Tribal Sovereignty and the Historical Imagination

Tribal Sovereignty and the Historical Imagination
Author: Loretta Fowler
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2002-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780803220133

Loretta Fowler offers a new perspective on Native American politics by examining how power on multiple levels infuses the everyday lives and consciousness of the Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples of Oklahoma. Cheyennes and Arapahos today energetically pursue a variety of commercial enterprises, including gaming and developing retail businesses, and they operate a multitude of social programs. Such revitalization and economic mobilization, however, have not unambiguously produced greater tribal sovereignty. Tribal members challenge and often work vigorously to undermine their tribal government's efforts to strengthen the tribe as an independent political, economic, and cultural entity; at the same time, political consensus and tribal unity are continually recognized and promoted in powwows and dances. Why is there conflict in one sphere of Cheyenne-Arapaho politics and cooperation in the other? The key to the dynamics of current community life, Fowler contends, is found in the complicated relationship between the colonizer and the colonized that emerges in Fourth World or postcolonial settings. For over a century the lives of Cheyennes and Arapahos have been affected simultaneously by forces of resistance and domination. These circumstances are reflected in their constructions of history. Cheyennes and Arapahos accommodate an ideology that buttresses social forms of domination and helps mold experiences and perceptions. They also selectively recognize and resist such domination. Drawing upon a decade of fieldwork and archival research, Tribal Sovereignty and the Historical Imagination provides an insightful and provocative analysis of how Cheyenne and Arapaho constructions of history influence tribal politics today.

Indigenous Intellectuals

Indigenous Intellectuals
Author: Kiara M. Vigil
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 379
Release: 2015-07-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 131635217X

In the United States of America today, debates among, between, and within Indian nations continue to focus on how to determine and define the boundaries of Indian ethnic identity and tribal citizenship. From the 1880s and into the 1930s, many Native people participated in similar debates as they confronted white cultural expectations regarding what it meant to be an Indian in modern American society. Using close readings of texts, images, and public performances, this book examines the literary output of four influential American Indian intellectuals who challenged long-held conceptions of Indian identity at the turn of the twentieth century. Kiara M. Vigil traces how the narrative discourses created by these figures spurred wider discussions about citizenship, race, and modernity in the United States. Vigil demonstrates how these figures deployed aspects of Native American cultural practice to authenticate their status both as indigenous peoples and as citizens of the United States.

Members of the Tribe

Members of the Tribe
Author: Rachel Rubinstein
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2010-03-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0814337007

A history of representations of American Indians in Jewish literature and popular media. In Members of the Tribe: Native America in the Jewish Imagination, author Rachel Rubinstein examines interventions by Jewish writers into an ongoing American fascination with the "imaginary Indian." Rubinstein argues that Jewish writers represented and identified with the figure of the American Indian differently than their white counterparts, as they found in this figure a mirror for their own anxieties about tribal and national belonging. Through a series of literary readings, Rubinstein traces a shifting and unstable dynamic of imagined Indian-Jewish kinship that can easily give way to opposition and, especially in the contemporary moment, competition. In the first chapter, "Playing Indian, Becoming American," Rubinstein explores the Jewish representations of Indians over the nineteenth century, through narratives of encounter and acts of theatricalization. In chapter 2, "Going Native, Becoming Modern," she examines literary modernism’s fascination with the Indian-poet and a series of Yiddish translations of Indian chants that appeared in the modernist journal Shriftn in the 1920s. In the third chapter, "Red Jews," Rubinstein considers the work of Jewish writers from the left, including Tillie Olsen, Michael Gold, Nathanael West, John Sanford, and Howard Fast, and in chapter 4, "Henry Roth, Native Son," Rubinstein focuses on Henry Roth’s complicated appeals to Indianness. The final chapter, "First Nations," addresses contemporary contestations between Jews and Indians over cultural and territorial sovereignty, in literary and political discourse as well as in museum spaces. As Rubinstein considers how Jews used the figure of the Indian to feel "at home" in the United States, she enriches ongoing discussions about the ways that Jews negotiated their identity in relation to other cultural groups. Students of Jewish studies and literature will enjoy the unique insights in Members of the Tribe.

