Contesting Constructed Indian-ness

The Intersection of the Frontier, Masculinity, and Whiteness in Native American Mascot Representations

Häftad, Engelska, 2015

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Native American sports team mascots represent a contemporary problem for modern Native American people. The ideas embedded in the mascot representations, however, are as old as the ideas constructed about the Indian since contact between the peoples of Western and the Eastern hemispheres. Such ideas conceived about Native Americans go hand-in-hand with the machinations of colonialism and conquest of these people. This research looks at how such ideas inform the construction of identity of white males from historic experiences with Native Americans. Notions of “playing Indian” and of “going Native” are precipitated from these historic contexts such that in the contemporary sense of considering Native Americans, popular culture ideas dress Native Americans in feathers and buckskin in order to satisfy stereotypic expectations of Indian-ness.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2015-03-24
Mått151 x 231 x 12 mm
Vikt236 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor154
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN9781498515191
UtmärkelserWinner of CHOICE Faculty Picks 2015

Tillhör följande kategorier

Diskriminering och rättvisa inom Samhalle och politik
Genusvetenskap inom Samhalle och politik
Antropologi inom Samhalle och politik
Etnicitet inom Samhalle och politik

Michael Taylor, PhD, has been researching racialized mascots and the ways in which the creators of these representations seek a connection to a desirable, idealized Indianness. Taylor’s work on mascot imagery consists of case studies of educational institutions that are invested in such iconography. He currently holds a joint-appointment in anthropology and Native American studies at Colgate University and is a member of the Seneca Nation of Indians (SNI), a tribal community located in southwestern New York State.

Careful. Deliberate. Thoughtful. Nuanced. Revealing. Anthropologist and Native American studies scholar Taylor delivers an important contribution with this artfully crafted examination of Native American mascots. His analytical skill resituates the debate about how Native Americans are represented in the broader US culture in a multilayered discussion connecting gender, race, and place, noting how Native voices are opposed to, defend against, and are drowned out by a white majority intent on reinforcing the boundaries between the conquered and the conquerors. The mythic frontier serves as a backdrop, the dynamics of which are played out on football fields around the US. Taylor begins and ends his book with an account of sitting in his own high school bleachers watching a Seneca student don buckskin and headdress to dance as the team mascot, and sensing the shared confusion of other Seneca students amid a majority white crowd and their realization of the magnitude of self-betrayal in which they are being asked to participate. It is an arresting, haunting depiction of the painful and complicated pathways that young Native students travel in a white world, making choices that may appear to be their own but are actually those that others have set before them. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.