UNAM
Revista Digital Universitaria
Revista Digital Universitaria ISSN: 1607 - 6079 | Publicación mensual | 1 de febrero de 2014 vol.15, No.02

ABSTRACT

Risk and rescue. Tradition and innovation as identity factors



Everardo Garduño Ruiz


The current Indianist discourse utilizes the expressions of risk and rescue. This is to refer to those Indigenous groups with a small number of speakers, and to talk about the undertaken actions to preserve their culture. This is not a critique to the extraordinary work developed by INALI in Baja California, yet, this paper offers an analysis on the uses of these expressions and about some of their possible implications. Taking the Yumans as analytical reference, it is discussed here the largely accepted notion of Indian diminishment, the binary way of thinking that confronts the relevance of tradition versus innovation, as well as, ancient people versus young people of a given community. At last, this paper questions the depicted picture of Indigenous people as victims of globalization process.



Keywords: Yuman people; Indian diminishment; cultural tradition.