Indigenous Studies

Cover of "Mapping the Americas"

Mapping the Americas: The Transnational Politics of Contemporary Native Culture

"In Mapping the Americas, Shari M. Huhndorf tracks changing conceptions of Native culture as it increasingly transcends national boundaries and takes up vital concerns such as patriarchy, labor and environmental exploitation, the emergence of pan-Native urban communities, global imperialism, and the commodification of indigenous cultures.While nationalism remains a dominant anticolonial strategy in indigenous contexts, Huhndorf examines the ways in which transnational indigenous politics have reshaped Native culture (especially novels, films, photography, and performance) in the United States and Canada since the 1980s."
Author
Shari M. Huhndorf
Publication
2009
Cover of "The Routledge Handbook of North American Indigenous Modernisms"

The Routledge Handbook of North American Indigenous Modernisms

"Incorporating an international scope of essays, this volume reaches beyond traditional national or euroamerican boundaries to locate North American Indigenous modernities and modernisms in a hemispheric context. Covering key theoretical approaches and topics, this volume includes diverse explorations of Indigenous cultural and intellectual production in treatments of dance, poetry, vaudeville, autobiography, radio, cinema, and more; investigation of how we think about Indigenous lives, literatures, and cultural productions in North America from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; and surveys of critical geographies of Indigenous literary and cultural studies..."
Author
Kirby Brown
Stephen Ross
and Alana Sayers
Publication
2022

Spotlight on Native Ecologies and Fire Management

Pictured above, from left, are Joe Scott, David G. Lewis, and Kari Marie Norgaard. Photos by Jack Liu.

 

On April 25, 2023, CSWS hosted “Native Ecologies,” a panel discussion on Indigenous histories and approaches to fire management, knowledge production, and ecological stewardship. 

Defiant Indigeneity: The Politics of Hawaiian Performance Book Cover

Defiant Indigeneity: The Politics of Hawaiian Performance 

This project was funded in part by a CSWS grant.
"While Native Hawaiian artists, activists, scholars, and other performers have labored to educate diverse publics about the complexity of Indigenous Hawaiian identity, ongoing acts of violence against Indigenous communities have undermined these efforts. In this multidisciplinary work, Teves argues that Indigenous peoples must continue to embrace the performance of their identities in the face of this violence in order to challenge settler-colonialism and its efforts to contain and commodify Hawaiian Indigeneity."
Author
Stephanie “Lani” Teves
Publication
2018
Indigenous Children’s Survivance in Public Schools Book Cover

Indigenous Children’s Survivance in Public Schools

"This book examines the cultural, social, and political terrain of Indigenous education by providing accounts of Indigenous students and educators creatively navigating the colonial dynamics within public schools. Through a series of survivance stories, the book surveys a range of educational issues, including implementation of Native-themed curriculum, teachers’ attempts to support Native students in their classrooms, and efforts to claim physical and cultural space in a school district, among others. As a collective, these stories highlight the ways that colonization continues to shape Native students’ experiences in schools."
Author
Leilani Sabzalian
Publication
2020
Salmon and Acorns Feed Our People: Colonialism, Nature, and Social Action Book Cover

Salmon and Acorns Feed Our People: Colonialism, Nature, and Social Action

"Since time before memory, large numbers of salmon have made their way up and down the Klamath River. Indigenous management enabled the ecological abundance that formed the basis of capitalist wealth across North America. These activities on the landscape continue today, although they are often the site of intense political struggle. Not only has the magnitude of Native American genocide been of remarkable little sociological focus, the fact that this genocide has been coupled with a reorganization of the natural world represents a substantial theoretical void. Whereas much attention has (rightfully) focused on the structuring of capitalism, racism and patriarchy, few sociologists have attended to the ongoing process of North American colonialism."
Author
Kari Marie Norgaard
Publication
2019