Indigenous Action Anthropology

"Action Anthropology" was a theoretical orientation within Anthropology that was led by a University of Chicago theorist named Sol Tax in the 1950's and early l960's. Action Anthropology reached its high point in 1961 when it was utilized by Sol Tax and his students to organize the pivotal and historic American Indian Chicago Conference (AICC). I am contending that the American Indian leaders and intellectuals who attended the AICC set out a national programme of action that strengthened the cultural protections of American Indian nations. I propose that this development can be understood if one applies a generational action framework that is best described as an Indigenous Action Anthropology. The model I am proposing here also provides an understanding of why American Indian intellectuals and the discipline of Anthropology went in different, sometimes opposing directions, in spite of their extraordinary cooperation in 1961. I am placing a generational action model and symbol in the center of this debate and I believe that this symbol is also one of the Wagnerian "symbols that stand for themselves." As part of the explication of this model, I am proposing as a starting point, an experiential Dakota origin. I am also demonstrating an application of this model in a local context - - in regards to the status of American Indians at the University of Virginia.

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