? Can such news be good for a book as well as bad? These are difficult questions, but critical readers need to consider them, to weigh them in the balance as they strive to become well informed. This is no place for the mentally lazy because critical analysis requires work!

9 February 2009: “How you judge a culture depends on your circumstances” [Winnipeg Free Press, View from the West, A11]
Tom Ford began his response to Frances Widdowson’s letter with a story about his youth and the time he got a bloody nose from a Ukrainian boy after he had made some remarks about how the Irish were better than anyone else in the world. He went home crying, and his mother gave him a “life lesson.” “You can’t compare one group of people with another,” she said, “They’re just different, like apples and oranges.” Ford never forgot the lesson and has “been careful ever since about not comparing cultures and declaring one better than the other.” Ford then turned to Widdowson’s letter, quoting “one paragraph in full because she has complained shoddy journalists such as me have misrepresented her message.”

As Ford understood it, Widdowson’s position was “that native culture is a throwback and prevents aboriginal people from getting ahead in today’s society.” He didn’t buy it. What about the Irish and fairy people, for example? And Ford’s religion, which has “all manner of amazing stories such as representatives of all the world’s animals in an ark; people giving birth when they’re well over 100; and a man living inside a whale.” Belief in these stories did not prevent Ford from getting ahead in the world, although he admitted humorously that he had been “adroit” at creating his own “barriers to progress.”

Ford’s asserted that, “How you judge a culture depends on your circumstances.” If you were “wandering around the Arctic, you would not choose “an English breeder of bloodhounds” as a companion, but an “Inuit hunter” because he knows “how to survive.” The first Europeans in Canada “partnered with First Nations women because they could keep them alive.” The English and French fur traders partnered with “First Nations people” because they “knew the geography, where the animals were and how to trap them.”

Ford’s point is that although “these skills don’t have much practical use anymore,” many from his culture don’t have much use either. “It hasn’t stopped my development in mainstream Canada,” he added, “And their culture hasn’t stopped development of many aboriginal people, either.”

Still, Ford believed that cultural comparisons could be justified in some instances and cited female mutilation as an example of a cultural practice that should be universally condemned. He wrote that “All cultures should meet the requirements of the United Nations’ Declaration on Human Rights”.

Ford ended his editorial by noting that “the Canadian government was about to wrap up one of its worst swindles in history.” This was in reference to the land claims agreement that had been worked out by the Canadian government and Peguis First Nation. This is how Ford explained the history.

He noted that this was a particularly odious “bamboozle” because “Chief Peguis had helped the Selkirk Settlers when they first came to the Winnipeg area and saved many of their lives.”

Discussion: Ford was responding to Widdowson’s letter and not to the book. Moreover, he only responded to a portion of her letter. Why does this limit the validity of what he had to say?

That being said, what was his central point? Why is the suggestion that someone is criticising another culture so repugnant to the average Canadian reader? How might Widdowson have written her letter to take this into account? What could she have done to elicit a more positive response from Ford to her central theme? If you have something important to say, as Widdowson may well have, why is it important to know your audience? Lots of questions here, not just for readers, but writers and reviewers as well. Arriving at the best solutions to any issue requires input from a wide variety of viewpoints, because we are all like the blind man describing the elephant. We can only see it from our own angle. The challenge is bridging the gaps between divergent points of view without silencing any that might provide insights and solutions.

In spite of all the news coverage, we still don’t have much first hand information on the book itself, other than it upset quite a number of people. Should we believe the critics? Or, is their analysis, or lack thereof, suspect? Why do we have to rely on them anyway? Can’t we make up our own minds after careful analysis of the book’s content? It should be interesting, even if only because so many people are fired up about it!

15 March 2009: “With friends like this, aboriginal people don’t need enemies” Comment by Frances Widdowson, Canadian Dimension, 15 March 2009, in response to Peter Kulchyski’s Review of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry by the authors Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard.

Beware of reviews that begin with the words “It’s hard to know where to begin with this book…”. This is code for: “I do not like the ideas in this book, but because my response is emotional, rather than intellectual, I cannot provide a substantive critique”.

