Episode 492: Andrew Garrett
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The Unnaming of Kroeber Hall - Revisiting the Past and Renaming the Present
How does the present reckon with the historical legacies of notable figures of the past? How do you contextualize the actions of people from other generations today? How do we deal with the information learned through methods that are unacceptable today?
Andrew Garrett is a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of The Unnaming of Kroeber Hall: Language, Memory, and Indigenous California.
Greg and Andrew discuss the renaming of Berkeley buildings originally named after problematic historical figures, with a focus on Alfred Kroeber. The discussion explores Kroeber's contributions to linguistics and anthropology, his controversial involvement with Indigenous peoples and remains, and his work with the Yurok language. Andrew provides an insightful examination of the broader implications of these issues for contemporary relations between universities and Indigenous communities.
*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*
Episode Quotes:
Is Alfred Kroeber's legacy in language and storytelling overlooked?
41:21: I think the law has evolved in California. I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding of the way the law has evolved is that geographical and national ownership is sufficient. So, you no longer have to show that certain ancestral remains are somehow intangibly associated with you culturally, simply that they are found in the area that is your tribal area. That makes it more analogous to the Etruscan situation.
Understanding inequality today requires tracing its roots to the past
04:45: In order to understand the rules of inequality today, we have to develop theories that will enable us to link the present and the past. Namely, we have to focus on those initial conditions that created the precondition for economic development and ultimately created much of the inequality we see today.
How Alfred Kroeber helped revive indigenous cultures
25:49: I think one of the important uses that have been made of [Alfred Kroeber]'s material is not for world culture but for those cultures where there's a massive archive of material from their grandparents or great-grandparents that they can use in cultural and language revival projects today. It's like the thing that [Alfred Kroeber] didn't see as possible—the survival of Indigenous cultures—that he, in fact, helped to make possible.