“The right to lead”: Navajo language,dis‐citizenship,and Diné presidential politics

This article examines the 2014 Navajo Nation presidential primary election and language debate as a window into the politics of Navajo heritage language and identity. Using Facebook posts written in response to a videotaped hearing testing the fluency of one of the candidates that subsequently went viral, we analyse social citizenship and stigmatized language identities through the lens of critical Diné (Navajo) language consciousness. Focusing on generational differences between speaker groups that undergirded this debate, we analyse (a) the fluency test itself and (b) online and ethnographic responses to the fluency test. Using discourse analysis of Facebook posts of both heritage language and new Navajo speakers, we show how new speakers in particular express investment in their language and Diné cultural continuity and, through their emphasis on the heterogeneity of contemporary Diné communicative practices, offer an alternative template for ways to move forward in Diné language reclamation efforts.     

Developing a mestiza consciousness theoretical framework

Abstract

This article offers Gloria Anzaldúa’s mestiza consciousness as an appropriate theorizing frame when analyzing lived experiences and perceptions of contradiction. First, I discuss the main theoretical frameworks used in sociology when examining the experiences of U.S. women of color: Patricia Hill Collins’ Black Feminist Thought and Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality. Next, I introduce mestiza consciousness as an additional sociologically appropriate framework and discuss how it fits into the tradition of Black Feminist Thought and intersectionality. Finally, I conduct a brief case study in the subdiscipline of the sociology of religion to illustrate mestiza consciousness’ appropriateness as a theoretical frame.     

Native American men-women,lesbians, two-spirits: Contemporary and historical perspectives

ABSTRACT

People living in the role of the “other” sex in Native American cultures, often entering into same-sex relationships, have been subject to various anthropological, historical, and psychological analyses and interpretations. Most recently, there has been a shift to an indigenist/decolonial interdisciplinary focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Native people. This article gives a discussion of approaches to the subject, with a focus on female gender variability. An overview is given of the latter, complemented by a discussion of the identities and concerns of contemporary Native lesbians, many of whom identify as “two-spirit,” a term that alludes to the dual, spiritually powerful nature traditionally attributed in a number of Native American cultures to individuals who combine the feminine and masculine.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Abstract

CHILD WELFARE: A MULTICULTURAL FOCUS. Neil A Cohen and Contributors. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2000. Reviewed by Carrie Jefferson Smith.

BEING BLACK IN AMERICA TODAY: A MULTIPERSPECTIVE REVIEW OF THE PROBLEM. Norman Q. Brill, M.D, Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1999. Reviewed by Joshua Kirven.     

Imagining a Life

ABSTRACT

Born in Ohio in 1876 to wealthy parents, Natalie Clifford Barney is today better known for the freedom of her lesbian life-style than for her writing. Nevertheless, she was a serious writer, and consciously engaged in writing from a specifically lesbian point of view. With her lover Renée Vivien, she attempted to revive the cult of Sappho, and thus to revitalize a lost lesbian literary tradition. Through her weekly salon, Barney encouraged women writers, serving as a mentor and muse, and often as a lover. She enjoyed enduring friendships with many well-known women and men of letters, such as Gertrude Stein, Remy de Gourmont, Colette, and Dolly Wilde. Fictional characters based on Barney appear in novels by Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, Liane de Pougy, Djuna Barnes, and Radclyffe Hall. Barney's own writing consists of one novel (The One Who Is Legion, an eccentric meditation on gender and personality); a few collections of plays, poetry, and “portraits” of women; several volumes of memoirs; and two major volumes of “pensées,” or aphorisms, in which she comments on society, politics, and sexuality using a variety of urbane personae. Natalie Barney's work deserves more recognition than it has received, and her life still can serve as a model of self-creation uninhibitied by social strictures.     

