Content uploaded by Pauline Oosterhoff
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Pauline Oosterhoff on Nov 27, 2021
Content may be subject to copyright.
The terms “Development with Identity” and “Development with Culture and Identity” are
adopted by agencies and the World Bank and can be traced back to various legal instru-
ments such as International Human Rights Law (e.g. Human Rights Declaration,
International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights, International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination,
Convention on the Rights of the Child, . See also for example: International Expert
Group Meeting on Indigenous Peoples: Development with Culture and Identity: Articles 3 and
32 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 12–14 January 2010:
<www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpi/documents/EGM_DCI_Concept_Paper.doc>, visited on 12
August 2013. And Tauli-Corpuz, Victoria, The Concept of Indigenous Peoples’ self-determined
development or development with identity and culture: challenges and trajectories (Tebtebba
Foundation, CLT/CPD/CPO/2008/IPS/02 (UNESCO Publishers, 2008).
United Nations Development Program, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth,
Poverty Practice, Bureau for Development Policy, Poverty in Focus: Indigenizing Development,
No. 17 (May 2009).
Follow-up to the recommendations of the Permanent Forum: indigenous women, United
Nations Economic and Social Council, New York (2009).
Visualizing Development with Identity
Relational Aesthetics of Indigenous Collaborative Community
Art Projects
Pauline Oosterhof, Arno Peeters and Iris Honderdos
Introduction
Balancing indigenous and minority people’s economic development with
the preservation of their cultural heritage is a critical issue in contemporary
discussions among both ethnographic museums and development experts.
The right to development for indigenous peoples, along with the preservation
of their identity, has been widely recognized by various international treaties
and laws. Many indigenous peoples have asserted at many international
forums where this right to identity was discussed that the dominant develop-
ment paradigm and globalization are causing the destruction of their indige-
nous economic, social and cultural systems. These claims are also validated by
policy-oriented research on indigenous peoples and development. Represen-
tatives of minorities and indigenous peoples demand the right to choose their
own development path – development with culture and identity – in a number
of international organizations, such as the Permanent Forum on Indigenous
Issues. However, there is a diversity of identities within indigenous and minor-
ity communities, such as those based on gender and age. Recognizing such
© , , | ./_
This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the prevailing -- License
at the time of publication. Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
238 ,
J. Ruby, “The moral burden of authorship in ethnographic lm,” in Visual Anthropology
Review, Volume 11, Number 2 Fall (1995).
diferences is important, and can contribute to a more complete and accurate
picture of rich indigenous cultures, but it can also be seen as divisive and
threatening to already marginalized populations. The ethical perils and moral
burdens that face outsiders who try to represent diversity and change within
marginalized indigenous cultures through art have been extensively debated,
in particular by critical visual anthropologists. Cultural anthropology as a dis-
cipline assumed that an “outsider” could objectively describe and explain a
culture from the insider’s point of view. Ethnographic lm was a way to ‘record’
and explain the native’s perspective. Anthropology should enable Westerners
“to see the world through the eyes of the native” (Malinowski 1922).
But this ability to represent others has been seriously questioned by a range
of actors including indigenous lmmakers who want to take charge of this rep-
resentation process. A common problematic representation of indigenous cul-
tures by outsiders in lm and photography is a victimizing, tragic portrayal of
“disappearing” cultures facing extinction via contact with the “western” or
“developed” world. Another is the romantic portrayal of “stone-age cultures”
that have been untouched by development. Such problematic iconizations of
the heroic indigene have been with us ever since George Catlin’s 19th-century
paintings of noble Native Americans and the partially staged dramatic
sequences of Inuit life in Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North. Both the
romantic and the tragic portrayals of indigenous peoples are variations of
essentialist “othering” by outsiders that fail to recognize indigenous cultures’
internal diversity, their long history of participation in the global market econ-
omy, and the aspirations and abilities of indigenous individuals to improve
their own lives. One approach to address the problems associated with outsid-
ers representing indigenous cultures has been to work on art projects in a more
participatory fashion with indigenous communities. Representatives of indig-
enous communities, it is hoped, can provide a more complicated and realistic
insider’s portrayal of their community. This view of authorship, where only
insiders can describe a culture accurately, is also essentialist and raises some
old and thorny questions about the abilities, rights and responsibilities of art-
ists to create works above and beyond their personal identities and lives.
