Credit between Cultures: Farmers, Financiers, and Misunderstanding in Africa

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST BOOK REVIEWS Single Book Reviews Black and Indigenous: Garifuna Activism and Consumer Culture in Honduras Mark Anderson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009. 290 pp. KWAME DIXON Syracuse University The academic and popular literature on black and in- digenous peoples in the Americas frames blacks as being “new world” or “diasporic” and indigenous peoples as “na- tive.” But what if the traditional construction of black- ness and indigeneity were collapsed, thus allowing blacks and indigenous peoples to be understood as complimen- tary verses oppositional? In other words, is it possible to speak of a black indigeneity or indigenous blackness, and if so, what does this imply? Mark Anderson’s im- portant new book, Black and Indigenous: Garifuna Activism and Consumer Culture in Honduras, raises some critical ques- tions on the Afro-Indigenous equation. He argues that the Honduran case allows for an understanding of black indi- geneity or indigenous blackness. What investments go into making and marking of these distinctions as oppositions, such that new world blacks can never be indigenous—or can they (p. 1)? Anderson calls into question binary constructions of social identity and argues that the case of Honduras calls for a more nuanced approach. Black and Indigenous explores the complex intersection of racial formation, black and indigenous identities, Afro- Garifuna social movements, and rise of neoliberal multi- cultural politics in modern Honduras and other part of the Americas. One of the main questions raised is whether we can interpret and explain the variety of discourses and prac- tices of race and culture among Garifuna, who produce various meanings of blackness with variable emphasis on the indigenous (p. 7)? To them, “blackness” and “indigeneity” are not mutually exclusive categories; instead, they serve as modalities of identity formation that overlap with each other (p. 21). Garifuna are able to simultaneously assert multiple, overlapping identities. These modes of identification include black, Honduran, Afro-Honduran, and Garifuna, which are deeply rooted in indigenous culture. And over the past few decades, Garifuna identity has taken on diasporic dimen- sions as many Garifuna have developed links to black North Americans via transnational networks. Anderson posits that it is important not to privilege one mode of formation over any other but, rather, see them in relation to each other. Anderson argues that the Garifuna case produces forms of black indigeneity that partially disrupt a conceptual polit- ical grid that links indians with indigeneity and blacks with displacement. To best understand the production of Gar- ifuna identities, Anderson explains the use of key identity terms (e.g., negro, Indio, Moreno) to show how Garifuna com- munities use them in relation to categories like “black” and “indian” to underscore how such categories converge with biological and cultural difference within racialized classifica- tion schemes. Contemporary Garifuna social mobilization is linked to Pan-American currents of identity politics, from civil rights struggles to black nationalisms to indigenous movements. Anderson locates Garifuna social mobilization within the context of the rise of “neoliberal multiculturalism.” There are two important theoretical currents that are central to Anderson’s use of neoliberal multiculturalism: first is the relationship between neoliberal governments and multicul- tural politics, and second is a critical assessment of the re- lationships among black politics, cultural rights, and an- tiracism in Latin America (p. 139). The politics of multicul- turalism in Honduras has produced a web of contradictions and distortions. Grassroots activists, who operate on tight budgets and sparse resources, are forced to chose between participating (or not) in government- or externally financed projects, which means choosing to participate, with the risk of being compromised, or to offer a critique of state prac- tices, with the risk of being marginalized (p. 140). Anderson examines several Afro-Honduran groups, as well as other stakeholders, in order to show how the ethnic paradigm came to be and how Garifuna groups positioned themselves c 2012 by the American Anthropological AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 114, No. 1, pp. 156–172, ISSN 0002-7294, online ISSN 1548-1433. Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1433.2011.01413.x