Anthropologie économique des communautés indigenes de la Sierra Norte de Puebla (Mexique) 2: Les villages de haute montagne

In a preceding article, the author has shown how Indian communities of the tierra templada have been transformed by a century of coffee-growing. Those of the adjacent highlands, although linked to the latter by language and a long cultural tradition, have known a different evolution. Until a generation ago the absence of any important cash crop has meant little inner social differentiation: the subsistence growing of maize alternating, for most Indians, with migrant wage labour. The typical class structure is here much more complex than in the lower zone, since it opposes the peasant both to the bourgeoisie of the Lowlands, as a migrant farm labourer, and to the petty bourgeoisie of merchants and landowners in the Sierra, as a customer and a share-cropper. The latter opposition reveals itself both in the classical “ethnic” form (mestizo vs. Indians) and as a political opposition between the county town (mestizo) and the Indian villages. For a few decades, diversification of production activities and relations of production linked with these have lead to a far greater structural variation in the villages than is the case in the coffee-growing area. Dans un article précédent l'auteur a montré comment les communautés indigènes de tierra templada s'étaient transformées sous 1'impact de la culture du café. Celles de la haute montagne adjacente, très apparentées aux premières, linguistiquement et culturellement, ont connu une évolution fort différente. Jusqu’à une époque toute récente, l'absence de production commerciale importante s'est traduite par une faible différenciation interne des classes: la culture vivrière du maïs se combinant, pour la majorité des Indiens, avec le travail salarié migratoire à la côte. La structure de classes caractéristique est ici plus complexe qu'en basse montagne puisqu'elle oppose le paysan indien, comme ouvrier agricole saison-nier, à la grande bourgeoisie de la côte et comme metayer/client à la petite bourgeoisie marchande et terrienne de la Sierra. Cette dernière opposition se manifeste, à la fois sous la forme « ethnique » classique (Metis/Indiens) et comme opposition politique entre le chef-lieu métis et les villages indiens. Depuis quelques décennies, la diversification des activités productives et des rapports de production qui s'y rattachent, entraine une variation beaucoup plus grande dans les structures sociales villageoises qu'en basse montagne.     

Between ‘tradition’ and movement: the emergence of Turkey’s Anti-Capitalist Muslims in the age of protest

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the emergence of the “Anti-Capitalist Muslims” (ACMs) movement as the conjunction of critical Muslim politics and grassroots activism in Istanbul, Turkey. It explores the way in which Islam has been reconstituted in Turkish politics, in contrast to both fundamentalism and the government’s neoliberal conservatism. The article draws upon Talal Asad’s definition of Islam as a ‘tradition’ that attempts to achieve coherent narratives in a form which considers and enters into a dialogue with the present context, especially with contemporary social movements. It is argued that, through a dialogue between Islam and anti-capitalist social movements, the ACMs constructed an alternative Islamic tradition, focused especially on emancipation, equality and challenging structures of domination. Yet this alternative tradition proved unable to sustain itself due to the presence of a number of ongoing ridigities, which it is suggested might be addressed in future attempts to construct an anti-capitalist form of Islam.     

Lesbian landscape

ABSTRACT

In this article about first love, the author discusses her coming of age as a lesbian who is also tribally affiliated.     

Changing Patterns of Ethnography in Canadian Anthropology: A Comparison of Themes*

Les anthropologues canadiens ont eu tendance à présumer que les recherches amérindiennes ont été reléguées à la périphéric de l'anthropologie canadienne. Après examen d'une liste de spécialistes en recherches amérindiennes dans les universités canadiennes et du dernier programme du congrès de la Société canadienne d'anthropologie (CASCA), l'auteure démontre que cette prétendue marginalisation ne refléte en rien la situation réelle. Le présent article fait état de la continuité qui caractérise la tradition “américaniste” et avance plusieurs hypothèses pour expliquer son peu de visibilité au sein de l'anthropologie contemporaine au Canada. Canadian anthropologists have tended to assume that First Nations research has moved out of the central arena of Canadian anthropology. An examination of the roster of Canadian academic specialists in First Nations studies and the most recent Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) programme indicates that this demise has been dramatically overstated. This paper highlights continuities in “the Americanist tradition” and speculates as to possible reasons for the seeming invisibility of this tradition in contemporary Canadian anthropology.     

Detecting Two-Spirit erotics: The fiction of Carole laFavor

ABSTRACT

This article examines the life and novels of Carole laFavor, arguing for her importance to and influence in Two-Spirit studies. Along with being a writer, laFavor was a powerful voice for social justice and Indigenous health sovereignty in Minnesota and the nation. Her two novels, Along the Journey River and Evil Dead Center, which both focus on Anishinaabe lesbian detective protagonist Renee LaRoche, are the first lesbian detective fiction published by a Native author. Renee's embrace of a specifically Two-Spirit erotics anchors her to family and brings her tribal community a powerful healing when she employs her skills to protect her people from instances of racism, abuse, and injustice. This article, then, reads these novels as the first of an emerging genre of texts that claim an overtly Two-Spirit erotic as well as vital precursors to the present embrace of sovereign erotics in Indigenous studies.     