This article deals with two participatory community art projects exploring
aspirations and fears regarding identity and development with representatives
of indigenous Benet peoples in Uganda and Khasi peoples in India. The proj-
ects were implemented in collaboration with Dutch artists as well as develop-
ment and museum experts from the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, in
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
239
See 1.United Nations Department of Economic and Social Afairs, State of the World’s
Indigenous Peoples (New York: United Nations 2009) or United Nations Permanent Forum on
Indigenous Issues. Who are indigenous peoples? Accessed August 12, 2013. <http://www.un
.org/esa/socdev/unpi/documents/5session_factsheet1.pdf> or Department of Economic
and Social Afairs, Division of Social Policy and Development, Secretariat of the United
Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (). State of the World’s Indigenous
Peoples (2009). <http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpi/documents/SOWIP_web.pdf>, visited
on 12 August 2013.
2012. The development experts worked for over a decade on indigenous well-
being and are part of a global network of development practitioners, activists
and indigenous representatives. Through these contacts a number of indige-
nous groups in Asia and Africa were identied that experienced clear tensions
between cultural heritage preservation and development. One key consider-
ation was the availability of a variety of local leaders and organizations, espe-
cially indigenous ones, who understood and supported a collaborative artwork
on indigenous identity, aspirations and fears. Another was community access
to basic necessities such as drinking water, physical safety, and electricity for
computers. The rst selection of ve groups was made through desk research
and interviews, followed by eld visits by experts to discuss the project in
person and show examples of other joint projects and installations. Some
potential communities visited, such as the Maasai in Kenya, expressed great
interest, but lacked sucient food and water even for their own needs. Hosting
artists to live with a family on a compound and having to share their scare
resources would have been a serious burden. Trucking resources such as water,
food and electricity in, could also create tensions and we decided against it for
ethical reasons.
Indigenous Peoples, Cultural Heritage and Development
Indigenous peoples are a heterogeneous but signicant group that number
370 million and live mostly in Asia, Africa and Latin America. They make up
an estimated third of the world’s poorest “bottom billion,” with poorer health
outcomes than the majority populations or as Stephens et al. (2005) have put it
indigenous peoples are “behind everyone, everywhere.” They are key stake-
holders in international development cooperation and debates. However, in
practice indigenous voices and issues are often still invisible. In some cases the
very use of the term “indigenous” is avoided, which makes it hard to know who
are indigenous groups or how many members they have. India does recognize
indigenous rights but the government frequently refers to indigenous people
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
240 ,
under the terms “scheduled tribes” or “Adivasi.” These local terms do not have
the same international legal status and recognition, and unless one already
knows the local terms it would be hard to research indigenous peoples even in
English language texts.
In other countries such as Indonesia or Botswana, the word “indigenous” is
no longer employed at all, or only for very small groups, because the term has
legal connotations with regards to land rights. In Indonesia many terms have
been used to describe their communities since independence, including native
people, adat communities or adat law communities, and isolated people.
These communities are often displaced from their land for the implementa-
tion of development projects in sectors such as forestry, mining, and agricul-
ture, such as palm oil plantations on Kalimantan, the home of many peoples
who were previously considered indigenous. (Myrna Satri and Rafael Edy
Bosko 2002) In Botswana the San, who are recognized by the and African
organizations as indigenous peoples are not recognized as such by the govern-
ment. In 1966, the government has adopted a ‘non-racial’ policy at indepen-
dence and holds that all citizens of the country are indigenous. Claims of the
San to their native lands are dismissed.
Indigenous land rights, both individual and collective, are violated in many
countries. Such land rights are recognized by numerous international statutes,
including the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of 1989 (“ 169”), the
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, and the American Convention on Human Rights.
Indigenous peoples can claim land rights from national governments using
these laws, including land that has valuable mineral resources.
For ethnographic museums, the mission to preserve and support the cul-
tural heritage sector has all too often led to essentialist misrepresentations of
indigenous cultures as “traditional” or “endangered” by development or resis-
tant to change. The critical study of the social role and impact of museums that
developed in recent decades has suggested that engagement with the concepts
of social inclusion and exclusion will require museums – and the profession
and sector as a whole- to radically rethink their purposes and goals and to
renegotiate their relationship to, and role within, society (Sandell 2003: 45).
Nowadays, there is consciousness that museums have been linked to national-
ist, modern and majority-culture discourses, neglecting diversity and exclud-
ing indigenous peoples and other minorities in shaping the social agency of
the museum. Sandell (2002) argues that museums as social institutions have
the ability to promote collective action and potentially empower individuals
and communities towards social inclusion. There is also more awareness that
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
241
the distinctions between traditional and modern are not clear-cut; individuals
can be both traditional and modern. In addition there is wider recognition
of the importance of individual agency in shaping and responding to wider
changes.