So goes Peter Kulchyski’s response to our book, Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Cultural Preservation (“The Emporor’s [sic] Old Clothes”, Canadian Dimension, March/April 2009). It is even hard to refer to Kulchyski’s piece as a “review”, as it consists mostly of personal attacks. The usual smear tactics of “right-wing”, “racist”, and “colonialist” are present, along with the irrelevant assertion that we “may very well have never spent a night in an aboriginal community”. Are we to infer that Kulchyski would accept our arguments if we had spent such a night (which, incidentally, we have)?

Discussion: Widdowson and Howard have pointed out the central weakness of Kulchyski’s response. It was indeed emotional, and left the reader frustrated by its lack of content. Why is it important to address another’s argument with a counter-argument rather than ridicule?

It is true that our book “attack[s] the notion of Aboriginal rights in favour of a notion of universal human rights”. Is Kulchyski, an academic who supposedly embraces egalitarian ideals, opposed to the latter? Although our book never “presupposes the superior value of capitalism”, as Kulchyski proclaims, we do identify the cultures of hunting and gathering and horticultural societies as less productive, smaller and more simply organized than those that were influenced by advanced technology such as iron metallurgy, the wheel, and alphabetic writing. Why is Kulchyski refuting this obvious reality? Just because this theoretical insight was substantiated by anthropology and archaeology that was initiated a century ago (and updated in the 1950s-1970s by V. Gordon Childe and Leslie A. White), it does not mean that it is now “totally discredited”. After all, using this logic, one could make a similar accusation about the ideas of Darwin, Mendel and Galileo. (The “outdated” evolutionary theories that we use, in fact, form the basis of the arguments of Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel, and the archaeological classification of the technological “ages” of humanity – stone, bronze and iron).

Discussion: See an outline of Jared Diamond’s arguments in Wikipedia Guns Germs and Steel, which also includes counter-arguments to Diamond’s position. Why is Wikipedia’s review of Diamond’s book superior to Peter Kulchyski’s review of Widdowson and Howard’s book?

We do not understand Kulchyski’s reference to our supposed “intellectual dishonesty”. We mostly refer to the works of anthropologists of the 1950s and the 1960s because we are convinced that these ideas are more valid – as opposed to popular – than those whose objectivity and rigour have been compromised by postmodern relativism (the perspective that all ideas and cultures are equally developed, just “different”). There is no substantiation that the theory of cultural evolution espoused has “left traces of pernicious influence”. We cannot respond to Kulchyski’s contention that we do not incorporate the views of “stronger scholars” or “stronger versions of the arguments” because these, conveniently, are not specified in Kulchyski’s “review”. However, we certainly do not think that such “strength” is represented by the works of Rupert Ross, Harvey Feit or Fikret Berkes, who are either prone to wishful thinking or members of the Aboriginal Industry.

Kulchyski’s comments about our reference to Samuel Hearne deserve special mention because they provide a glimpse of Kulchyski’s double standard with respect to research. According to Kulchyski, we “are quite happy to regurgitate myths like that of the Bloody Falls massacre, which twenty years ago scholars realized was largely an invention of Samuel Hearne’s London editors…”. But our reference to Hearne, is merely the following:

Although it has been recognized that Hearne’s account was embellished by his editors to dramatize and personalize the incident, this did not pertain to the occurrence of the massacre itself, or the Chipewyan’s enmity towards the Inuit. In fact, Hearne’s field notes describe a group of Chipewyan who were intent on exterminating all Inuit they encountered. On what basis is Kulchyski declaring that this assertion is a “myth”?

Discussion: The exchange between Kulchyski and Widdowson on the Bloody Falls massacre illustrates why critical readers often need to check sources to see if authors cite them accurately. In this case, Kulchyski made the claim that the Bloody Falls Massacre did not occur, when in fact Hearne’s field notes clearly indicate that a massacre did occur. However, the published version of Hearne’s account of the massacre, which Widdowson and Howard used, was embellished by the editors to make it more appealing to the British reading public, so it did contain myths. However, those myths were not relevant to the point that Widdowson and Howard were making. Kulchyski’s argument failed as a result. Nevertheless, the exchange underscores the value of relying on a primary source (field notes that Hearne himself wrote) rather than a secondary source (published account of his words altered by editors) to support one’s argument.

