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Reviewed by:
  • Social Change and Cultural Continuity Among Native Nations
  • Thomas D. Hall
Social Change and Cultural Continuity Among Native Nations. Edited by Duane Champagne. Altamira Press. 2007. 350 pages. $75 cloth, $29.95 paper.

This collection provides a nuanced sociological analysis of social, cultural, political and economic change among Native Nations in the United States. It includes several new essays along with many essays from a wide variety of sources. After a brief introduction, Champagne uses the first four chapters to present an account of indigenous social orders and worldviews. The next five essays discuss "relations with colonizing nations." The remaining seven essays explore "change and continuity."

Champagne's central argument is that "…any analysis of the processes of change and cultural continuity for indigenous communities must start at the collective social, cultural, and religious community, and must take seriously the goals and values of indigenous communities or nations." (2) The early essays employ conventional structural-functionalist explanations, yet lead to important critiques. First, these explanations are insufficient to deal with the colonial invasions, which require close attention to the larger political economy of these encounters. Second, these sociological processes are quintessentially local. They are rooted the specifics of each indigenous nation and how it deals with, adapts to and resists outsiders.

Champagne repeatedly argues that indigenous nations are not instances of frozen or failed development steeped in tradition nor are they conventional ethnic or racial groups. Rather, they represent a wide range of human communities based on a melding of social, cultural, political, economic and religious spheres, typically deeply rooted in local ecology. Land is not a commodity; it is the embodiment of the community. This decentralized organization is not a "failure," but an alternative form of organization. Social analysts steeped in the traditions of the enlightenment and the industrial revolution sometimes have difficulty with this argument. His many nuanced accounts of Northern Cheyenne, Diné (Navajo), Delaware, Tlingit and many others groups illustrate this point forcefully.

Champagne amasses evidence for another argument that is only hinted at explicitly and remains largely implicit: failure to attend the theoretical significance of indigenous forms of social organization is not a matter of "political correctness," diversity or inclusiveness. It is a matter of good science. One cannot understand societies without attending to all types of societies.

This is a tall order, because the study of indigenous societies and peoples requires mastery of the histories of many communities. Champagne's work in Native American studies as editor of American Indian Culture and Research Journal for many years, and as the editor of several encyclopedias [End Page 1153] on Native Americans have yielded massive material to use in these essays. The collection is rich in detail and nuanced in interpretations.

However, there are at least two other ways to read this collection. First, by attending to the dates of publications of each essay, one gains insights into Champagne's own intellectual development. He begins with a strong structural-functional approach, but comes to see the necessity of including global political economy and geopolitics in his analysis. He also becomes clearer at explicitly delineating what, how and why attention to local conditions is imperative to understand how Native Peoples maintain social and cultural continuity even while embracing some changes and resisting others. It also enables him to draw broader theoretical lessons from those analyses. There is some redundancy in these essays, but each explores and re-examines familiar cases from many different angles, thereby building a richer account.

A second reading could focus more closely on Duane Champagne's on biography. He sketches this in "Border Towns" (Chapter 8) and develops it further in "Ramona Redeemed?" (Chapter 9). The reader could then turn to the last three chapters which analyze change and continuity among the Northern Cheyenne with respect to energy development (Chapter 14), a broader account of "Strategies for Engaging Globalism" (Chapter 15), and a discussion of "Native Issues in the Twenty-first Century" (Chapter 16). This would allow the reader to develop a sense of where he has arrived and of future issues. While in some senses this puts the "cart before the horse," it would prepare the reader for a deeper understanding...

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