Toward a Native Anthropology: Hermeneutics, Hunting Stories, and Theorizing from Within

Ats Native person doing anthropological research within and for American Indian nations, I am not able to sidestep the many theoretical and ethical concerns that non-Native researchers face in doing similar research. I have had to defend the potential biases of my research, whether it is applied or action oriented, whereas my nonNative colleagues do not. Indeed, if anthropology is, as Thomas Biolsi and Larry Zimmerman state, a quintessentially Western project that Westerners ask about themselves and their encounter with peoples they have colonized and liquidated,' what use could I possibly find in the techniques offered by such set of questions? In graduate school, I realized that my interests in anthropology differed from those of my peers who seemed intent on traveling the world and experiencing new things. I sought to capture anthropological skills, understand my place in the world, and help my community communicate our struggles for survival. In what follows, I want to examine why and how Native and non-Native researchers choose the research questions they do, and how this relates to the colonial context in which they find themselves. To do this, I treat research itself, not just anthropology, as part of the historical and colonial context of contemporary indigenous people.2 A number of studies provide ethical guidelines for doing research for and within American Indian nations, and many of them provide good ideas for anyone contemplating research agenda within Indian Country.3 What is lacking, I believe, is deep theoretical rumination Ia