Comparison between Carole and Catellino articles on Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of human life and includes aspects of human linguistics, social science, biology, and philosophical linkages. In the United States, attention is placed on once primitive societies and how they might be used to comprehend the politics, economy, and morals of the contemporary era.

In the United States of America, anthropology began to take off in the early 18th century. The idea of an individual and the social component were influential at this time in human history. The rationale for the study of anthropology has been the fact that the two concepts intermingled very well and that a person’s history cannot be understood individually. This study reigned with the principle of organization in the 19th century, and at the time of 20th century, the French sociology had a lot of impact in the study of anthropology with a modification in the explanation of the behavior of human beings as a collective one (Catellino 240).

Different analyses by books show that countries took different trajectories in the study of anthropology. Therefore, many writers identify different concepts of laws, custom patterns, culture and holding together in various contexts depending on the various prevailing situations. As a consequence, the authors of anthropological articles have devised different methods to present their main ideas that are mostly conceptually different.

This essay shall seek to do a comparative study of the two different anthropology articles to understand how different concepts were presented by authors in various ways and methods and more particularly, the problems that they sought to solve at the material times. On the one hand is the article by Catellino on double bind where American Indian tribal nations, require economic power to exercise sovereignty, and their revenues often derive from their governmental rights (Catellino 237). However, as it stands, their legitimacy is questioned based on a pending termination arrangement that was definitively suspended. On the other hand, there is the work by Carole MacGranahan who majorly theorized on the case of refusal.

Catellino wrote an article in the anthropology of gaming in the United States. He identifies the problem of the study as the tribal gaming had taken root in America but has d not been beneficial to the Indian Americans. Another issue that he seeks to solve in the article is the taking of account of the differential political status of indigenous people against the principle of equality. According to him, this concern was bringing a lot of dilemma of a fundamental nature (Catellino 242). He explains that the competing amongst the possible paths would lead to the dilemma of a negation of one another making a solution very impossible to find. In explaining his problem and how it took part over the years, he participated in the analysis of the relationship between the indigenous and the non-indigenous peoples living in America. Catellino was concerned with the fact of emergence 9of native wealth over poverty and what that mean for the existing structures. He, therefore, makes an analysis of what he referred to as the double mind on the sovereignty that was based on human needs.

One major concept that Catellino put forth is that the sovereignty. He provides that the sovereignty is among the indigenous and the foreigners. He further advances the idea of sovereignty by discussing the termination in governance. He discussed the termination governance that was aimed at the total elimination of Indian Polities. As a result, in his study, he takes the indigenous authority as the leadership of the people of the United States together with their obligations. Catellino further noted that sovereignty is achieved only through self-governance or that id reorganization was necessary, then it ought to arise from the bureaucratic forms of governing that diminishes the power of local councils.

The other concept of the explanation is that sovereignty derives itself from the authority. The article further advanced on the idea of Sovereignty is further by identifying the sources of the sources of the sovereignty. One such source is the power, the precolonial and ongoing in the Tribal Council. Another source is the 19th-century military victory by the United States in Seminole wars (Catellino 247). Lastly, the authority that6 leads to sovereignty depends on the ability to live different kinds of lives be its cattle ranching, religion or a social life with relatives.

To showcase this occurrence, Catellino uses the example of the 1960s on America authorities have control over the activities of non-indigenous by the power to determine the citizenship and regulating of activities that are commercial in nature. Notably, he used the example of Florida in 1960, sovereignty has been capable of limitation and not being extinguished. It is the use of the authority, this article provides, that there was able to be a slating of Seminoles for termination in 1953. In fact, this was a huge surprise as earlier on; the Semilones had been slated for assistance by the federal government. Catellino reasons that the part reason why the termination was necessary was that by 1950, the Seminoles had become very poor and that termination would be the only means of preventing dependency in a complete way. The Semilones also because of their role in first holding the rodeos were guided by their ancestor’s spirit of fighting the incursion of the federal government.

Another concept in explaining the idea of sovereignty was that of economic citizenship. It is noted that the sovereignty is dependent on the needs of each of the categories of the people. This, therefore, means that financial resources are necessary to ensure a tribal sovereignty that is legitimate. He opines that what is the sovereign tribe I answered only by the analysis of the ability of a tribe to mobilize the economic resources. Catellino also opines that tribal gaming has the high potential of causing political constraints to the expectations of the indigenous poverty. The potential to cause the instability according to Catellino is due by the allocation of revenue (Durham 57).

