CFP: The Politics of Indian Identity and the Future of Tribal Sovereignty (5/1/06; 7/06)

full name / name of organization: 
George Luskop
contact email: 

CFP: The Politics of Indian Identity and the Future of Tribal Sovereignty
(July 2007) International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Science.

Due to the overwhelming amount of responses concerning the session
concerning Indian Identity politics and the great interest showed towards
this topic I am seeking proposals for two sessions to be held at the 2007
International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Science. More than
thirty years since the development of American Indian studies as an academic
discipline the issue of Indian identity and authenticity continue to be
hotly debated issues. In 2002, for instance, Delphine Shaw, who publishes
under the name Delphine Red Shirt, published a vicious attack in American
Indian Quarterly on New England Indians, entitled These are Not Indians,
specifically attacking the identity or Indian-ness of Connecticut Native
peoples. In this essay the author claims without citing any evidence that in
regards to the "once proud people who lived in this state of Quinecktecut.
These races have died out." If that claim, couched in the vernacular of
colonial nostalgia, was not bizarre enough, she ends her polemic with a
challenge "for all the press and tv stations to include photos and footage
of these individuals who claim Native American heritage," because, according
to her essentialist logic, Indian identity is manifested in outward
appearance alone. That such blatantly racialist ideas are being expressed
and published in leading AIS journals and tacitly supported by leading
publishers and institutions in the fieldhe University of Nebraska
Press recently chose Delphine Shaw (Red Shirt) as editor for their series
race and Ethnicity in the American West, illustrates the pervasiveness of
the problem that Native people continue to face. Although many Native
scholars and writers from Indian Cpuntry Today were quick to denounce (Red
Shirt) Shaw's words as "myopic," "bigoted," "mean-spirited" and "ignorant,"
attacks such as Shaw's undermine, no doubt, to the glee of Indian opponents,
the most basic tenets of tribal sovereignty and Indian self-determination.
Indian scholars and researchers have long recognized the genocidal logic
behind federally imposed blood-quantum requirements, but when Native people
themselves continue to use these hegemonic standards to dictate to other
Native people who is or is not Native, it is clear that internal
colonization continues to be one of the most serious challenges Indian
people face if they are to continue to be recognized as unique cultural
groups. This proposed panel seeks thoughtful submissions on this vitally
important topic to the future of American Indian Studies.

Please send abstracts of 300 words--as a MS word attachment--along with
institutional and tribal affiliation, if applicable, by May 1, 2006 to:
George Luskap at georgluskap_at_hotmail.com.
International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Science.

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Received on Mon Jun 26 2006 - 18:27:26 EDT