X-marks
Subtitle: native signatures of assent
By: Scott Richard Lyons.
Series: Indigenous Americas
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Minneapolis
Language: eng
Number of pages: 236
ISBN-13: 9780816666768; 9780816666775
Subjects: Indians of North America -- Ethnic identity; Indians of North America -- Cultural assimilation; Group identity -- United States; Self-determination, National -- United States; Identification (Psychology); Race awareness; Liminality
Description: "In X-Marks, Scott Richard Lyons explores the complexity of contemporary Indian identity and current debates among Indians about traditionalism, nationalism, and tribalism. Employing the x-mark as a metaphor for what he calls the "Indian assent to the new," Lyons offers a valuable alternative to both imperialist concepts of assimilation and nativist notions of resistance, calling into question the binary oppositions produced during the age of imperialism and maintaining that indigeneity is something that people do, not what they are. Drawing on his personal experiences and family history on the Leech Lake Ojibwe Reservation in northern Minnesota, discourses embedded in Ojibwemowin (the Ojibwe language), and disagreements about Indian identity within Native American studies, Lyons contends that Indians should be able to choose nontraditional ways of living, thinking, and being without fear of condemnation as inauthentic"--Back cover
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.