Arapahoe Politics, 1851-1978

Arapahoe Politics, 1851-1978
Author: Loretta Fowler
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 1986-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780803268623

The Northern Arapahoes of the Wind River Reservation contradict many of the generalizations made about political change among native plains people. Loretta Fowler explores how, in response to the realities of domination by Americans, the Arapahoes have avoided serious factional divisions and have succeeded in legitimizing new authority through the creation and use of effective political symbols.

The Oxford Handbook of American Indian History

The Oxford Handbook of American Indian History
Author: Frederick E. Hoxie
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 665
Release: 2016
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199858896

The Oxford Handbook of American Indian History presents the story of the indigenous peoples who lived-and live-in the territory that became the United States. It describes the major aspects of the historical change that occurred over the past 500 years with essays by leading experts, both Native and non-Native, that focus on significant moments of upheaval and change.

Wives and Husbands

Wives and Husbands
Author: Loretta Fowler
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2012-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0806185597

In Wives and Husbands, distinguished anthropologist Loretta Fowler deepens readers’ understanding of the gendered dimension of cultural encounters by exploring how the Arapaho gender system affected and was affected by the encounter with Americans as government officials, troops, missionaries, and settlers moved west into Arapaho country. Fowler examines Arapaho history from 1805 to 1936 through the lens of five cohorts, groups of women and men born during different year spans. Through the life stories of individual Arapahos, she vividly illustrates the experiences and actions of each cohort during a time when Americans tried to impose gender asymmetry and to undermine the Arapahos’ hierarchical age relations. Fowler examines the Arapaho gender system and its transformations by considering the partnerships between, rather than focusing on comparisons of, women and men. She argues that in particular cohorts, partnerships between women and men — both in households and in the community — shaped Arapahos’ social and cultural transformations while they struggled with American domination. Over time Arapahos both reinforced and challenged Arapaho hierarchies while accommodating and resisting American dominance. Fowler shows how, in the process of reconfiguring their world, Arapahos confronted Americans by uniting behind strategies of conciliation in the early nineteenth century, of civilization in the late nineteenth century, and of confrontation in the early twentieth century. At the same time, women and men in particular cohorts were revamping Arapaho politico-religious ideas and organizations. Gender played a part in these transformations, giving shape to new leadership traditions and other adaptations.

The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Great Plains

The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Great Plains
Author: Loretta Fowler
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2003
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780231117005

From where--and what--does water come? How did it become the key to life in the universe? Water from Heaven presents a state-of-the-art portrait of the science of water, recounting how the oxygen needed to form H2O originated in the nuclear reactions in the interiors of stars, asking whether microcomets may be replenishing our world's oceans, and explaining how the Moon and planets set ice-age rhythms by way of slight variations in Earth's orbit and rotation. The book then takes the measure of water today in all its states, solid and gaseous as well as liquid. How do the famous El Niño and La Niña events in the Pacific affect our weather? What clues can water provide scientists in search of evidence of climate changes of the past, and how does it complicate their predictions of future global warming? Finally, Water from Heaven deals with the role of water in the rise and fall of civilizations. As nations grapple over watershed rights and pollution controls, water is poised to supplant oil as the most contested natural resource of the new century. The vast majority of water "used" today is devoted to large-scale agriculture and though water is a renewable resource, it is not an infinite one. Already many parts of the world are running up against the limits of what is readily available. Water from Heaven is, in short, the full story of water and all its remarkable properties. It spans from water's beginnings during the formation of stars, all the way through the origin of the solar system, the evolution of life on Earth, the rise of civilization, and what will happen in the future. Dealing with the physical, chemical, biological, and political importance of water, this book transforms our understanding of our most precious, and abused, resource. Robert Kandel shows that water presents us with a series of crucial questions and pivotal choices that will change the way you look at your next glass of water.