Appadurai (2004) argued that cultural preferences for global cultural prod-
ucts may not just be a sign of the loss of ‘traditional’ culture but rather reect
the capacity of individuals to aspire to a diferent and better life. Aspirations
are a hybrid mix of choices expressing multidimensional, many-faceted and
socially embedded capacities and hopes to improve life. Aspirations can be
complementary or may substitute each other. For example, young Hmong, an
ethnic minority group in South-East Asia, use their mobile phones to listen to
radio programs made in the United States or Australia by overseas Hmong
broadcasting in the Hmong language. They embrace both traditional and mod-
ern cultural customs and consider themselves as new transnational citizens.
Rather than lamenting the loss of traditions, there is a need to examine more
complex ways to represent cultural heritages that are both more accurate, and
recognize indigenous cultural and development aspirations in a global world.
In order to understand what these aspirations might be it is necessary to
listen to and involve indigenous peoples. A more inclusive engagement and
representation of marginalized groups and their aspirations in both develop-
ment and cultural settings require some form of enhanced participation.
Indigenous critical collaborative and participatory productions are not new, as
evidenced by audiovisual productions such as “Through Navajo eyes” (1962)
and the Brazilian “Videos in the Villages” of Vincent Carelli (1993). However, the
need for participation is today more widely recognized and supported by
development and cultural practitioners, national governments and donors.
Participatory and Community-Based Art Projects
In the last decade there has been a surge of participatory and community-
based art projects all over the world, including in the Netherlands, where they
continue to grow in spite of budget cuts for the arts. Under the ag of commu-
nity art, a broad range of project sail that difer greatly in form, content and
aim. But they have one thing in common: they create a bridge between art and
society (Twaaloven 2010: 4).
Many well-known organizations such as PhotoVoice explicitly aim to
empower invisible or marginalized communities and use (digital) photogra-
phy as a tool to make their views and concerns visible to (remote) policy
makers or donors. PhotoVoice aims to build skills in disadvantaged and
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
242 ,
marginalized communities so that they can represent themselves and achieve
positive social change through the use of participatory photography and story-
telling methods. Such positive social change can include recognition of their
individual talents as storytellers or attention for their issue by authorities that
have ignored them.
How should these community art initiatives be judged? Should they be
judged as artworks, as contemporary history writing, as popular heritage pres-
ervation or as civil society engagement? Nicolas Bourriaud, a French art critic
who explores the rise of interactive art, argues that the public wants to get
closer to the artists’ thoughts and work. The process of emotional, intellectual
and physical interacting of the public with artwork and with the artists is a
process of “relational aesthetics.” (Bourriaud 2002) Relational aesthetics include
the desire of the public to have interpersonal connections and relations with
the art, not just an aesthetic appreciation. And it is in their ability to engage
people with both the artwork and the artist in new ways that their public, civil
value should be sought.
Community artworks invite citizens to be involved in the artwork, providing
new opportunities and modes of engagement for artists. In addition, they
appeal to politicians at a time when the state’s role in the social sector and the
arts is receding, and they cater to the more interactive demands of today’s
consumer-oriented citizen. Yet two important questions in these interactions
are the following: who is the community and who participates? Mansuri and
Rao argue that the term “community” in the literature on development is fre-
quently used without much qualication “to denote a culturally and politically
homogeneous social system, or one that is, at least implicitly, an internally
cohesive and more or less harmonious entity” (Mansuri and Rao 2003:10). In
reality the denitions of a community geographically, culturally or conceptu-
ally can be complicated. How do (semi) nomads or rural (seasonal) migrant
workers for example, t into an administrative community? If one “targets”
nomads through allocating resources in an administrative zone based on their
presence when the administrator is there they might literally not be there
when the resources arrive. Targeting semi-nomadic peoples as a cultural entity
could potentially avoid that issue but may obscure local structures of power.
Power relations matter at the level of the community, between the state, artists
and communities. Some groups or individuals have a bigger voice than others.
When power inequities within and between communities are not recognized,
the participative process can be hijacked by local elites. When one works with
indigenous peoples on community art it is therefore important to avoid roman-
tic harmonious views and critically reect on what community and represen-
tation mean in that specic cultural context and society.
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
243
These are ocial estimates from the Census of India. Actual numbers are not known.
The Project: Visualizing Development with Identity
The authors of this article have been involved in international development
and community art projects for two decades, including several projects with
minority ethnic and indigenous groups. In this article we reect on two recent
joint projects with indigenous Benet peoples in Uganda and Khasi peoples in
India in 2012.