Kulchyski’s dismissal of our use of Hearne’s account on the basis that it is a “myth” is important because it indicates that he is concerned about historical accuracy and the need to support one’s assertions with evidence. But if he values making a distinction between a “myth” and a real historical event in the case of Hearne’s account of the massacre, why wouldn’t he also be concerned about making such a distinction with respect to the question of whether or not aboriginal peoples migrated here from the Old World? Kulchyski, however, like most “Native Studies” professors, adopts the postmodern line that unsubstantiated aboriginal “world views” must be respected whenever he analyzes “indigenous perspectives”. In a book co-authored by Kulchyski, for example, it is lamented that, in the past, books on aboriginal culture have paid

Discussion: Widdowson/Howard turned Kulchyski’s argument back on him by suggesting that he subscribed to mythology in reference to Aboriginal origins, quoting from one of Kulchyski’s books to prove it. However, Kulchyski did have a point. In the past, stories from Aboriginal peoples concerning their origins have often been dismissed by North American archaeologists especially if they challenged the prevailing dogma. That dogma asserted that the Aboriginal ancestors migrated from Asia via the Bering land Bridge about 10,000 years ago, after which American cultures developed in absolute isolation from any further contact until about 1492. Any other theory of contact between the Americas and other continents between 10,000 B.P. and 1492 was rejected out of hand. It has only been since about 1970 that scholars have begun to seriously consider these alternative theories.

Kulchyski claims that we have attempted to “innoculate” [sic] ourselves from the charge of racism by “confronting it”. It is true that we took pains to explain how the evolutionary theories upon which our work is based (i.e. those embraced by Lewis Henry Morgan, Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, V. Gordon Childe and Leslie A. White) have nothing to do with race. This anti-racist character of our work is at first accepted by Kulchyski, who admits that our perspective is “ethnocentric” (without explaining what this is or how it is wrong), not racist. He then goes on to claim, however, that, at times, our “ethnocentrism does slide over into overt racism”. But the two pieces of evidence that Kulchyski uses to support this accusation are absurd. The first concerns our use of the book Why Cats Paint in our chapter on “traditional knowledge”. Kulchyski claims that the use of this book is “effectively implying that elders have the same absence of ability to think as cats have to create art (shades of Sepulveda’s comparison of Indigenous peoples to monkeys back in the mid-sixteenth century, which is about where this book belongs)”. People who take the time to read our book will find that our use of Why Cats Paint is not as Kulchyski infers. The book is used to illustrate how distortions and fabrications can be used to support dubious arguments. As we explain, “the important message behind this clever parody [Why Cats Paint] is that even the most improbable idea can be made to seem possible when huge amounts of pseudo-evidential infrastructure are deployed to support it” (p.232). What we are referring to are the various claims that the Aboriginal Industry is making about “traditional knowledge” vis-à-vis the scientific method, and the deception that it uses to support them.

Discussion: Kulchyski sidestepped the central claim that Widdowson and Howard were making in this chapter. What was that claim? How did weaken his review by not addressing it?

Secondly, Kulchyski claims that pointing to the problems of alcoholism and sexual abuse among the native leadership is evidence of “pernicious racism” (he maintains, again without providing any evidence, that we do this “gleefully”). Kulchyski attempts to support this assertion with the fact that we did not link the social dysfunction of many aboriginal leaders to the residential school system, or mention Brian Mulroney or Conrad Black. But only a fraction of aboriginal people went to residential schools, and Mulroney and Black are not held up as representatives of non-aboriginal society (on the contrary, they are commonly ridiculed and disparaged as crooks). What, then, is Kulchyski’s point? We fail to see how any of this is an indication of “racism”, and it appears to be merely an attempt by Kulchyski to prejudice readers against arguments that threaten his own, socially destructive, agenda.

