Deromanticizing subalterns or recolonializing anthropology? Denial of indigenous agency and reproduction of northern hegemony in the work of David Stoll

This paper builds on some of the critical points made in the final section of Leigh Binford's discussion. David Stoll's critique of Rigoberta Menchu T um is not simply an attack on the truthfulness of an indigenous woman who h as become a major political figure. Stoll's larger agenda is an assault, no t only on a number of other anthropologists, but on accounts of Latin Ameri can history that honor grassroots strivings for rights and social justice, and on political arguments offered by cultural studies and post-colonial cr iticism. His book resonates with parallel attacks from other, and diverse, quarters, while also embodying a range of vices as an anthropological analy sis (Stoll 1999).