Indigenous voice, community, and epistemic violence: the ethnographer’s “interests” and what “interests” the ethnographer

This article visits the Mench ´u controversy, extending its critique to anthropologists who act as ventriloquists for Native communities. Anthropology, investing in the “power of culture,” too often ignores the “culture of power.” The “truth” of Native communities is viewed when the “interests” of anthropologists, along with the discipline’s fixation on the subaltern, are dismantled. A more self-reflective ethnography has mutual benefit for both researchers and Indigenous communities.