Social Anthropology

The term indigenous tends to be used for people who are already marginalised, while autochthonous is generally reserved for people who are dominant in a given area but fear future marginalisation. Anthropologists often sympathise with the former, while being highly critical of the latter, although a bitter debate opposes opponents and proponents of indigeneity and autochthony. We argue that the implicit criteria used in this debate need to be discussed explicitly if one wants to escape from the dead end in which the discussion finds itself today.

This contribution traces three interconnected evolutions that characterise the transformation of Flemish nationalism into autochthony as Flemings obtained more cultural autonomy, the cultural influence of the Flemish Movement declined and Flemish nationalists started radicalising their political demands; as Flemings obtained more political autonomy, demands for greater economic autonomy started extending beyond the Flemish‐nationalist fringe; and as Flanders became more autonomous in relation to the federal state, Flemings started identifying increasingly with a new Flemish culture. In the process, both ‘allochtons’ and Francophone Belgians came to be construed as Flanders' ultimate ‘others’.

In post‐genocide Rwanda, where reconciliation and the re‐building of the Rwandan nation are at the core of domestic politics, a new approach towards ethnicity and a revised narrative of Rwandan histoy form the framework for the promotion of national unity. Given the overarching goal of unification, claims for autochthony as made by one Rwandan NGO triggered an argument with the government and were considered divisionist. By examining possible different meanings given to the notion ‘autochthony’, this article describes the controversy arising from those claims for special status on the national level and their relevance for local processes of identification.

This article highlights the dominance of the trope of historical inevitability which – whether in its neoliberal, liberal or Marxist forms – seeks to claim that there is no alternative to globalising capitalism and state power. In contrast, the article argues that by analysing historical processes of appropriation and resistance, and by analysing parallels between ongoing struggles for self‐determination in the global north and south, anthropological practice can refuse to contribute to a paralysing cultural relativism or coercive colonialism, but can instead reassert the existence of multiple alternatives, and multiple strategies for maintaining them.