An Activist Posing as an Academic?

A few years ago, while interviewing for a tenure-track position at a large, public institution in the Midwest, I was informed that several faculty members suspected me of being "an activist posing as an academic." When I asked for more clarification, some faculty members explained that my research lacked "objectivity." Based on subsequent conversations I had during the interview process, I deduced that their ideal academic was someone who applied reductionist, social scientific methodologies to parochial, data-driven research questions.

Apparently as a Tsalagi (Cherokee) scholar, my interdisciplinary, applied research threatened the "white" privilege and values of these self-appointed guardians of the political science discipline.¹ I never understood how approaching questions of political mobilization and human rights as a Tsalagi scholar could be deemed so threatening to the cohesiveness of an entire field. I also failed to appreciate such a dichotomized worldview—you are either an academic or an activist, but you clearly cannot be both. Such narrow, binary thinking gives the illusion that scholarship and activism are mutually exclusive. If I were to play anthropologist to the academics who opposed my interview (as they appear to have done with me during the interview process), I would carefully document their ethnocentric belief systems, myths of academic freedom, individualistic/self-absorbed cultural practices, passive-aggressive mannerisms in refusing to engage in any discussion regarding my research, and a generalized fear of original ideas.²

While I initially found the label of "activist posing as an academic" personally offensive, I now take pride in it, knowing that my dedication to Tsalagi people and Indigenous communities did not conveniently fit into a Western conceptualization of "objectivity." I am also proud that these guardians of disciplinary turf so clearly recognized the applied nature of my research and community outreach. By refusing to apologize for being a Tsalagi professor, I practiced the academic freedom that these scholars lauded publicly but suppressed privately.

Not surprisingly, I never received a job offer from the institution where I interviewed. Fortunately, I already had a tenure-track position with the political science department at a large, public university in the southeastern United States, which I will refer to as Yonega University (YU). In the course of my five years of experience at YU, I found that stereotypes of the Indian "activist," "spiritual" Indian, and "Noble Savage" were still prevalent at these institutions of "higher learning." I was constantly working to debunk these stereotypes while being held up to unrealistic expectations. On the one hand, as an Indigenous professor I was somehow expected to represent the interests of all Indigenous peoples in the United States and speak on behalf of some 4.1 million Indigenous peoples at committee meetings, lectures, and so forth—despite constantly informing disappointed faculty and students that I can only speak for myself. On the other hand, my views were denounced when I voiced perspectives that were contrary to prevailing university norms of white privilege—in those instances, I was considered out of line with other Indigenous views on the issue and inadequate as a "representative" for all Indigenous peoples. As eminent Lakota scholar Vine Deloria Jr. writes: "The more we try to be ourselves, the more we are forced to defend what we have never been."³

My experiences at YU made me realize that I did not aspire to live in a world where my work would be read exclusively by other academics (which seemed rather incestuous to me) and where my work with Indigenous communities might be perceived as a distraction from the "publish or perish" mentality. Following the philosophy of noted Cherokee anthropologist Robert K. Thomas, I am a Tsalagi first and a trained political scientist second.⁴ I want my life to reflect my attempt to walk the way of wi-gaduwaga based on relations to kinfolk, homelands/holy places, histories, language, and ceremonial life.⁵ As the lives of Henrietta Mann (Cheyenne), Robert K. Thomas...