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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Ethnic studies > Indigenous peoples
The first full-length examination of the archaeology and history of
the Namib Desert. This is a story of human survival over the last
one million years in the Namib Desert - one of the most hostile
environments on Earth. Namib reveals the resilience and ingenuity
of desert communities and provides a vivid picture of our species'
response to climate change, and ancient strategies to counter
ever-present risk. Dusty fragments of stone, pottery and bone tell
a history of perpetual transition, of shifting and temporary states
of balance. Namib digs beneath the usual evidence of archaeology to
uncover a world of arcane rituals, of travelling rain-makers, of
intricate social networks which maintained vital systems of
negotiated access to scarce resources. Ranging from the earliest
evidence of human occupation, through colonial rule and genocide,
to the invasion of the desert by South African troops during the
First World War, this is the first comprehensive archaeology of the
Namib. Among its important contributions are the reclaiming of the
indigenous perspective during the brutal colonial occupation, and
establishing new material links between the imperialist project in
German South West Africa during 1885-1915 and the Third Reich, and
between Nazi ideology and Apartheid. Southern Africa: University of
Namibia Press/Jacana
Guatemala emerged from the clash between Spanish invaders and Maya
cultures that began five centuries ago. The conquest of these "rich
and strange lands," as Hernan Cortes called them, and their "many
different peoples" was brutal and prolonged. ""Strange Lands and
Different Peoples"" examines the myriad ramifications of Spanish
intrusion, especially Maya resistance to it and the changes that
took place in native life because of it.
The studies assembled here, focusing on the first century of
colonial rule (1524-1624), discuss issues of conquest and
resistance, settlement and colonization, labor and tribute, and
Maya survival in the wake of Spanish invasion. The authors
reappraise the complex relationship between Spaniards and Indians,
which was marked from the outset by mutual feelings of resentment
and mistrust. While acknowledging the pivotal role of native
agency, the authors also document the excesses of Spanish
exploitation and the devastating impact of epidemic disease.
Drawing on research findings in Spanish and Guatemalan archives,
they offer fresh insight into the Kaqchikel Maya uprising of 1524,
showing that despite strategic resistance, colonization imposed a
burden on the indigenous population more onerous than previously
thought.
Guatemala remains a deeply divided and unjust society, a country
whose current condition can be understood only in light of the
colonial experiences that forged it. Affording readers a critical
perspective on how Guatemala came to be, ""Strange Lands and
Different Peoples" "shows the events of the past to have enduring
contemporary relevance.
How does one read across cultural boundaries? The multitude of
creative texts, performance practices, and artworks produced by
Indigenous writers and artists in contemporary Australia calls upon
Anglo-European academic readers, viewers, and critics to respond to
this critical question. Contributors address a plethora of creative
works by Indigenous writers, poets, playwrights, filmmakers, and
painters, including Richard Frankland, Lionel Fogarty, Lin Onus,
Kim Scott, Sam Watson, and Alexis Wright, as well as Durrudiya song
cycles and works by Western Desert artists. The complexity of these
creative works transcends categorical boundaries of Western art,
aesthetics, and literature, demanding new processes of reading and
response. Other contributors address works by non-Indigenous
writers and filmmakers such as Stephen Muecke, Katrina Schlunke,
Margaret Somerville, and Jeni Thornley, all of whom actively engage
in questioning their complicity with the past in order to challenge
Western modes of knowledge and understanding and to enter into a
more self-critical and authentically ethical dialogue with the
Other. In probing the limitations of Anglo-European
knowledge-systems, essays in this volume lay the groundwork for
entering into a more authentic dialogue with Indigenous writers and
critics.
Helen Hunt Jackson's famous expos chronicles the oppression and
murder the Native American peoples suffered throughout the 18th and
19th centuries. This book was published in 1885, at a time when the
final conflicts between the United States and the Native American
populations were being fought. The concept of allotted reservations
as a means of settling land disputes had by then been underway for
decades. At this point in time, the colonial settlers from Europe
had spent over a century driving back the native inhabitants of
North America. Jackson casts her examination over the preceding
century, cataloging the systematic process through which the Native
American populace was suppressed, killed and robbed of their lands
and heritage. Each separate tribe is considered, such as the
Cherokees, Sioux and the Delawares: for each we are given a
cultural profile, before Jackson details the interactions -
peaceful and hostile - each respective tribe had with the incipient
European settlers.