The paucity of Kulchyski’s criticisms is an indication of the fact that there is little merit in the opposition to our book. It is either based on naked self-interest or a misunderstanding of left-wing ideas. Supporting aboriginal people in their struggle against oppression does not mean accepting everything that an aboriginal person utters or does. It also does not mean enabling a native leadership that has been corrupted by the Aboriginal Industry. This is apparently what the “social movement Left” favours as a political strategy, and why they will “take offence” at what we say.

One of the most significant issues raised in Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry concerns the relationship between the Aboriginal Industry’s agenda and left-wing politics. (Interestingly, Kulchyski never once mentions the Aboriginal Industry, even though most of the book is about this self-serving group of non-aboriginal lawyers and consultants who benefit from maintaining aboriginal dependency and social dysfunction). Although Kulchyski contends that “forging an Indigenous alliance with labour…offers real potential to destabilize the current capitalist regime in Canada”, there is no evidence that this is the case. This is because aboriginal politics encourages the native population to identify in terms of ethnicity rather than socioeconomic class, and is divisive and reactionary. In fact, the isolation of aboriginal politics from any class basis means that privileged aboriginal leaders are often bought off and used as pawns by opportunistic capitalist enterprises. Members of the aboriginal movement tend to lack solidarity with working class struggles because they perceive themselves as aristocratic “landowners” who should benefit from the surpluses extracted from non-aboriginal labour.

Discussion: Because Kulchyski did not deal with the central arguments, he left the impression that there might not be counter-arguments. Instead, like Buddle, he made subjective observations without backing them up with substantive evidence. Did he really enter the debate?

Kulchyski, as a “Native Studies” professor, cannot be objective about these matters because his career is tied to encouraging the expression of aboriginal “world views” and justifying the segregation of the native population from the mainstream. This is why Kulchyski is so offended by our view that aboriginal peoples’ “traditional ecological knowledge” is a kind of “knowledge that people from any culture can have”. In this statement one can see the actual racism that exists in supposedly left-wing discussions of aboriginal-non-aboriginal relations. This is the “aboriginal orthodoxy” described so well by Robert McGhee in the March 2009 issue of the Literary Review of Canada, which provides an actual review of our book. According to McGhee, this “aboriginal orthodoxy”

Discussion: McGhee seemed to have responded to one of the central themes in Widdowson and Howard’s book, but the critical reader has to read that review in its entirety to fully determine McGhee’s position. A useful exercise would be to compare it to the review that Kulchyski published.

Our attempt to identify the developmental gap that results in the marginalization of many aboriginal people is necessary for both addressing the aboriginal question and providing a common basis from which all people, regardless of their ethnicity, can join together to create a better future for all humanity. Although the federal government has paid a great deal of lip-service to addressing the developmental gap since 1867, as Kulchyski correctly notes, it has not devoted much thought or resources to this task. As we explain in our book, the government has never had the needs of the native population as its primary motivation, and so “a number of half-hearted schemes have been devised that never seriously and sensitively provided aboriginal peoples with the intensive programs and services that were required for them to become full citizens and economic participants in the modern world” (p. 60).

Today, with the billions of dollars that are going towards aboriginal causes every year, there appears to be both the funds and the political awareness needed to address the developmental gap. Before this can occur, however, the self-serving research being promoted by the advocacy networks associated with academics like Peter Kulchyski will have to be exposed. Aboriginal people are not “spiritually different”, like most Native Studies programs imply; they have needs and aspirations just like all human beings and therefore suffer from social isolation. The Aboriginal Industry, however, is intent on denying our commonalities so as to keep aboriginal people separate, dependent and, as a consequence, forever in need of its “help”.

Discussion: Widdowson and Howard have made a strong statement here, and aspects of their argument have already been stated by Calvin Helin in Dances with Dependency. Perhaps it is time to take a new look at what is keeping Aboriginal people in Canada isolated and dependent.

