Duane Champagne

American Indian activism : Alcatraz to the longest walk

The American Indian occupation of Alcatraz Island was the catalyst for a more generalized movement in which Native Americans from across the country have sought redress of grievances as they continue their struggle for survival and sovereignty. In this volume, some of the dominant scholars in the field join to chronicle and analyze Native American activism of the 1960s and 1970s. The book also provides extended background and historical analysis of the Alcatraz takeover and discusses its place in contemporary Indian activism.

In Search of Theory and Method in American Indian Studies

American Indian studies should have a theoretical and methodological focus sufficient to organize an academic discipline. American Indian nations, or more generally indigenous nations, form distinct political and cultural groups that are informed by creation and cultural teachings that encourage preservation of self-government, community, and stewardship of land within the context of surrounding nation-states that prefer assimilation and political inclusion to recognition of indigenous goals and values. Most contemporary theories of group action can provide only partial explanations for the conservative cultural and political organization of indigenous peoples and for their cultural and political continuity to the present. The distinct cultural, institutional, and political organization and nonconsensual relations of American Indian nations with the U.S. government constitutes a unique pattern of socialcultural organization and cultural and political contestations. A primary focus of American Indian studies as a discipline is to conceptualize, research, and explain patterns of American Indian individual and collective community choices and strategies when confronted with relations with the American state and society. American Indian cultural emphasis on retaining culture, identity, self-government, and stewardship of land and resulting contestations with the U.S. government and society forms a body of empirical social action that constitutes the subject matter of American Indian studies as an academic discipline. American Indian studies defined in this way should be capable of generating theory, performing empirical research, making generalizations, commenting on policy, and supporting the goals and values of American Indian nations. The suggested framework for American Indian studies as an academic

The Bureau of Indian Affairs.

DOCUMENT RESUME

Introduction: A Historical Context of Palestinian Arab Education

This introduction reviews the historical and political context that provides an essential background for exploring key contemporary issues in Palestinian Arab education in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Formal public education in Palestine, from its very beginnings, was never under the control of the Palestinian people but instead, has been controlled by successive colonial/external administrations. This introduction examines how major historical periods have affected the development of Palestinian Arab education from the Ottoman period (1516 to 1917) to the British Mandate period (1917 to 1948) to the post-1948 period after the establishment of Israel, which includes the post-1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Oslo agreement period from 1993 to 2000, and the first and second Palestinian Intifadas.This introduction reviews the historical and political context that provides an essential background for exploring key contemporary issues in Palestinian Arab education in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Formal public education in Palestine, from its very beginnings, was never under the control of the Palestinian people but instead, has been controlled by successive colonial/external administrations. This introduction examines how major historical periods have affected the development of Palestinian Arab education from the Ottoman period (1516 to 1917) to the British Mandate period (1917 to 1948) to the post-1948 period after the establishment of Israel, which includes the post-1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Oslo agreement period from 1993 to 2000, and the first and second Palestinian Intifadas.

From First Nations to Self-Government: A Political Legacy of Indigenous Nations in the United States

The indigenous movement in the United States moves from aboriginal autonomy to quasi-conquest and domination, internal colonies, and tribal reservations and back to limited self-government and claims to sovereignty. This article traces the roots and efforts of the U.S. indigenous movement to maintain political autonomy, land, and cultural autonomy within the legal, political, and cultural institutions of the United States. The American Indian experience is quite different from the experiences of most indigenous peoples, but the U.S. indigenous movement illustrates some fundamental points of the indigenous perspective and provides a model for defining indigenous relations with nation-states.

Social Structure, Revitalization Movements and State Building: Social Change in Four Native American Societies

This paper discusses two models of social change and several historical conditions and social structural variables in an effort to isolate common factors that underly both the rise of revitalization movements and state building. Data were gatheredfrom state building and revitalization movements in four Native American societies during the 1795-1860 period. The findings indicate that given the conditions of economic andlor political deprivation that led to widespread perceptions of social deprivation, less structurally differentiated societies responded with revitalization movements, while more structurally differentiated societies responded with increased differentiation in sub-macro political and economic institutions. This finding suggests that the Wallace and Parsons-Smelser deprivation models of social change can be synthesized by specification of level of macrostructural differentiation as a precondition that influences type of societal change. State building could not be explained by deprivation and social structural arguments alone; markets that encourage economic class formation were critical to the state-building argument.

Is American Indian Studies for Real

American Indian studies programs that take Indigenous perspectives as central to their scholarly and community work are like Indian tribes seeking to maintain cultural and political autonomy. Both are moving in directions not entirely understood or accepted by mainstream institutions. American Indian studies and tribal communities are engaged in establishing rules and understandings with American society, but run the risk of marginalization, because tribal cultures and views on self-government are outside more common American understandings of civil rights, assimilation, minority and ethnic group actions, and inclusion. American Indian tribes and Indigenous studies programs do not meet common expectations, and are therefore engaged in negotiation to establish common ground. Not unlike Indigenous communities negotiating cultural and political relations with nation states, Indigenous studies, as a scholarly and tribal-community-oriented enterprise, must define its disciplinary field, establish its cultural and methodological terms, and establish empirical subject matter of its own. Although Indigenous studies can draw on the intellectual theories of contemporary scholarly work and traditions, most of that work is done within Western epistemologies and is designed to contribute human understanding, but to a large extent from 77 a Western point of view. An Indigenous studies program also contributes to greater human understanding, the goal of scholarship universally, but uses perspectives and engages in issues that yield knowledge, which will contribute to the goals and values of political and cultural autonomy of Indigenous peoples. We are all working toward common ground, but we are coming from different directions. Like Indigenous communities FALL 2008 WICAZO SA REVIEW

Indigenous Higher Education

Currently Indigenous higher education is embedded within colleges and universities that serve the ideals of Western culture and nation-state interests. Higher education is assimilative for Indigenous students and faculty. At best there is great pressure for Indigenous students and faculty to serve nation-state goals, an assimilation model, or serve both nation-state and Indigenous goals through acquiring and utilizing multicultural skills and knowledges. Indigenous peoples are diverse culturally, politically and have focuses on self-government and territoriality that other ethnic, racial, and minority groups do not. Indigenous nations do not share common cultural and political ground with mainstream institutions, including universities. Higher education should address, support, and welcome the holistic diversity of Indigenous perspectives. The most intellectually open ended way to address the issues and diversity of Indigenous peoples is to recognize that there is a unique Indigenous paradigm that cannot be addressed within the frames of ethnic or minority diversity, civil rights, or human rights. Greater educational inquiry, greater research and intellectual contributions, and greater inclusion of indigenous students and faculty in higher education will result from recognizing and supporting Indigenous perspectives, rights, and associated education needs that address self-government, territory, and cultural autonomy.

Native-Directed Social Change in Canada and the United States

Before 1968, there was more diversity and more frequency of Native-directed social change in institutions, social movements, and religious movements in the United States than in Canada. When Canadian and U.S. nation-states exert direct administrative controls over Native communities and impose change, there are few options for self-directed change. Since 1968, Native nations in both countries enjoy greater possibilities for self-directed change, although the patterns are uneven and moving in somewhat different directions.

The Delaware Revitalization Movement of the Early 1760s: A Suggested Reinterpretation

T HE DELAWARE REVITALIZATION MOVEMENT of the early 1760s strengthened the political, religious and social integration of Delaware society. While the Delaware Prophet, one of the several Delaware prophets who emerged during the early 1760s, was centrally involved with Pontiacs Rebellion in 1763, the militant teachings did not lead to military success or to a lasting political coalition of Indian nations. The revitalization movement that occurred between 1760 and 1763