During the colonial period, thousands of North American Native
peoples travelled to Cuba independently as traders, diplomats,
missionary candidates, immigrants, or refugees; others were
forcibly transported as captives, slaves, indentured labourers, or
prisoners of war. Over the half millennium after Spanish contact,
Cuba served as the principal destination and residence of peoples
as diverse as the Yucatec Mayas of Mexico; the Calusa, Timucua,
Creek, and Seminole peoples of Florida; and the Apache and Puebloan
cultures of the northern provinces of New Spain. In this first
history of the significant and diverse Amerindian presence in Cuba
during and well beyond the early colonial period, Yaremko
demonstrates the diverse, multifaceted, and dynamic nature of the
indigenous diaspora in colonial Cuba. Acknowledging these groups'
role in geopolitical, diplomatic, economic, and diasporic
processes, Yaremko argues that these migrants played an essential
role in the historical development of Cuba. With case studies and
documentation from various sites, Yaremko's narrative presents a
fuller history of Amerindian migration and diaspora in Cuba and the
rest of Latin America.
When John Joseph Mathews (1894-1979) began his career as a writer
in the 1930s, he was one of only a small number of Native American
authors writing for a national audience. Today he is widely
recognized as a founder and shaper of twentieth-century Native
American literature. Twenty Thousand Mornings is Mathews's intimate
chronicle of his formative years. Written in 1965-67 but only
recently discovered, this work captures Osage life in pre-statehood
Oklahoma and recounts many remarkable events in
early-twentieth-century history. Born in Pawhuska, Osage Nation,
Mathews was the only surviving son of a mixed-blood Osage father
and a French-American mother. Within these pages he lovingly
depicts his close relationships with family members and friends.
Yet always drawn to solitude and the natural world, he wanders the
Osage Hills in search of tranquil swimming holes - and new
adventures. Overturning misguided critical attempts to confine
Mathews to either Indian or white identity, Twenty Thousand
Mornings shows him as a young man of his time. He goes to dances
and movies, attends the brand-new University of Oklahoma, and joins
the Air Service as a flight instructor during World War I -
spawning a lifelong fascination with aviation. His accounts of
wartime experiences include unforgettable descriptions of his first
solo flight and growing skill in night-flying. Eventually Mathews
gives up piloting to become a student again, this time at Oxford
University, where he begins to mature as an intellectual. In her
insightful introduction and explanatory notes, Susan Kalter places
Mathews's work in the context of his life and career as a novelist,
historian, naturalist, and scholar. Kalter draws on his unpublished
diaries, revealing aspects of his personal life that have
previously been misunderstood. In addressing the significance of
this posthumous work, she posits that Twenty Thousand Mornings will
challenge, defy, and perhaps redefine studies of American Indian
autobiography.
Conversations with LeAnne Howe is the first collection of
interviews with the groundbreaking Choctaw author, whose
genre-bending works take place in the US Southeast, Oklahoma, and
beyond our national borders to bring Native American characters and
themes to the global stage. Best known for her American Book
Award-winning novel Shell Shaker (2001), LeAnne Howe (b. 1951) is
also a poet, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, theorist, and
humorist. She has held numerous honors including a Fulbright
Distinguished Scholarship in Amman, Jordan, from 2010 to 2011, and
she was the recipient of the Modern Language Association's first
Prize for Studies in Native American Literatures, Cultures, and
Languages for her travelogue, Choctalking on Other Realities
(2013). Spanning the period from 2002 to 2020, the interviews in
this collection delve deeply into Howe's poetics, her innovative
critical methodology of tribalography, her personal history, and
her position on subjects ranging from the Lone Ranger to Native
American mascots. Two previously unpublished interviews, "'An
American in New York': LeAnne Howe" (2019) and "Genre-Sliding on
Stage with LeAnne Howe" (2020), explore unexamined areas of her
personal history and how it impacted her creative work, including
childhood trauma and her incubation as a playwright in the 1980s.
These conversations along with 2019's Occult Poetry Radio interview
also give important insights on the background of Howe's newest
critically acclaimed work, Savage Conversations (2019), about Mary
Todd Lincoln's hallucination of a "Savage Indian" during her time
in Bellevue Place sanitarium. Taken as a whole, Conversations with
LeAnne Howe showcases the development and continued impact of one
of the most important Indigenous American writers of the
twenty-first century.
Society is continually moving towards global interaction, and
nations often contain citizens of numerous cultures and
backgrounds. Bi-culturalism incorporates a higher degree of social
inclusion in an effort to bring about social justice and change,
and it may prove to be an alternative to the existing dogma of
mainstream Europe-based hegemonic bodies of knowledge. The Handbook
of Research on Indigenous Knowledge and Bi-Culturalism in a Global
Context is a collection of innovative studies on the nature of
indigenous bodies' knowledge that incorporates the sacred or
spiritual influence across various countries following World War
II, while exploring the difficulties faced as society immerses
itself in bi-culturalism. While highlighting topics including
bi-cultural teaching, Africology, and education empowerment, this
book is ideally designed for academicians, urban planners,
sociologists, anthropologists, researchers, and professionals
seeking current research on validating the growth of indigenous
thinking and ideas.
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