On The Politics of Indigeneity: North American and Pacific Histories

The field of comparative indigenous studies has grown tremendously in recent years. Tiya Miles, Paige Raibmon, and J. Kehaulani Kauanui offer some of the most thought-provoking reflections on the politics of indigeneity. Highlighting debates over indigenous identity in the United States and Canada during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, these authors uncover how Native peoples in modern industrial nation-states have reshaped their identities while resisting colonialism and maintaining degrees of their autonomy. Miles, Raibmon, and Kauanui provide glimpses into the dynamics of social change within indigenous communities. Miles explores how Cherokees incorporated slavery into their economic life, and how interrelationships between African Americans and Cherokees changed notions of race within the Cherokee Nation. Raibmon narrates three episodes of cultural encounter in which Indians on the Northwest Coast engaged in wage labor and the tourist economy, as well as grappled with non-Indian notions of "authenticity" and "civilization." Kauanui's work assesses the enduring cultural and political divide that the blood quantum system created within the Native Hawaiian community. Taken together, these stories provide a sense of indigenous struggles to ensure the survival of their families and communities, and how Native peoples have made the best of unfavorable situations in rather unexpected ways.