Publications [#290825] of Diane M. Nelson

Published Articles

1. Nelson, DM. "Indian Giver or Nobel Savage: Duping, Assumptions of Identity and Other Double Entendres in Rigoberta Mench Tum's Stoll/en Past." American Ethnologist  vol. 28 no. 2 (May, 2001.): 303-331. [doi]

   Abstract:
   I address the emotional debate over David Stoll's claims that parts of Nobel Laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tum's testimonial are untrue. Rather than arguing for or against either "side," I negotiate the double entendre of "Indian giver" and the assumptions that structure the arguments that make up the debate. I track how such assumptions of identity involve a detour through gendered, ethnic, and transnational difference. Transactions such as gifting, joking, and stereotyping are ecstatic and pleasurable, and vacillate with threatening to suggest that the vacillation itself, the exchange, is essential to identification and that the empiricist promise of being "nonduped" is an error.