These projects were undertaken as part of a collaborative initiative,
“Visualizing Development with Identity,” between an ethnographic museum, a
library, and development experts at the Royal Tropical Museum. The lead
author was the project leader and the two artists worked with communities on
the production of installations, soundscapes and lm productions that exam-
ined and countered stereotypes of indigenous people. This team hoped to
enable indigenous people to create installations and soundscapes that visual-
ize and articulate their diverse views and aspirations on culture, development
and identity, as well as to establish collaboration with local universities, indig-
enous artists, museums and galleries. As clearly visible outsiders to these indig-
enous cultures, we were faced with many moral and practical dilemmas with
regards to authorship, ownership and participation in the process of develop-
ing these projects. Both communities are globally recognized as indigenous
communities with strong links with their ancestral lands and the forests. We
will use these cases to explore whether and how collaborative production of
art installations with representatives of indigenous groups can provide alter-
natives to “traditional” cultural stereotypes of indigenous peoples and their
relationship to national development initiatives. We will also discuss what par-
ticipation, community and empowerment could mean, and hope to make
some contributions on the question of how to assess the impact and efective-
ness of such projects.
The Red, Gold and Green of the Khasi, Meghalaya, India
The Khasi are an indigenous matrilocal and matrilineal group of around
1.2 million people, mostly living in eastern Meghalaya, a state in northeast
India. India has an indigenous population of 98 million, almost a quarter of
the world’s indigenous population, most of it residing in the northeastern part
of the country.
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
244 ,
See for ocial estimates on such inequities for example: -3. International Institute for
Population Sciences () and Macro International. In National Family Health Survey (-
3), 2005–06: India: Volume I. (Mumbai: , 2007).
The Khasi make up the majority of the state’s population. They hold impor-
tant government posts, has recognized their language, and there are
Khasi newspapers, as well as a rich Khasi-language literature on diferent
aspects of their culture and on the environment. The Khasi, both men and
women, are doing well in many regards compared to other indigenous groups.
However, compared to mainland India, their health and economic status is
poor. The area is one of the most ecologically diverse forested areas in the
world (Chatterjee et al. 2006). There are over 50 sacred forests, which are at the
heart of Khasi culture. The close relationship of the Khasi with the forest has
resulted in unique cultural skills, such as the construction of bridges woven
from living tree roots. The forests are rapidly being destroyed by mining and
other development activities.
In preparing for the art project, in both the Netherlands and India, we
implemented a participatory action approach and methods that closely resem-
ble the participatory rapid appraisals () used in development projects,
such as mapping and ranking in focus group discussions. We conducted a lit-
erature review, and discussed with Tropical Museum staf the feasibility and
methodology of exhibition-making for museums in indigenous societies with
few material artifacts. Prior to the arrival of the artists in the indigenous com-
munities, the project leader visited the project host, a university in the
Meghalayan town of Shillong, to discuss the plan. She also conducted partici-
patory observations in villages and in the city, and met with various stakehold-
ers, such as healers and journalists. The artists continued this research and
conducted several weeks of participatory observation in urban centers and vil-
lages. They gave in-depth presentations of earlier work to media representa-
tives, traditional healers and students; they interviewed leaders and gave
hands-on trainings to local artists. These methods provided insight on the key
themes related to identity and development according to these Khasi repre-
sentatives, and on the availability of cultural artifacts to visualize these themes.
It soon became rather clear that there are signicant diferences of opinion
among the Khasi about what development with identity means. Young urban
people, for example, connect and identify themselves with both Khasi culture
and global rap culture; they did not report contradictions between being a
Khasi, using mobile phones, and listening to rap or pop music over the Internet.
Other, older stakeholders, however, viewed global culture as a threat to Khasi
culture and identity.
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
245
As a result of these very diferent views on what Khasi identity means, four
distinct yet interrelated projects emerged: a short video documentary on Khasi
herbal healers, a rap production on alcohol abuse with three young Khasi
artists, a three-dimensional installation with a soundscape, and a festival to
launch the installation with poetry and Khasi musicians working in diferent
musical traditions. This allowed diferent voices to express their views on
development with identity. For this article we will focus on the installation, as
this was the focus of the project in both Uganda and India.)
