Customer Reviews

Hunters and Bureaucrats: Power, Knowledge, and Aboriginal-State Relations in the Southwest Yukon

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Nadasdy spent several years in the Yukon living with Kluane People. He lived in a cabin in town and he lived out of the land with them. He attended land claims meetings and other meetings on co-management issues, for example related to issues of conserving numbers of Dall sheep in the area. He describes how Canadian First Nations people are required to bureaucratize themselves in order to even start to engage with the Canadian state in various key fights. Thus, the title refers to two conflicting roles held by Indians/First Nations people, sometimes the same person.

The book is very tightly argued, and sometimes the theoretical points Nadasdy is making can be challenging for beginning students or non-anthropologists. However, he does write in a clear, accessible manner. Reading this book may get you interested in reading other anthropology gems, too. I heartily recommend this book to anyone interested in hunters, northern First Nations/Aboriginal peoples, indigenous rights movements, theories of the state, and theories of knowlege and 'traditional ecological knowledge'.