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Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard, Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008. 330 pages. ISBN 978-0-7735-3421-6. $29.95 pbk.
Using lessons learned from the well known European children's tale, "The Emperor's New Clothes," Widdowson and Howard set about to demonstrate the nakedness of Indigenous peoples' demands in Canada. Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry attempts to delve into questions concerning the demands, finances, agendas, and politics which drive the Indigenous movement. According to the authors, the Aboriginal Industry is being driven by non-Indigenous forces- clergy, lawyers, consultants, and anthropologists- whom they represent as parasites feeding on Canadian taxpayer dollars. These "parasites" are in turn supported by either naive Aboriginal leaders or Aboriginal charlatans. Most curiously, the authors clearly give the impression that those who are to blame for the creation and longevity of the Aboriginal Industry are those working for or on behalf of the Indians - government-hired parasites are implicitly excluded. Land claims, economic development, language preservation, traditional knowledge, and self-government are portrayed as false gods created in an effort to further industrial goals at the expense of poverty-stricken Indians living on reserves or in urban areas. The authors represent all efforts to forward Indigenous people in Canada as failures or misguided efforts that do not prepare Natives to enter the modern world.
Widdowson and Howard are true liberal individualists who sincerely believe in the legacy of Enlightenment thought. For the authors, the only way to understand the world is through the god-like lens of objectivity created by the Western academy and supported by all its forms...