Unsettling America: The Uses of Indianness in the 21st Century

C. Richard King

Apr 2013 · Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

About this ebook

Unsettling America explores the cultural politics of Indianness in the 21st century. It concerns itself with representations of Native Americans in popular culture, the news media, and political debate and the ways in which American Indians have interpreted, challenged, and reworked key ideas about them. It examines the means and meanings of competing uses and understandings of Indianness, unraveling their significance for broader understandings of race and racism, sovereignty and self-determination, and the possibilities of decolonization. To this end, it takes up four themes:

• false claims about or on Indianness, that is, distortions, or ongoing stereotyping;
• claiming Indianness to advance the culture wars, or how indigenous peoples have figured in post-9/11 political debates;
• making claims through metaphors and juxtaposition, or the use of analogy to advance political movements or enhance social visibility; and
• reclamations, or exertion of cultural sovereignty.

About the author

C. Richard King is a professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University. He is one of the leading scholars of contemporary American Indian Studies, and he also studies race and ethnicity more broadly. A past president of the Society for the Sociology of Sport, he serves on the editorial board for several journals, including Ethnicity and Race in a Changing World, Journal of Popular Culture, and Society of Sport Journal. King is the author/editor of a number of books, including Team Spirits: The Native American Mascot Controversy (2001, a CHOICE 2001 Outstanding Academic Title), Native Americans in Sports (2003), Animating Difference (Rowman & Littlefield 2010), and The Native American Mascot Controversy: A Handbook (Scarecrow 2010).