Note: this is a comment I left on the Galloping Beaver’s post on the same topic, reprinted here as I’m short on time today.
I attended the Frontier Center for Progressive Policy lunch hour series last Friday in which Widdowson presented her work, with a protest drum circle in the background. Much of the controversy seems to be around her semantics & diction as much as her ideas (though I haven’t dug through the thread you’ve pointed to yet).
To summarize in very quick form, what I heard there was:
- Aboriginal cultures were conceptually unprepared for integration into European market economies, leading to their marginalization (among other reasons).
- Since that time, a non-aboriginal, non-government “industry” has formed around the disbursement of government funding to native societies.
- Channeling funding directly into high impact education programs (as opposed to be siphoned off by the “industry”) would be a more effective use of funds.
- The “industry” feels threatened by this suggestion and reacts predictably.
I have yet to read the book (though I have a copy of it), and thus won’t commit to agreeing or disagreeing with any of the above – just sharing my interpretation of her talk.
The FCPP said it well, I think: Widdowson is stirring the pot, and Aboriginal policy is certainly a pot that needs to be stirred – a sentiment I do agree with.
EDIT:
There’s a lot of talk about Widdowson’s position on traditional knowledge, Aboriginal sprituality, and so on. She certainly seems to have remarkable ability to alienate, and whatever purely policy/economic value her ideas may have are easily lost in light of comments like this:
…I am surprised that people on the Left find his promotion of spirituality (praying to rocks and trees) and romanticism (returning to the ways of his ancestors) inspiring. I doubt that any of the posters really take these ideas seriously; they are merely confusing condescension with left-wing activism. [Frances Widdowson, in a comment on StageLeft]
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Most frustrating is the fact that aboriginal traditional knowledge is innovating how we understand the natural world. Biologists did not believe that bowhead whales migrated under the ice pack beyond the leads, but the Inupiat knew and said so. Biologists observed this behavior and thought themselves very clever. Inupiat people, as well as Athapaskans and others, lived by the most hardcore experimental testing regime that exists: if you don’t make accurate observations and generate predictive models that are precise and accurate enough, you will starve. They existed with that model for several thousand years.
What they did not exist with was lawyers, epidemic disease, armies and racists. Booze didn’t help much either but it took the sting out of the first four horsemen. The mistake that many of these critics of TK make is a purposeful one: focus on the ones who are not doing well and use them to tar an entire race of people as failures and “useless eaters.” In the US this is the Bell Curve people.