The installation consists of four ‘rings’ in which each of the seven elements
(referring to the Ki Hynñiew trep, the seven Khasi tribes) represent a particular
aspect of Khasi social relations. The lowest circle of large baskets represents
the “gold” of the Khasi, the natural resources: rice, bamboo, limestone, shriew
(a local root vegetable), coal, betel nuts and medicinal herbs. This installation
and the soundscape thematically interweave the ways that global and local
indigenous cultural elements simultaneously support and undermine contem-
porary Khasi culture.
The second upper circle of cone-shaped baskets represents key aspects of
the Khasi spiritual cultural heritage: language, matrilinearity, music, sacred
forests, ethics, beliefs and rituals and herbal healers.
The outer circle consists of local rain shields (knup).
Overview shot of the installation “The Red, Gold and Green of the Khasi”
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
246 ,
Close-up of the installation “The Red, Gold and Green of the Khasis”
Khasi farmer women with traditional umbrellas
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
247
At the bottom, a circle of serpents depicts the dangers that threaten Khasi cul-
ture and identity: alcoholism, the inux of foreigners, corruption, pop culture
and , urbanization, religion and pollution.
The soundscape consists of voices (sound) summarizing the visual informa-
tion coming from 14 loudspeakers that are mounted inside the baskets and the
Traditional Khasi umbrella in the installation
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
248 ,
See for more details on this legend for example: Sawian, Bijoya, Khasi Myths, Legends & Folk
Tales (New Dehli: Sanbun Publishers, 2010) or Das, Manosh, A Khasi pilgrimage to ‘heaven’s
navel on earth (Times of India, Feb 6, 2012). <http://articles.timesondia.indiatimes.com/2012-
02-06/guwahati/31030049_1_umbilical-cord-earth-huts>, visited August 12 2013.
rain shields, creating a spatial dialogue between them. Also, sounds from the
sacred forests and Khasi ritual drumbeats can be heard.
In the center of the installation a rope ladder goes upwards. This refers to
the Khasi legend of Jingkieng Ksiar, a golden rope ladder on U Sohpetbneng
(the mount of the heavenly umbilical cord), from which the tribes would
descend from heaven. They would labor all day and cultivate and reap prots
from the land. Then each evening they would return by the same route. This
golden ladder was severed when sin crept into the world. As a consequence of
the severance, nine families remained in their celestial abode and seven set-
tled on earth and multiplied. The ladder also resembles the double helix of
, linking biological and spiritual identity markers.
The installation and its presentation were attended by hundreds of people
from diferent backgrounds, mostly from Shillong and the surrounding area.
Serpent as a threat to Khasi culture
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
249
See: – The Indigenous world (2007) The Horn of Africa and East Africa. <http://
www.forestpeoples.org/documents/africa/uganda_iw_2007.pdf>, visited on 10 April 2008.
Sebei is the ocial name, but they are mainly known as Sabiny.
It received positive press reviews on the front pages of seven state newspa-
persand on social media from indigenous journalists and leaders. The installa-
tion is now permanently hosted by the Don Bosco Ethnographic Museum,
the largest ethnographic museum in northeast India. The museum provides
information on all the tribes in India’s northeast through the display of sculp-
tures, artifacts, lms, and computer-based interactive narratives.
Rooted, an Installation with the Benet People in Kapchorwa,
Uganda
The Benet are a small, little-known indigenous group in Uganda living on the
margins of society on the slopes of Mount Elgon, near the Kenyan border. It is
estimated that the Benet number about 20,000 people. They are culturally
related to but distinct from the Sabiny. The Benet were initially pastoralists
who also hunted and gathered. They may have resided in the forests of Mount
Elgon for over 200 years, escaping cattle rustlers from the plains. The Benet
sometimes refer to themselves as Mosopbishek: people who live on the
mountain.
In 1993 the Ugandan government declared Mount Elgon a national park,
dispossessing the Benet of their land. The creation of the park was accompa-
nied by physical violence against the Benet, as well as continuous marginaliza-
tion by the state bureaucracy. The Benet were excluded from development
in and around the area (infrastructure and healthcare), yet they still had to
pay taxes. In 2005 they successfully instituted legal action against the govern-
ment of Uganda, alleging that they are the historically indigenous inhabit-
ants of the land around Mount Elgon, which entitles them to stay. In spite
of pressure from local and international s and lobby groups, and sev-
eralin-depth studies of the land issue, the situation of many Benet remains
uncertain.
The infrastructure in the small communities where the artists worked
with the Benet people is very poor, with muddy roads, little to no access to
electricity. And even in Kapchorwa, the local capital where the artists stayed
and worked mostly, resources are tight. This poses challenges for the use
of equipment for research, documenting, sketching, editing or composing.