Delaware Tribe in a Cherokee Nation

Delaware Tribe in a Cherokee Nation
Author: Brice Obermeyer
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2009
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0803226837

Delaware Tribe in a Cherokee Nation is an ethnographic study of the Delaware Tribe and its struggle for federal recognition and political separation from the larger Cherokee Nation. Brice Obermeyer details the Delawares' struggle for self-determination, revealing important insights into the process and politics of federal recognition. This perceptive ethnography of a tribe trying to assert its right to sovereignty and its independence from a larger and more powerful tribe complicates accepted notions of how the federal recognition process works and the effects it has on tribal members and trib.

The SAGE Handbook of Social Anthropology

The SAGE Handbook of Social Anthropology
Author: Richard Fardon
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 1556
Release: 2012-07-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1473971594

In two volumes, the SAGE Handbook of Social Anthropology provides the definitive overview of contemporary research in the discipline. It explains the what, where, and how of current and anticipated work in Social Anthropology. With 80 authors, contributing more than 60 chapters, this is the most comprehensive and up-to-date statement of research in Social Anthropology available and the essential point of departure for future projects. The Handbook is divided into four sections: -Part I: Interfaces examines Social Anthropology′s disciplinary connections, from Art and Literature to Politics and Economics, from Linguistics to Biomedicine, from History to Media Studies. -Part II: Places examines place, region, culture, and history, from regional, area studies to a globalized world -Part III: Methods examines issues of method; from archives to war zones, from development projects to art objects, and from ethics to comparison -Part IV: Futures anticipates anthropologies to come: in the Brain Sciences; in post-Development; in the Body and Health; and in new Technologies and Materialities Edited by the leading figures in social anthropology, the Handbook includes a substantive introduction by Richard Fardon, a think piece by Jean and John Comaroff, and a concluding last word on futures by Marilyn Strathern. The authors - each at the leading edge of the discipline - contribute in-depth chapters on both the foundational ideas and the latest research. Comprehensive and detailed, this magisterial Handbook overviews the last 25 years of the social anthropological imagination. It will speak to scholars in Social Anthropology and its many related disciplines.

We are an Indian Nation

We are an Indian Nation
Author: Jeffrey P. Shepherd
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2010-04-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780816528288

Though not as well known as the U.S. military campaigns against the Apache, the ethnic warfare conducted against indigenous people of the Colorado River basin was equally devastating. In less than twenty-five years after first encountering Anglos, the Hualapais had lost more than half their population and nearly all their land and found themselves consigned to a reservation. This book focuses on the historical construction of the Hualapai Nation in the face of modern American colonialism. Drawing on archival research, interviews, and participant observation, Jeffrey Shepherd describes how thirteen bands of extended families known as The Pai confronted American colonialism and in the process recast themselves as a modern Indigenous nation. Shepherd shows that Hualapai nation-building was a complex process shaped by band identities, competing visions of the past, creative reactions to modernity, and resistance to state power. He analyzes how the Hualapais transformed an externally imposed tribal identity through nationalist discourses of protecting aboriginal territory; and he examines how that discourse strengthened the HualapaisÕ claim to land and water while simultaneously reifying a politicized version of their own history. Along the way, he sheds new light on familiar topicsÑIndianÐwhite conflict, the creation of tribal government, wage labor, federal policy, and Native activismÑby applying theories of race, space, historical memory, and decolonization. Drawing on recent work in American Indian history and Native American studies, Shepherd shows how the Hualapai have strived to reclaim a distinct identity and culture in the face of ongoing colonialism. We Are an Indian Nation is grounded in Hualapai voices and agendas while simultaneously situating their history in the larger tapestry of Native peoplesÕ confrontations with colonialism and modernity.