'Nothing that is earthly': Ideology,performance and colonial difference

Abstract

Recent scholarship on the early Americas has posited performance as the site where colonial difference is enacted. This article examines the ways in which performance was used to disseminate (and conversely, to subvert) Christian ideology in New Spain, in dialogic texts such as Sahagún's Colloquios and in missionary plays by Father Andrés de Olmos and others.     

The quest for Mennonite peoplehood: ethno-religious identity and the dilemma of definitions*

La relation entre la convention et la tradition, d'une part, et l'innovation, d'autre part, est un aspect essentiel de la notion d'identité collective en tant que processus dynamique de (re)construction et de (re)présentation. Cette communication aborde dans cette optique ce que les Mennonites appellent aujourd'hui leur «crise d'identité». L'auteur insiste plus particulièrement sur l'ambiguïté et parfois le conflit qui caractérisent les tentatives des Mennonites de se donner une vision renouvelée de leur «spécificité,» empruntant à Pierre Bourdieu le concept d'habitus comme cadre d'analyse théorique des causes et des manifestations de cette lutte contemporaine pour définir la principale caractéristique distinctive de l'identité mennonite. The relationship between convention/tradition and innovation is indispensable to the notion of group identity as a dynamic process of (re)construction and (re)presentation. This paper applies this perspective to what Mennonites currently refer to as the Mennonite ‘identity crisis’ by focussing on the ambiguity and, at times, conflict which surrounds Mennonite efforts to articulate a renewed vision of peoplehood. Pierre Bourdieu's concept of Habitus provides the theoretical basis for understanding the causes and manifestations of this contemporary struggle to isolate the key defining feature of Mennonite identity.     

Native American Women Who Lead Human Service Organizations

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a qualitative, exploratory study of Native American women who served as organizational leaders in human service, educational and health-related agencies. Data were collected through interviews with 13 women. Findings include effects of gender and culture on leadership; motivations to act in a leadership position; challenges to successful leadership; and personal and organizational support to the leadership role.     

Biracial Sensitive Practice

Abstract

Although literature acknowledges the existence of a biracial population, there has been minimal discussion of the differences indicative of biracial clients and how these differences impact provision of services. Too frequently, race criterion has been utilized to categorize biracial clients resulting in an all but invisible population. A biracial individual may then assume a multiplicity of identities, including African-, Asian-, Latino- and Native-American, when negotiating with macro institutions, including social services. As an alternative to racial paradigms, identity across the lifespan is suggested as a more comprehensive model for biracial clients. In the aftermath said clients will be rendered visible by identity models that prevail less on the basis of race and more on the basis of experience extended across the lifespan.     

Ojibwe lesbian visual AIDS: On the Red Road with Carole laFavor,Her Giveaway (1988), and Native LGBTQ2 film history

ABSTRACT

After a century of suppression across the Silent, Classic, and New Hollywood eras, Native Lesbian/Gay media began to proliferate in the post-AIDS 1980s and into the second millennium. Her Giveaway: A Spiritual Journey with AIDS (1988) is a key tribal health AIDS video that exemplified a new contemporary media combination of visual, erotic, and theological sovereignty. The video's central Red Road narrative by the lesbian, Ojibwe, and AIDS/HIV+ spokesperson Carole laFavor emphasizes Native American traditional healing methods involving the medicine wheel and a reclamation of Native lesbian/gay identity.     

Religiousness/Spirituality and Subjective Well-Being Among Rural Elderly Whites,African Americans,and Native Americans

SUMMARY

Little attention has been paid to subjective well-being among non-White elderly in rural areas where medical resources and financial support are deficient. The present study assessed a rural community sample of 215 elderly comprising 85 Caucasians, 75 African Americans, and 55 Native Americans, to examine roles of spirituality/religiousness on their subjective well-being. This study found ethnic differences in the reliance on religiosity/spirituality and a significant association between dimensions of religiousness/spirituality and subjective well-being among all ethnic rural elderly groups. The results of the study suggest that health providers, social workers, and faith communities need to provide rural elderly with religious and spiritual support in order to enhance their life satisfaction and lessen their emotional distress.     