Illiteracy rates are high, and many Benet are very poor. However, the Benet
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
250 ,
people encountered during this visit made a clear and articulate analysis of the
installations that the artists had put together with other communities in other
countries, such as with -positive women in Vietnam, and how they could
apply these collaborative art techniques.
The artists conducted additional participatory observations in villages
around Mount Elgon and met with Benet leaders as well as politicians. From
these interactions it became clear that the sense of identity among older Benet
is shaped to an important extent by their displacement from their ancestral
land. Outsiders like s and researchers may have reinforced this focus on
displacement in their interactions with the Benet. When projects and research
explore a certain topic, such as land rights, other issues such as musical cul-
ture, oral history skills and the views of the younger generation receive less
attention. Nowadays, they employ few artifacts that might represent a tradi-
tional material culture, and little performative culture (songs or dances) is
presently performed or shared with the younger generation. This does not
mean that Benet have “lost” their culture, but there is a change in the produc-
tion of material cultural artefacts.
In this installaition, The Benet’s diferent views of their identity were inte-
gratd in one installation with four distinct elements: inscribed sculptures of
trees and baskets, uprooted seedlings, children’s drawings and an accompany-
ing soudscape.
The sculptures of trees and baskets visualize several key themes of ancestral
heritage that lie at the heart of Benet identity.
“Rooted” installation overview; inscribed sculptures of trees and baskets
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
251
The sculptures obviously refer to the forest, but the “trees” are grouped four by
four: a spiritual numerical value within Benet society. For example, during the
circumcision ritual, a boy must run around his hut four times before the opera-
tion can take place. The tree poles, normally used to build huts, crop-containers
and fences, have the names of deceased Benet written on them. The names have
been chosen by Benet elders and spokesmen, and are written in their original
Kupsapiny clan-form, which makes them directly identiable to local Benet.
The baskets refer to the ancient trade relations between the Benet women
and outsiders, exchanging baskets for money or food. A basket could be
exchanged for the amount of maize, wheat or rice it could hold. Traditional
Benet basket weavers wove specic baskets for this installation. These baskets
are also arranged in four separate groups: healers (green “dipped” baskets),
elders (white), jusdges (black) and victims of the evictions (red).
The second element of the installation consists of tree-seedlings. These
have both a negative and positive symbolic connotation. Planting trees is
intended to “contribute” to the National Park. By contrast, clearing trees from
one’s land to make way for individual cultivation has become a way of resisting
the park and marking the land as an individual’s property. Yet planting trees
is also a necessity for soil conservation (to avoid landslides). Planting trees
means investing in the future, and hence implies trust that the planter can
keep their land in the future. The seedlings are hanging just above the oor, so
the roots cannot reach the soil. They symbolize longing and doubt as to
whether to hold on to the past or invest in the future. The third element exam-
ines the linkages between the past, the present, and the current situation
through children’s eyes.
These children’s drawings on plywood parts (25x25cm and 30x15cm) portray
the small plots of land dotted on the slopes of Mt. Elgon and the futures the
Benet children living here have envisioned. There are drawings of the animals
they have, what they want to be in the future, what they would buy if they had
10,000 Ugandan shillings, and what they would grow on their lands. The line
behind the seedlings represents the situation as it once was: enough land was
there to herd the cattle, which is why this line of drawings is neatly spaced. The
line in front of the seedlings, however, depicts the lack of land: everything is
piled up. The three elements together represent the widely shared idea that
intensied agriculture and more land are needed to supply the growing popu-
lation, in addition to education, which can help the children to secure diferent
This reasoning has been examined in detail by David Himmelfarb in his PhD thesis In the
Aftermath of Displacement: A Political Ecology of Dispossession, Transformation, and
Conlict on Mt. Elgon, Uganda. (University of Georgia, Athens, ).
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
252 ,
rangers killed Chelangat Saima and his brother, when they were grazing their
cattle inside the park boundaries.
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
253
professions as adults. A soundscape composition that accompanies the instal-
lation consists of environmental sounds that were recorded inside Mt. Elgon
Forest (cicadas and crickets, birds, streams and bees), interwoven with the
voices of elders and women speaking about life in the past, and of children
voicing their future plans and dreams. Traditional forest instruments and
songs accompany these recordings.
