Since first contact, Natives and newcomers have been involved in an
increasingly complex struggle over power and identity. Modern "Indian
wars" are fought over land and treaty rights, artistic appropriation,
and academic analysis, while Native communities struggle among
themselves over membership, money, and cultural meaning. In cultural and
political arenas across North America, Natives enact and newcomers
protest issues of traditionalism, sovereignty, and self-determination.
In these struggles over domination and resistance, over different
ideologies and Indian identities, neither Natives nor other North
Americans recognize the significance of being rooted together in history
and culture, or how representations of "Indianness" set them in
opposition to each other.
In Indian Country: Essays on Contemporary Native Culture, Gail Guthrie
Valaskakis uses a cultural studies approach to offer a unique
perspective on Native political struggle and cultural conflict in both
Canada and the United States. She reflects on treaty rights and
traditionalism, media warriors, Indian princesses, powwow, museums, art,
and nationhood. According to Valaskakis, Native and non-Native people
construct both who they are and their relations with each other in
narratives that circulate through art, anthropological method, cultural
appropriation, and Native reappropriation. For Native peoples and
Others, untangling the past--personal, political, and cultural--can help
to make sense of current struggles over power and identity that define
the Native experience today.
Grounded in theory and threaded with Native voices and evocative
descriptions of "Indian" experience (including the author's), the essays
interweave historical and political process, personal narrative, and
cultural critique. This book is an important contribution to Native
studies that will appeal to anyone interested in First Nations'
experience and popular culture.
