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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [First Page] [31], (1) Lines: 0 to 45 ——— 12.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [31], (1) 2. academic gatekeepers Devon Abbott Mihesuah The colonization of Native America1 has been documented extensively, and we like to think that most scholars are aware that the experience has been—and still is—crushing and brutal for many Indigenes.2 Many scholars continue to document atrocities of the past,and a growing number discuss problems in the present. Despite all this writing, however, many professors, administrators, publishing houses, authors, and committees comprised of scholars are still contributing to the oppression of Natives. They argue otherwise, but by purposely ignoring Indigenous voices, publishing repetitive monographs that offer little to tribes, hiring unquali fied faculty, graduating unprepared students, and devaluing Indigenous programs and concerns on campus, many scholars and universities are still supporting, promoting, and acting upon many of the same colonial ideologies. In 1940, Walter Benjamin (a German-Jewish writer) wrote about the opportunistic nature of rulers who inherit power:“All rulers are the heirs of those who conquered before them. Whoever has emerged victorious participates to this day in the triumphal procession in which the present rulers step over those who are lying prostrate. According to traditional practice, the spoils are carried along in the procession.”3 The sentries guarding the gates of academia double as standard-bearers of the status quo and are in essence the “rulers” Benjamin discusses. They take advantage of the oppression of Indigenous peoples, and from their positions of power they decide who is amiable enough to be hired, neutral enough in their writings to be published, and Euroamerican enough in their outlooks to earn awards or qualify for grants and fellowships . In other words, in order to be acceptable to gatekeepers, Indige- 32 devon abbott mihesuah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [32], (2) Lines: 45 ——— 0.0pt PgV ——— Normal P PgEnds: T [32], (2) nous scholars and their work must be nonthreatening to those in power positions. Every scholar, regardless of race, culture, or gender, is aware of academic gatekeeping because they have either run into blockades or they are gatekeepers themselves. Indigenous scholars are by no means the only ones victimized by gatekeeping: gays, females, and African, Asian, and Mexican Americans (and their supporters) are all well aware of who runs their universities and who maintains the status quo.4 This piece addresses gatekeeping created specifically to monitor, dispel, and discourage Indigenous scholars and our allies. I begin with the search committees who hire the professors who teach, write, sit on promotion and tenure committees, review manuscripts submitted for publication, and are elected to their professional organizations ’ conference committees; the discussion then moves to the publishing houses and writers of books used in classrooms. In practice, all of these positions meld into the others, ensuring successful gatekeeping in every aspect of Indigenous studies. An understanding of the subtleties of gatekeepers’ strategies to protect the status quo is also crucial for every student, professor, and administrator who is either involved in Indigenous studies or who has Indigenous faculty or students in their departments . Before proceeding, it is important to state that the relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars (and indeed, among Indigenous scholars) are complex and not all the same. There are many friendships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, including respect and genuine concern on personal levels. The problems referred to here revolve around two major situations. First is the behavior of many scholars who resent having to work with Native scholars who often have empirical knowledge that the gatekeepers will never acquire, and who also insist that Native studies exist for the betterment of tribes’ situations. Gatekeepers rarely confront us to our faces; rather, they act out their frustrations behind the scenes through annual merit evaluations, promotion and tenure decisions, search and curriculum committees, and countless other academy portals through which they strike, do their damage, and plot the next attack. The second are the gatekeeping strategies that keep Indigenous voices subsumed so that the gatekeepers’ opinions representing the status...

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