American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Between February 27 and May 8, 1973, Indigenous nationalists of the American Indian Movement and local Lakota reservation residents occupied the tiny hamlet of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. The intent behind the armed takeover was to highlight intratribal conflict over tribal governance on the local Pine Ridge reservation and demand a return to the treaty-making era. Halfway through the prolonged siege, Indigenous nationalists declared the Independent Oglala Nation—separate from the United States government—and proclaimed the setup of a modern-day warrior society. In that these parallel and intertwined actions suggest a close connection between manhood and nationhood in which nationalist warriors rallied in defense of a newly proclaimed nation, the armed confrontation at Wounded Knee can be understood as a highly gendered nation building project. This research article seeks to make new sense of these warriors for a nation and the intricate nature of masculinity and nationalism and to shed new light on the role of marginalized masculinities in processes of nation building—a significant, yet largely overlooked field of research.

For too long scholars have ignored the origins, deliberations, findings and overall significance of the American-British Claims Arbitration Tribunal that operated from 1910 to 1926, which heard a longstanding case involving New York State treaty obligations to the Grand River Cayugas. Also at this time Deskaheh, a Grand River Cayuga sachem, was bringing Hodinöhsö:ni’ (Haudenosaunee/Iroquois Confederacy/Six Nations) grievances to the League of Nations. This article traces the connections between these two cases, part of a larger Hodinöhsö:ni’ effort over the last century to assert sovereignty and gain international recognition for their nationhood as transnational peoples.

The misuse of genomic information has generated considerable concern in American Indian and Alaska Native communities. To understand how issues of genomic research misuse are understood by the public this article focuses on the case brought against Arizona State University by the Havasupai Indian Tribe. To understand how the Havasupai was being framed in the print media, this article examines newspaper articles (N=59) from when the story broke in 2004 until 2019. Our findings suggest that news media rarely engaged the concept of sovereignty and framed the story as an issue of research and scientific ethics.

This article critically examines historian Gary Clayton Anderson’s attempt to deny that the treatment inflicted upon California’s Indigenous people during the Gold Rush Era was genocide. Not only a matter of academic interest, this examination is also important to ongoing discussions following both California Governor Gavin Newsom’s 2019 apology to California’s Indigenous peoples for genocide and the creation of the Indigenous-led California Truth and Healing Council. Pointing out out serious flaws in Anderson’s argument that the population of California Indians in 1851 was much lower than historical demographer Sherburne Cook’s widely accepted estimates, the article explains how Anderson consistently diminishes the extent of violence against Native California communities. The essay further considers problems with Anderson’s criteria for genocide and his use of the category of “ethnic cleansing” as an alternative to genocide. It concludes with the proposal to take a structuralist approach to the issue, rather than an intentionalist one.

This article examines how urban Indigenous youth who are at risk express themselves on Facebook. Our study data show (1) they share Indigenous culture and express interest in the wellbeing of family and friends; (2) their personal status updates showed a great deal of variability; (3) they expressed their physical or psychological status when they felt at risk and posted media to validate their at-risk status; (4) they reported that a lack of content for addressing risk management; (5) they noticed that friends were at risk by observing changes in language; and (5) they believe that Indigenous culture supports their posts.

Recently, as performing land acknowledgments within activist and academic communities grows in popularity, scholars are beginning to critically engage with their purpose and production. While the development of these discussions in university settings demonstrates a beneficial turn toward working with and interest in Indigenous communities, as well as the academy’s recognition of its complicity in ongoing settler colonization, it is important to reflect on these practices now, at this moment. Exploring recent critiques of land acknowledgments, we demonstrate that contemporary land acknowledgments maintain Western conceptions of land by focusing on the people as if they are divorced from it. This article argues, utilizing the peoplehood matrix, that land and people are inexorably linked in Indigenous ontologies, in an equal relationship, yet the form of current land acknowledgments often separates the people from their land in conformity with Western ideas of land ownership and history. We maintain that it is crucial in creating and performing land acknowledgments to remember the relationality between Indigenous peoples and the land.