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On Disrobing Those Who Would Dismantle the Aboriginal Industry
Clint Westman's review essay not only raises significant issues of academic freedom and peer review within the academy but also chaUenges social scientists, perhaps especially anthropologists, to respond to the public use and misuse of social science expertise. Westman's frustration (which I share) oozes from every pore of his commentary. In a profoundly anti-intellectual society, with a political leadership apparently eager to dismiss arguments about the pubUc good and the human costs of neoliberal governance, we who criticize this mishmash of sloppy thinking and unfounded inference are forced into a defensive position. Calhng on our expertise is dismissed as whining, despite the irony of Widdowson and Howard's claim to that very kind of expertise for which their critique loses credibility.
McGill-Queens University Press has doubtless made money on this book and may well be prepared to ignore its scholarly merit or lack thereof. The book is getting more attention than most scholarly readers would deem it to deserve. Yet if we ignore it, the erroneous and snidery disparaging portraits of Aboriginal peoples stand without challenge. We need to pull apart this package, to separate the audiences and positions to which critique is directed. Westman suggests that there are at least three audiences: the academic, the Aboriginal and the public. He does not address the variation of responses within the Aboriginal community except insofar as he cites the scathing dismissal by Native academics. Because he focuses on the academic, especially the anthropological, critique, he tends to conflate public opinion, government policy desiderata and media manipulation. I wiU return to the latter issues,...