March 2009: “Should a tailor be asked to review a book on the Emperor’s clothing?” [Literary Review of Canada, March 2009]. The following is Robert McGhee’s response to Peter Kulchyski’s review of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry. (Excerpts with critical comments added)

Peter Kulchyski’s review (“The Emperor’s Old Clothes,” Canadian Dimension March/April 2009) of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry requires a response from someone who considers this book to be a vital contribution to the study of Canadian society. The review is not merely negative, but seeks to destroy the book and the credibility of its authors (Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard) who are dismissed as “kooks”, racists, poor scholars, and intellectually dishonest socialist imposters. Forced to read the book on our behalf, Kulchyski feels “slimed” as his eyes slide across the noxious pages. Such a visceral reaction is usually a symptom that something other than intellectual disagreement is going on beneath the surface, and in this case it is fairly easy to trace the ganglia that lead straight to the intellectual midbrain of autonomic response rather than to the forebrain of critical thought and rational argument.

Discussion: This is an academic response to Kulchyski’s review, meaning that a critical reader needs to have a dictionary handy for those difficult words! For instance, what did McGhee mean, when he described Kulchyski’s reaction as “visceral”? Check a dictionary, and his intent becomes clear. “Visceral” means “instinctive” as opposed to “rational,” and “autonomic” brain functions are mostly automatic responses that require little if any thought. In McGhee’s opinion, Kulchyski had not used the part of his brain responsible for “critical thought and rational argument.” What else in the first paragraph provided insights into McGhee’s perspective?

One of these distressing nerves is stimulated by Widdowson and Howard’s self-identification as Marxists, and their use of a Marxist perspective from which to criticize the cadres of government-funded lawyers and anthropologists who are employed in negotiating aboriginal treaties and self-government. In Kulchyski’s view such criticism derives naturally from right-wing politics, and is not as easily discredited when it comes from a socialist source. Rather than dealing with their critique, Kulchyski chooses to suggest that the authors are only pretending to be socialists. Unfortunately, any reading of the text indicates that such a claim is absurd. In fact the major problem with the book, in the eyes of this reader, is the authors’ reliance on classic Marxist social evolution to characterize the disparities in social and technological development between Old and New World societies at the time of their initial contact.

Discussion: According to McGhee, Kulchyski’s “absurd” claims that Widdowson and Howard were not really Marxists helped him to avoid dealing with the arguments they posed. McGhee, on the other hand, argued that sections of their analysis were weak because they relied on a “classic Marxist” perspective on social evolution. Kulchyski disagreed with everything in the Widdowson and Howard’s book; McGhee accepted some parts and rejected others. On the basis of your analysis so far, which is the more balanced viewpoint?

Contemporary socialist scholars distance themselves from this antique paradigm, but in pointing this out Kulchyski states an astounding non sequitur: “This book is based on intellectual dishonesty. The authors can barely cite a living anthropologist who will agree with them…” This nerve strikes deep into the sub-intellectual level of contemporary discourse on aboriginal rights and politics. Almost two decades ago James Clifton pointed out in The Invented Indian that “the aboriginal orthodoxy” on the unique qualities of indigenous culture and history was so ingrained that social scientists and bureaucrats questioned it at the risk of their careers. The same situation exists in contemporary Canada, and it is no surprise that most employed or employable anthropologists maintain silence rather than query the claims of aboriginal leaders. As an archaeologist I can testify with astonishment that the majority of my colleagues hesitate to openly express their scientifically-grounded belief that the deep ancestors of aboriginal North Americans originated in the Old World and reached this continent from northern Asia. To indigenous believers in a unique North American creation of First Peoples, the scientific narrative is too closely tied to those of the genetic unity of humanity, the universality of human characteristics, and perhaps even of human rights. Anthropologists have the same visceral problem in trying to align their scientific paradigm of human universality with a view that Aboriginal groups possess unique characteristics and rights. “Intellectual honesty” is perhaps not the best characterization of those like Kulchyski who have come down firmly on the side of aboriginal particularism.

Discussion: Perhaps McGhee’s argument can be expressed in another way. In their analysis of the Indian Industry, Widdowson and Howard consistently argue that all members of the human race are genetically one family, who have the same physiological and mental potential and are entitled to the same rights as their neighbours. According to McGhee, however, Kulshyski and many of his colleagues claim to accept the genetic unity of the human race, but in fact subscribe to a belief that the unique characteristics of aboriginal people entitle them to special rights distinguishing them from the rest of humanity. If intellectual honesty requires consistency, then who is intellectually dishonest?