He is quick however to note that the individual wealth and an activity that causes the assimilation and reorientation required in a settler state. He offers this as the justification for the exclusive grant of Indians of the citizenship and the dismantling of the tribal governments. The culmination of a great stride walked in the quest for equality, Catellino notes, is Dawes Act that stipulates the general acceptance of the Indians who showed allegiance to the United States (Catellino 6).

This clearly shows that whether a non-settler individual is going to be integrated ion a country and to be effectively so, he or she has to be a match-fit in the economic needs of the settler country. In fact, this was the justification for the American Indian quest for justice and equality and recognition thus leading to the termination bill that ensured that the Indians were treated as equals and be granted all the rights and prerogatives that pertained the becoming of a full citizen of the United States.

Catellino also noted that within the purview of the economic a factors to be considered, there ought to be other factors such as the ability to understand the language and the way of the people in the Settler state to be fully integrated. It is as a result of the economic progress language asked and requested by the Seminoles that ended with assimilation. He also noted that the exercise of economic powers as an element the idea of sovereignty can only be done through collective governance and not over dividing of commonly held property.

After laying the bases of the study, the author of the article devolves on gaming and the constitution where the focus is on the two decades after the termination debate that had reigned in the 1950s in the United States. Gaming is discussed as an act of self –governance used by the Seminoles. This has included the projects such as the building of casinos that raises billions of dollars annually and ultimately used to carter for the people through cultural programs, language, and education. As a result of the suspension of termination and the ultimate integration, now the gaming has taken root that it diminishes any hope of ever terminating the Seminoles.

The article notes that by the year 2007, the Seminoles had organized themselves that they were able to organize key events, engage in military participation, sports activities and organize with a translation of their language. They have a recital for their flag and have gained a substantially achieve in the collective governance through wealth and integration of the market.

His method of bringing this to prospect is by the discussion of the findings of another writer. For instance, he analyzes the early writings by Philip Doleria who had previously investigated the pertinent questions on the concepts of expectation, American Indian polities, and different cultures. It is from these earlier findings that the analysis of Catellino is based.

The other Essay of Carole MacGranahan, the article is majorly on the refusal and the theory of refusal (McGranahan 334). This is a current journal article that focuses only on the element of refusal that appears in the work of Catellino. The theme that runs across the article is the activism, culture and social movements. According to Carole, adopts an ethnographic approach and finds that to refuse is more than just saying no as it can be generative. Carole, therefore, adopts ab general meaning as a general move towards a thing or belief. This is even expanded by stating that it must not be a response to authority in the form of resistance but can be the cutting of social relations.

This was an improvement of the earlier thoughts that provided that resistance was a complex recognition and theorization of any form of domination. According to Carole, there is more need to refuse and resist now than it was three decades ago. This explanation is made finer by examining the levels of individual and collective affiliations and relationships. Therefore according to Carole, the resistance and refusal goes beyond the class struggle or domination to cover the sociality that traverses all relationships (McGranahan 340). She notes further that in early times, refusal took the form of inclusions and exclusions, of self-other distinctions. The denials that were very categorical and material were thus generated.

Carole also added the political perspective. According to her, refusal is a political action such as self-determination, decolonization movement and rejection of structures or even the politics itself whose consequence is the troubling of the conscience Refusal marks the point of a limit having been reached. We can also find refusal in refutations of theoretical models, decisions to withhold rather than share individual data by anthropologists and subjects alike, denials of certain types of funding, and, of course, the realities of being refused, denied, and rejected as an expected part of academia (McGranahan 339).

She also advances the negativity perspective in the concept of refusal. Is refusal negative? At times it might be. This, therefore, shows that ethnography has grown as the solution to the thin interdisciplinary studies on resistance. Carole also identifies that the concept of refusal has developed with time owing to the need to understand certain types of worlds. Right now, there are different ethnographic rationales of the need for interpretation. This has therefore led to an interpretive refusal to bring more illumination as opposed to flattening of ethnography.

Carole just like Catellino has utilized the method of case studies to illustrate the points and views on sovereignty and refusals respectively. For instance, she has used the case study for refusals of Mohawk in the United States and Canadian governments and examples animating sociality among vaccine-cautious parents in California (Durham 77). This is also evident in her study of pediatric vaccine practices in a Waldorf school to bring on the importance of studies of refusal concept.

