The Ethics of Not Questioning Indigeneity Brian D. Haley, SUNY College at Oneonta A paper for the session “Archaeologists as Gatekeepers of Native American and Native Hawaiian Identity,” Society for American Archaeology Annual Meetings, Austin, Texas, April 29, 2007. Abstract: As North American archaeologists gravitate toward the collaborative mode of applied anthropology, they face new challenges. Professional authority is a key element of most collaborations, yet also can be why they fail. North Ameri can archaeologists are increasing their collaborations with indigenous groups, but encounter difficulty when their results conflict with the self - identity of their collaborators. My presentation will illustrate how many of these difficulties are inherent in the nature of identity generally, and are aggravated by the larger social contexts in which indigeneity itself has advantageous meaning. Beginning Good morning. According to my wife, I’m a recovering archaeologist. I was drawn to anthropology initially by archaeology, but my graduate work—as well as all of my professional work for the past 10 years—has been in cultural anthropology. So why am I here leading off a session on archaeologists and indigenous identity? Undeniably, it is because––with Larry Wilcoxon as a frequent coauthor––I have written about how and why identities and traditions change. 1 We have been critical of anthropologists, including archaeologists, who mislead the public, policymakers, colleagues, and students through methodologically and ethically careless legitimizing of specific assertions related to identity. We have also criticized tendencies in professional practice and policy to force anthropologically untenable distinctions between “authentic” versus “spurious” culture and “real” versus “fake” identities. The responses from critics reveal that our criticism of both sloppy legitimizing by anthropologists and authentic/spurious or real/fake dichotomies causes some confusion. Indeed, our critics mistakenly accuse us of trying to classify cultural practices as “spurious” and identities as “fake.” Our position is quite different. 2 I am not here to support or condemn gatekeeping by archaeologists. Mine is a third position. I think a more appropriate professional activity is educating people that 1 See, in particular, Haley & Wilcoxon 1997 and 2005; see also Haley & Wilcoxon 1998, 1999, Haley 2005, 2007. 2 See, for example, Erlandson et al. 1998, Radiç 2000, Boggs 2002, King 2003:111-114, 279-280, and Campbell 2006. Cf. Haley & Wilcoxon 1998, 2000, and Haley 1999:95, 2002a, 2002b, 2003a, 2003b, 2004, 2007. Those close to the situation may recognize that my opening attempt at humor is more than that. A critic has alleged that our research is motivated by a conflict of interest (Erlandson 1998:484), a fabrication that resurfaces as if we had never refuted it (Haley & Wilcoxon 1998:505). Allegedly, we are trying to discredit a competing archaeology firm run by people who identify as Chumash. Yet there was no such firm when we began this work, nor any hint of its later appearance. Such a firm only briefly existed (just as I was leaving the region), and neither of us has been in archaeology for years (Wilcoxon hasn’t done archaeology in that part of California since 2000; he lives in northern California where he cares for an ailing parent). Our question to our critics—How would a demonstrated lack of Chumash ancestry prevent someone from practicing archaeology?—has gone unanswered. 1