Indigenizing the Academy: Transforming Scholarship and Empowering Communities (review)

The title of this volume, Indigenizing the Academy: Transforming Scholarship and Empowering Communities, really tells the tale. The helpful introduction and informative commentary and the thirteen subsequent chapters provided by thoughtful, working Indigenous scholars assist the reader in pondering, understanding, and thinking about the enormous amount of work that must be done by those who believe in and understand the lesson from the Old Ones: work for the next generation. Of course, we understand that gifts given to us are used for that purpose. Each individual using honed experience, skills, and talent decides how, when, and where. Those of us who choose to spend our work time in the academy have our job cut out for us!

The preface and introductory commentary—which readers sometimes skip, but should not in this case—are helpful and worth reading to understand the organization and reasoning of the text. And following a circular form, D. A. T. Clark's thirteenth chapter discusses and summarizes the preceding dozen chapters. The editors subsequently provide very helpful chapters on the difficult arena of teaching and learning American Indian history and the equally thorny issue of gatekeeping. The editors describe and define gate keeping and provide examples and discuss strategies for carrying it out. It is very apparent that the editors, Abbott Mihesuah and Cavender Wilson, are truly the same sort of activists from earlier times that Vine Deloria laments as existing in lesser numbers today.

Vine Deloria Jr.'s opening chapter sets the tone, and in a storytelling-like context it imparts background and discusses changes in the academy. He urges young people to address current tribal issues in their work. I was reminded of the efforts of the Sakaogon Chippewa Community, Mole Lake Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians to stop the development of a zinc and copper sulfide mine on the Wolf River by buying the mine with another Wisconsin Tribe, therefore assuming an $8 million debt as the tribe did not have the cash to buy the mine outright. Now they are seeking help in settling the debt; as proprietors of a casino with modest earnings, they do not earn the millions of dollars that several other Wisconsin tribal casinos do. Wisconsin and Minnesota Indian scholars and others interested in protecting the environment for future generations are working with the tribe to assist in this activity.

Keith James gives good suggestions for survival, discussing five strategies (based on Wallace, 64), and provides valuable and insightful information on the linear hierarchical values construct of the academy. D. H. Justice provides an interesting and helpful slant on literature in the academy and speaks of his "noble nine" Indian authors. I must confess I was very interested to see the list. Justice provides helpful broad recommendations with the fourth speaking to how we must be circular in our approach, keeping in mind generations to come. I liked his statement that "we dance for a new reality" (303).

In chapter 7 Joseph P. Gone discusses what I always assumed was a real issue or quandary—that is, Western-trained psychologists who are Indian and want to help Indian people while feeling they must pay attention to and practice the standards and way of the academy. Our Indian medicine people, trained and engaged in the psychology of our tribal people in their oral traditional knowledge and ways, adhere to culturally appropriate standards; to my mind, they are capable and successful psychologists, albeit with lesser bank balances than their academy counterparts. Gone speaks to the tribal core value of personal sovereignty and provides an example of how pity fits into spiritual communication. His discourse on academy learning constructs is invaluable for those who feel this but are struggling to articulate it. Especially helpful, though, is Gone's discussion of actual techniques, methods, and strategies to begin indigenizing the academy in a fair and possible way. I was especially taken with his notion that professionals need...