Despite the denial of sovereignty, the world's more than 350 million indigenous peoples continue to assert aboriginal title to significant portions of the world's remaining bio-diversity. As a result, conflicts between tribal peoples and nation states are on the increase. Today, many of the societies that gave the field of anthropology its empirical foundations and unique global vision of a diverse and evolving humanity are being destroyed as a result of national economic, political, and military policies. The main focus of this volume is on the internal dynamics and political strategies of hunting and gathering societies in areas of self-determination and self-representation. More specifically, it examines areas such as warfare and conflict resolution, resistance, identity and the state, demography and ecology, gender and representation, and world view and religion. It raises a large number of major issues of common concerns and therefore makes important reading for all those interested in human rights issues, ethnic conflict, grassroots development and community organization, and environmental topics.
Megan Biesele is President, School of Expressive Culture, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas. She helped found the Kalahari Peoples Fund in 1973 and currently serves as its Coordinator. Robert H. Hitchcock is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Anthropology Department, as well as the coordinator of African Studies, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is involved in research and development project monitoring, evacuation, and implementation, primarily in southern and eastern Africa and North America. Peter P. Schweitzer is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Lecturer at the Institute of Ethnology, Cultural, and Social Anthropology, University of Vienna.