On the Ukrainian Cinematic Tradition,the Dovzhenko Film Studio,and Ivan Mykolaichuk

Abstract

This article discusses the Ukrainian cinematic tradition as established by Oleksandr Dovzhenko in the 1920s and 1930s and revived at the Kyiv Film Studio during the short-lived renaissance of Ukrainian cinema between 1964 and 1972. The author focuses on the three figures that led national cinema out of its provincial dead end: the film directors Volodymyr Denysenko and Sergei Paradzhanov, and the actor Ivan Mykolaichuk. The author discusses their films Son [The Dream, 1964] and Tini zabutykh predkiv [Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, 1964] as best representing the turn from theatrical adaptations of literary classics to their creative cinematic rethinking. Mykolaichuk’s acting style matched this new trend perfectly because he was a carrier of the folk tradition that the two directors were seeking to harness for new ways of artistic expression.     

Estudio de impacto ambiental de la Plaza Berengé de Granollers: aproximación cualitativa

Resumen

En este estudio pretendemos realizar la evaluación del impacto ambiental de una plaza de Granollers (Barcelona). El interés está motivado por los artículos aparecidos en una revista local que evidenciaban una actitud negativa de la mayoría de la población hacia esta plaza. El objeto de análisis que será prioritario será el lenguaje obtenido a partir de entrevistas semi-estructuradas. ¿Por qué desde la Psicología Ambiental? Principalmente por dos razones. En primer lugar, por la necesidad de la comunicación y coordinación de todos/as aquellos/as que están implicados en la planificación de un medio ambiente construido y en que éste cumpla la función y uso deseado. En segundo lugar, para elaborar un diagnóstico ad hoc y a priori de los espacios construidos. En definitiva se pretende aportar un marco de referencia para que los/las políticos/as, diseñadores/as, arquitectos/as y urbanistas escuchen a los/las psicólogos/as ambientales, antes de proyectar y que escuchen a aquellos/as que utilizan lo proyectado.     

Separate family and community realities? An urban-rural comparison of the association between family life satisfaction and community satisfaction

Classical and contemporary statements about family and community suggest mutually reinforcing connections between these two life domains. However, in their search for greater niche building, scholars have largely overlooked such links because of their adherence to specific traditions. This article considers the public-private sphere debate, a tradition associated primarily with family studies. This tradition holds that individuals experience life as discrete social spheres. Using this tradition as a framework for critique, this study examines individuals' association with family and community via an empirical test of family life satisfaction and community satisfaction. Particular attention is also given to urban and rural differences and similarities in family life and community. Data were drawn from a nationally representative sample of adults from the USA. The multivariate analysis revealed a reciprocal relationship between family life satisfaction and community satisfaction. Findings are discussed in light of the public-private sphere debate and urban and rural realities. Les énoncés classiques et contemporaines sur la famille et la communauté suggèrent des rapports qui se renforcent mutuellement entre ces deux domaines de la vie. Pourtant, dans leur recherche de se faire une place dans le monde universitaire, les spécialistes ont en grande partie ignoré de telles liaisons à cause de leur adhésion aux traditions spécifiques. Cet article considère le débat entre les sphères publiques et privées, une tradition associée principalement aux études de familles. Cette tradition soutient que les individus font l'expérience de la vie comme sphères sociales discrètes. En employant cette tradition comme structure pour la critique, cette étude examine l'association des individus avec la famille et la communauté par une épreuve empirique de la satisfaction de la vie familiale et de la satisfaction de vie communitaire. Cette recherche tient compte aussi des différences et des ressemblances urbaines et rurales dans la vie familiale et communautaire, et elle se base sur des données d'un échantillon nationalement représentatif d'adultes des Etats-Unis. L'analyse multivariate a révélé un rapport réciproque entre la satisfaction de la vie familiale et la satisfaction de la vie communautaire. Les découvertes se présentent à la lumière du débat des sphères publiques-privées et des réalités urbaines et rurales.