Indigenous Voices and Contested Identities

Presentation Location

Governors II

Document Type

Event

Start Date

8-4-2022 2:00 PM

End Date

8-4-2022 3:30 PM

Description

  • Kiley Molinari, Session Chair
  • Kiley Molinari (Francis Marion University). Mediating Relatedness: Examining Kinship Relationships Through Technology.
    Understanding kinship ties and respecting the different relationship’s one has with people in the community is something that is very important to the Apsáalooke (Crow) people. With the introduction of new forms of digital media, using technology as a platform for viewing Apsáalooke material culture and photographs, as well as video and audio recordings, is a technique that is new enough that the people in the community are unsure of the protocols about certain “in-law avoidances” when it comes to kinship relations. The question of how “in-law avoidances,” such as a son-in-law avoidance, can be respected in a digital form is not only important for the Apsáalooke community to have answered, but for all Indigenous communities who are increasingly using technology for their own needs and purposes. The concern surrounding “in-law avoidances” and the use of new media calls to attention certain cultural protocols relating to kinship in the Apsáalooke community, and forces us to reconsider current anthropological debates involving the safeguarding of Indigenous knowledge, and how digital technology can maintain, as well as produce, cultural practices. Key words: kinship, technology, digital media, collaboration, Indigenous communities
  • Blake Hite (University of South Carolina). “Whoz ya people?:” Lumbee Citizenship and Belonging in the Twenty-First Century.
    The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina is a state-recognized tribe with an estimated 60,000 citizens. From 2018-2020, the tribe closed their enrollment office so that the tribe could reexamine enrollment policies, particularly the criterion for appropriate contact with the tribal homeland. During this closure, the tribe was continuing its long journey for federal recognition, with a bill passing the U.S. House of Representatives and receiving support from then President Donald Trump and current President Joseph Biden. During the summer of 2021, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork with the tribe’s enrollment department, located in Pembroke, NC, to answer the question of how Lumbee people understand and conceptualize “appropriate contact” with the tribal homeland. I interviewed 10 Lumbee individuals, both enrolled and non-enrolled, alongside conducting participant observation as a temporary enrollment officer. From my fieldwork, I found that Lumbee people understand appropriate contact through cultural, linguistic, and biological constructions that attempt to create a distinct population within the Southeast. Further, I found that the quest for federal recognition plays a key role in how Lumbee people understand citizenship and how they conceptualize both real and imagined obstacles to obtaining this long-sought recognition.
  • Madison T. Crow (Vanderbilt University). “Beyond King Street”: Identifying and Promoting Immigrant Indigenous Languages in Charleston, South Carolina.
    In Charleston, South Carolina, there is a significant presence of Spanish speakers, but there is also a noteworthy lack of information about indigenous languages from Latin America spoken in Latinx communities throughout the state and in the United States as a whole (“Detailed languages...” 2015, Zeigler & Camarota 2018). My research is an investigation into the presence of indigenous languages spoken by Latin American immigrants in Charleston. I analyze the linguistic challenges that exist for Charleston's indigenous language speakers through sociolinguistic interviews and seek to respond these difficulties through the creation of a children’s visual dictionary. In the Charleston area, 40 speakers of 14 distinct indigenous languages were identified, although undoubtedly many more remain invisible to the public eye. This project serves as a successful example of what can be done to identify and promote the presence of indigenous languages in Latinx immigrant communities across the U.S., such as the one in Nashville, TN. Key Words: Indigenous languages, Latin America, immigration, Latinx communities, linguistic attitudes

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Apr 8th, 2:00 PM Apr 8th, 3:30 PM

Indigenous Voices and Contested Identities

Governors II

  • Kiley Molinari, Session Chair
  • Kiley Molinari (Francis Marion University). Mediating Relatedness: Examining Kinship Relationships Through Technology.
    Understanding kinship ties and respecting the different relationship’s one has with people in the community is something that is very important to the Apsáalooke (Crow) people. With the introduction of new forms of digital media, using technology as a platform for viewing Apsáalooke material culture and photographs, as well as video and audio recordings, is a technique that is new enough that the people in the community are unsure of the protocols about certain “in-law avoidances” when it comes to kinship relations. The question of how “in-law avoidances,” such as a son-in-law avoidance, can be respected in a digital form is not only important for the Apsáalooke community to have answered, but for all Indigenous communities who are increasingly using technology for their own needs and purposes. The concern surrounding “in-law avoidances” and the use of new media calls to attention certain cultural protocols relating to kinship in the Apsáalooke community, and forces us to reconsider current anthropological debates involving the safeguarding of Indigenous knowledge, and how digital technology can maintain, as well as produce, cultural practices. Key words: kinship, technology, digital media, collaboration, Indigenous communities
  • Blake Hite (University of South Carolina). “Whoz ya people?:” Lumbee Citizenship and Belonging in the Twenty-First Century.
    The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina is a state-recognized tribe with an estimated 60,000 citizens. From 2018-2020, the tribe closed their enrollment office so that the tribe could reexamine enrollment policies, particularly the criterion for appropriate contact with the tribal homeland. During this closure, the tribe was continuing its long journey for federal recognition, with a bill passing the U.S. House of Representatives and receiving support from then President Donald Trump and current President Joseph Biden. During the summer of 2021, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork with the tribe’s enrollment department, located in Pembroke, NC, to answer the question of how Lumbee people understand and conceptualize “appropriate contact” with the tribal homeland. I interviewed 10 Lumbee individuals, both enrolled and non-enrolled, alongside conducting participant observation as a temporary enrollment officer. From my fieldwork, I found that Lumbee people understand appropriate contact through cultural, linguistic, and biological constructions that attempt to create a distinct population within the Southeast. Further, I found that the quest for federal recognition plays a key role in how Lumbee people understand citizenship and how they conceptualize both real and imagined obstacles to obtaining this long-sought recognition.
  • Madison T. Crow (Vanderbilt University). “Beyond King Street”: Identifying and Promoting Immigrant Indigenous Languages in Charleston, South Carolina.
    In Charleston, South Carolina, there is a significant presence of Spanish speakers, but there is also a noteworthy lack of information about indigenous languages from Latin America spoken in Latinx communities throughout the state and in the United States as a whole (“Detailed languages...” 2015, Zeigler & Camarota 2018). My research is an investigation into the presence of indigenous languages spoken by Latin American immigrants in Charleston. I analyze the linguistic challenges that exist for Charleston's indigenous language speakers through sociolinguistic interviews and seek to respond these difficulties through the creation of a children’s visual dictionary. In the Charleston area, 40 speakers of 14 distinct indigenous languages were identified, although undoubtedly many more remain invisible to the public eye. This project serves as a successful example of what can be done to identify and promote the presence of indigenous languages in Latinx immigrant communities across the U.S., such as the one in Nashville, TN. Key Words: Indigenous languages, Latin America, immigration, Latinx communities, linguistic attitudes