Women in the village of Mengya, weaving baskets for the installation
Uprooted seedlings and children’s drawings
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
254 ,
The presentation of the installation in Kapchorwa was a success, with most
attendants being Benet, some of whom had never travelled outside their par-
ish before. Dozens of dignitaries also attended: politicians, community leaders,
and representatives of civil society. The installation provided a unique oppor-
tunity for the Benet to represent themselves and become visible to local lead-
ers. Reviews in the written press, and online were positive, describing the
exhibit as a new way of addressing social issues through art. The installation
subsequently travelled to Makerere University in the capital of Kampala,
accompanied by Benet participants who explained the project to students,
staf, visitors and press. It will ultimately be hosted in the Benet Cultural
Center, currently under construction in Mengya. For the Benet the production
of the installations and their launches provided a way to engage with local
politicians and citizens, and to present their history, their culture, and their
aspirations in a positive and aesthetic fashion.
Reections on Participation, Power and Relational Aesthetics in
Indigenous Community Art Projects
These two collaborative art installations, in which a display of daily artifacts
narrates a multi-faceted story provided by indigenous local community repre-
sentatives, difered sharply from previously existing portraits and narratives of
the communities they represented. Both installations interweave disparate
community voices and concerns regarding identity and development into a
coherent whole, and discuss this narrative with both insiders and outsiders.
But their complexity, a result of local participation, also renders them very dif-
cult for outsiders to understand without local interpretation. When artworks
are made for and by a local population, their signicance may be hard to grasp
for outsiders, for whom the choice of four rather than seven or a hundred trees
for the sculptures of trees and baskets seems rather arbitrary.
The installations do not claim to speak for all Benet or Khasi. Those who
participated and were able to voice their views were mostly formally educated
or occupied important positions in local society – healers or traditional lead-
ers, local businessmen and teachers – speaking on behalf of the uneducated.
Although the Benet and Khasi are diferent in many ways, both installations
visualize complex aspirations and fears in relation to the preservation of cul-
tural identity and heritage, and in both, the disappearance of forests and
ancestral lands in a globalizing economy plays a key role. In both installations,
the views expressed on how to integrate development with identity are hybrid
and contradictory. They reect a desire to be grounded rather than uprooted,
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
255
and to be connected to a larger global whole. Children want to master the
English language, to complete formal education, to become teachers or police-
men, to promote justice and improve the current situation. In Red, Gold and
Green, coal is both a natural resource and a cause of pollution and the destruc-
tion of sacred forests. Also, it drives an illegal inux of low-wage labor, with all
its associated problems.
In Rooted children express their desire to settle and study, yet permanent
settlement is also problematic for pastoralists. The trees themselves have
become markers of globalization for the Benet; natural reserves create new
categories of insiders and outsiders with respect to natural resources. The
meaning of planting a tree varies according to its location. It is diferent in a
local space (such as a garden) than in a national or global space (such as an
internationally funded nature reserve).
What can we say about the contribution such initiatives make towards
indigenous people’s eforts to integrate globalization and development with
identity? First, the projects helped the Khasi and the Benet to give concrete
form to economic and cultural desires and anxieties that had often remained
vague or unvoiced. The participatory work method motivated large audiences
of young and old indigenous people, in communities that do not normally visit
art galleries or ethnographic museums, to attend the presentations. The proj-
ects were a channel for indigenous people to become objects of knowledge for
themselves, and to become the producers of that knowledge. While the artists
were outsiders and the initial work was nanced internationally, the costs
were low: the total budget for two installations (including its presentations), a
music video and two short documentaries was 68,000 euros. Just as important,
both installations are now hosted by local institutes and maintained with local
funding, suggesting that the ongoing impact if not the initial jump-start is
sustainable.
The production of the installations employed indigenous artisans and art-
ists, and in both contexts there was a wide diversity of stakeholders who
provided input to the artworks. Some local artists received training in installa-
tion-making. Such participation does not necessarily imply any signicant
boost to economic development or political empowerment. However, the
projects mobilized and organized indigenous people, cemented established
relationships and developed new ones between artists, participants and
audiences.
The value of these art projects might therefore best be seen in terms of rela-
tional aesthetics: the capacity to involve citizens in studying and representing
themselves, to reect on the right to development with identity in a globalizing
economy, and to provide new opportunities and modes of engagement for
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
256 ,
local and international artists to work with indigenous people and help them
visualize their aspirations and concerns.
Acknowledgements
This Interdepartmental Collaboration project at the Royal Tropical Institute
() has been funded by . The authors are particularly thankful for the
support and input of staf, notably Anke van der Kwaak, Itie van Hout,
Richard van Alphen, Tilly Minnée, Wayne Modest and Ilse Eggers. In India,
special thanks are due to Glenn Christo (), Sandra Albert (London School
of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine), Alka Kharsati (traditional healer), Patricia
Mukhim (Shillong Times) and .