Kulchyski’s attempt to portray the authors as “racist” is clearly not based on a reading of the text, which provides significant evidence to the contrary. Here again the midbrain is forced to deal with a contradiction that cannot be solved by rational thought. The pejorative term “racist” is usually reserved for those who believe that certain groups have characteristics that are different from or superior to those of the rest of humanity, yet it is Kulchyski and his colleagues in “the struggle for Aboriginal rights” who insist on the unique characteristics and abilities of Aboriginal peoples.

Discussion: The Nazis believed that the Jews were genetically inferior and sought to destroy them from the face of the earth. That’s a form of racism. The Untouchables of India are a despised caste in traditional India often treated in a discriminatory way. That’s racism. In Canada, it is argued that aboriginal people are different from ordinary Canadians and deserve different treatment. How is that not racism? This is essentially the question that McGhee posed, and it is a difficult one indeed!

A final sub-intellectual response is elicited by this book’s questioning of aboriginal “traditional knowledge” as something other than the worldview and the accumulated knowledge of place that is acquired by rural persons in any society. In fact the book questions, with good reason, whether aboriginal worldviews, thought patterns and social attainments are significantly different from those of non-aboriginal peoples. Kulchyski’s obvious problem is in suppressing the suspicion that the paradigm of aboriginal particularism on which he and his colleagues base their “work of decolonization” may be totally erroneous. What if Aboriginal peoples are no different from non-Aboriginals? What if the idea of “Aboriginal” is simply an updated version of the old European notions of “Primitive Man” and “Noble Savage”? What if the struggle to resist assimilation to the dominant society (“cultural genocide”) is misplaced, and that the well-intentioned actions of anti-colonialist social scientists are merely perpetuating the pain and trauma that afflict so many Aboriginal communities? These are very significant questions that are addressed by the authors of the book under review.

Discussion: McGhee raised some important questions here. Those of us who have mixed Aboriginal and European background, and there’s getting to be lots of us, have also grappled with these questions. Since we are the products of assimilation, we often question anthropologists who claim that assimilation is a bad thing. (Careful there, those are my great-grandparents you’re talking about!) What’s wrong with moving into the mainstream? That’s what cultures have been doing since time began. Nothing is static. Why then is there so much pressure to keep Aboriginal people on reserves and to expand those relics of “colonialism” into the cities. Historically, haven’t places like that been called ghettos, where you can get all the people in one place, so you can deal with them more effectively. Somehow, that seems a little ominous!

Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry is a flawed book, but also a very important book and one that should serve as the basis for open debate on the relationship between Aboriginal and Canadian societies. The vehemence of its dismissal by Kulchyski demonstrates that such a debate is long overdue.

27-29 May 2009 "Development, Postmodernism and Aboriginal Policy: What Are We Afraid Of?" Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard, response to Critics, Carleton University. This academic text provides numerous arguments which can be used to give students practice in critical analysis. However, academic writing can be lengthy and difficult for high school students to read and understand. Therefore, teachers are advised to choose sections rather than the entire text and guide the students as they read, so that they grasp the main arguments. Then, assign students only one or two of those arguments to assess in depth for validity.

^[1]As used here by Widdowson, atavism probably refers to the revival or restoration of certain cultural practices and belief systems from earlier times that could actually work against modern cultural and economic development in an increasingly integrated world. One example might be the introduction of Aboriginal pedagogy in the school system with curricula that has a strong traditional cultural component, including the use of a revived aboriginal language as a medium of instruction, the problem being that moving in this direction could foster educational separatism that further alienates Aboriginal people from mainstream culture where the focus is increasingly on multiculturalism and assimilation into the Global Village through technology. The desire to return to an earlier and better world is not confined to Aboriginal cultural movements. Nineteenth-Century Romanticism in Great Britain was a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, and Luddism was a nineteenth century protest by British textile artisans, who sought to dismantle modern industrialization and return to the less efficient and more labour-intensive cottage industries of the eighteenth century.

Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: Reviews, Responses, Discussion