Carole’s argument on refusal can be said to be an improvement of the concept of refusal by Catellino. While Catellino takes the view that refusal takes the form of citizen resistance, Carole identified the different forms of refusal apart from citizenship such as ethnographic, vaccine and military refusal (Catellino 249). The themes of refusal discussed by Carole are that Refusal is generative. That is to mean that when one thing ends, it forms the generation of a new thing. Accordingly, the refusal can be private taking the form of abstention.

Another theme is that refusal is social and affirmative as refusals have the capacity to create social relations. Also, Refusal is not another word for resistance and therefore when theorizing refusal, it does not does not revamp resistance to accommodate critique. Instead, refusal itself amounts to a critique. The last theme is that refusal concept is willful and aligned with hope.

The two articles by Catellino and Carole presents ideas in the similar area of tension between tribes and the integration process of a strange being in a foreign state. At least, they present the same idea albeit differently. While the work of Catellino is too broad and covers the concepts of sovereignty, authority and economic part of human life, the work of Carole has based its primary focus on the element of refusal as the process of creating a distinct system that leads to differentiation and ultimately integration.

Also, Catellino presents a dogmatic idea of refusal as-as he presents it is as an action against domination (Catellino 236) Catellino in his article was basing the principle of dissent on the idea of revolution. The given case study was based on the change of the status quo. On the other hand, Carole presents a modern view of the principle of refusal. Carole notes that refusal does not necessarily mean resistance and can as well be negative in nature. She further presents an idea that unlike the Catellino article that talks much on refusal as resistance, refusal is hopeful, generative, affiliative and willful.

Also, the anthropological work of Catellino is based on the dilemma on the human situation. The dilemma here is, as a result, the two positions of the need to enforce termination and the advanced integration of Indian Americans. On the other hand, Carole discusses a concept, not in a dilemma environment. Her focus was the improvement on refusal and makes no mention of the debate of termination of tribes.

Comparatively, the two articles have adopted the similar methods of delivery and illustration of the message. The work of Catellino has used the case studies of the termination debate are that took place in the mid-twentieth century and later. The fate of the Indians in America, hearing of termination cases, and subsequent termination of the is a case study used to vividly explain the effect of sovereign and authority and the influence that then economic and social arrangements have on the sovereignty concept (Catellino 6). His method of the delivery of the concepts is one through case scenarios and case studies such as that of the Seminoles in a descriptive manner.

Catellino made an analysis that concentrates on the Seminoles, their gaming and threatened severance, limits to sovereignty and citizenship that depends on the debates over culture of American Indians distinctively as individuals and as collectives. He describes the termination proceedings where the Indian Americans were required to take up other economic activities the Indians to provide more economic actors as the conditions necessary to the integration. Similarly, Carole uses the Mohawks in North America and the refusal so as to properly describe the history of refusal and the advancement of the term (Durham 47). She also uses the scenario of Tibetans’ refusal of citizenship in India and Nepal since 1959 to make her point known.

The conclusion of the article of Catellino shows that the scholarly analysis of the article reveals a double mind. That of termination on the one hand and the other idea is far much past the fact as the Indians have taken root through t art of self-governance and the proper integration. This throws into disarray, the idea of termination and is a dilemma since the Seminoles had abandoned their indigenous ways of living.

On the other hand, the conclusion of the work of Carole concentrates solely on the concept of refusal. In a descriptive analysis, the article shows that the concept of refusal had undergone a paradigm shift. It, therefore, endorses the current provision for a willful and affinitive refusal that is not merely based on resistance. Therefore, it broadens the study articles by Catellino on the respect of refusals as a concept within the major idea of sovereignty and expression of authority.

Works Cited

Catellino, Jessica. “The Double Bind of American Indian Need‐Based Sovereignty.” Cultural Anthropology 25(2) (2010): 235-262.

—. “Thoughts on the US as a settler society (Plenary Remarks, 2010 SANA Conference.” North American Dialogue 14(1) (2011): 1-6.

Durham, C. Mohawk interuptus: Political Life across Borders of Settler States. Duke University Press, 2014.

James, Scott. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasdasnt Resistance. New Haven : Yale University Press, 1985.

McGranahan, Carole. “Refusal and the Gift of Citizenship.” Cultural Anthroplogy 31(3) (2016): 334-341.