Tradition, Authenticity, and Dislocation: Some Dilemmas of Traditional Cultural Property Studies

In "The Making of Chumash Tradition" (Current Anthropology 38(5):761-94, December 1997) Brian Haley and Larry Wilcoxon offer a provocative argument regarding ethnic identity, environmental politics, and anthropological complicity in the construction of modern Chumash "traditionalism." Their argument centers on the ironic juxtaposition of Indians and anthropologists in the contemporary practice of cultural resource management in general, and traditional cultural property evaluation in particular. While their description of contemporary Chumash ethnic politics is complex, the centerpiece of their narrative concerns the cultural claims advanced in reaction to a 1978 proposal to construct a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal near Point Conception, in the vicinity of Santa Barbara, California.