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Thomas Biolsi and Larry J. Zimmerman, editors. Indians and Anthropologists. Vine Deloria, Jr., and the Critique of Anthropology. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997. vii + 240 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. Cloth, $45.00 cloth; paper, $19.95.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, books such as Tal Asad's Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter and Dell Hymes's Reinventing Anthropology marked a broad reflection on the epistemology of anthropological understanding and its unique relationship to colonialism. In American Indian studies, Vine Deloria condemned anthropology's role in subjugating American Indians in his Custer Dies for Your Sins and almost singlehandedly provoked anthropologists to rethink the assumptions behind their studies of Native communities. In Custer and subsequent works, Deloria's criticism of the relationship between power and the politics of representation - simply put, who has the right to speak for and/or represent whom - directly challenged anthropology's focus on pure research questions and demanded a research agenda that was directly...