In Uganda we would like to thank Moses Mwanga, Moses Kiptala, Elizabeth
Kwagala () David Himmelfarb (University of Georgia) and Aggrey Kibet
(ActionAid Uganda).
We would like to thank Matt Steinglass for editorial input and advice.
Bibliography
Appadurai, Arjun. “The capacity to aspire: culture and the terms of recognition,” in
V. Rao and M. Walton (eds.), Culture and Public Action. Washington, : The World
Bank, 2004: 59–84.
Bourriaud, Nicolas. Relational Aesthetics. Paris: Presses du réel, 2002.
Brooks, T.M.; Mittermeier, R.A.; da Fonseca, G.A.B.; Gerlach, J.; Hofmann, M.; Lamoreux, J.F.;
Mittermeier, C.G.; Pilgrim, J.D. and Rodrigues, A.S.L. Global biodiversity conservation
priorities. Science 313, 2006: 58–61.
Census of India, Meghalaya Data highlights: The Scheduled Tribes. Oce of the
Registrar General, India, 2001.
Chatterjee, Sudipto, Abhinandan Saikia, Pijush Dutta, Dipankar Ghosh, Govinda
Pangging and Goswami Anil K. Biodiversity Signicance of North East India for the
Study of Natural Resources, Water and Environmental Nexus for Development and
Growth in North Eastern India. Background paper no. 13. World Wildlife Fund. New
Delhi: 80 pages, 2006.
Das, Manosh. A Khasi pilgrimage to ‘heaven’s navel on earth (Times of India, Feb 6,
2012): <http://articles.timesondia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-06/guwahati/31030049
_1_umbilical-cord-earth-huts>.
Himmelfarb, David. In the Aftermath of Displacement: A Political Ecology of
Dispossession, Transformation, and Conlict on Mt. Elgon, Uganda. University of
Georgia, Athens, . Dissertation for Ph.D in Anthropology, 2012.
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
257
– The Indigenous world (2007) The Horn of Africa and East Africa: <http://www
.forestpeoples.org/documents/africa/uganda_iw_2007.pdf>.
International Expert Group Meeting on Indigenous Peoples: Development with Culture
and Identity: Articles 3 and 32 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples, 12–14 January 2010: <www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpi/
documents/EGM_DCI_Concept_Paper.doc>.
Mansuri, Ghazala and Vijayendra Rao. Community-Based (and Driven) Development:
A Critical Review. Development Research Group, Washington. The World Bank, 2003.
Satri, Myrna A. and Rafael Edy Bosko Indigenous peoples/ethnic minorities and poverty
reduction Indonesia Environment and Social Safeguard Division, Regional and
Sustainable Development; Asian Development Bank, Manila, Philippines, 2002.
-3. International Institute for Population Sciences () and Macro International.
In National Family Health Survey (-3), 2005–06: India: Volume I. Mumbai:
, 2007.
Ruby, Jay. “ The moral burden of authorship in ethnographic lm,” Visual Anthropology
Review,Volume 11, Number 2, Fall 1995.
Sandell, Richard. Museums, Society, Inequality. Routledge: New York, 2002.
Sandell, Richard. “Social inclusion, the museum and the dynamics of sectoral change.”
Museum and Society, 2003, 1(1): 45–62.
Sawian, Bijoya. MythsKhasi, Legends & Folk Tales. New Dehli: Sanbun Publishers,
2010, 35.
Stephens, Carolyn, Clive Nettleton, John Porter, Ruth Willis and Stephanie Clark.
“Indigenous peoples’ health—why are they behind everyone, everywhere?” The
Lancet, July 2, 2005, Vol. 366, Issue 9479:10–13.
Tauli-Corpuz, Victoria. The Concept of Indigenous Peoples’ self-determined development
or development with identity and culture: challenges and trajectories. Tebtebba
Foundation, CLT/CPD/CPO/2008/IPS/02. Publishers, 2008.
Twaaloven, Anita. Boekman 82 Community art, Boekman, 2010.
United Nations Development Program, International Policy Centre for Inclusive
Growth, Poverty Practice, Bureau for Development Policy, Poverty in Focus:
Indigenizing Development, No. 17, May 2009.
Pauline Oosterhoff, Arno Peeters, and Iris Honderdos - 9789004282087
Downloaded from Brill.com11/05/2021 02:33:53PM
via free access
