Researching Native Families: Challenging Colonial Notions of Native Kinship and Family

A special issue of Genealogy (ISSN 2313-5778). This special issue belongs to the section "Family History".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 March 2024) | Viewed by 3113

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Social Sciences Division, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
Interests: Ho-Chunk biography; urban Native Americans; diaspora; transnationalism; native feminisms; gender and cultural citizenship; relationship between Native Americans and anthropology, citizenship, and anti-racist education

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Guest Editor
American Indian Studies, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182, USA
Interests: California Indian history and human rights; Indigenous science and technology studies; environmental studies; public humanities; visual sovereignty

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue will investigate the growing field of Native family studies by focusing on family/tribal history, human and more-than-human kinship and families, queer and two-spirit families, genetic testing to find Native families, pretendians and family lore, non-federal recognition and family, California Indians and family, mixed identities and family, Native adoption and families, and Indigenous/Native methodologies and family. For Indigenous peoples, knowing one’s family and kinship relations are pivotal for tribal belonging and identity. Since the beginning of colonization, Natives, according to Philip Deloria, have experienced settlers playing Indian while claiming rights to Indigenous land and resources. Vine Deloria Jr., in Custer Died For Your Sins, discusses how many Americans argue that they are Native because of a Cherokee grandmother. Elizabeth Warren, Elizabeth Hoover, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, Carrie Bourassa, and Andrea Smith are high-profile examples of public figures who have claimed to be Native because of family lore. Scholars have written about Native/Indigenous families from multiple methodologies and varied points of view, and this Special Issues seeks to reflect and expand upon these conversations. The concept of family for Native people often extends to our more-than-human kin, and this deep and profound connection encourages Natives to fight to protect our more-than-human relatives. This notion of Native family can bridge time and space, motivating Natives to protect their ancestors who have passed away and whose remains are trapped in colleges and universities or in unmarked graves at Native boarding and residential schools. California Indians struggle to find their Indigenous ancestors and families within mission archives while often dealing with a lack of federal recognition and living without a land base. Natives who are of mixed identity fight to create a sense of family while coming from multiple backgrounds. Natives who were adopted by white families struggle to find their Indigenous ancestors and tribe to claim a sense of tribal identity. All of these wide-ranging examples illustrate how Native family studies and experiences are a complicated and varied field.

Prof. Dr. Renya Ramirez
Dr. Brittani R. Orona
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • family/tribal history
  • pretendians
  • family lore
  • queer
  • two spirit
  • genetic testing
  • more-than-humans or non-humans
  • native ancestors
  • non-federal recognition
  • tribal sovereignty
  • settler colonialism
  • native adoption
  • California Indian
  • indigenous/native family methodologies

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 7222 KiB  
Article
Breaking Queer Silences, Building Queer Archives, and Claiming Queer Indigenous P’urhépecha Methodologies
by Mario A. Gómez Zamora
Genealogy 2024, 8(4), 123; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy8040123 - 26 Sep 2024
Viewed by 2250
Abstract
In this essay, I recover queer Indigenous P’urhépecha histories in Michoacán, México, by claiming queer P’urhépecha research methods. To do so, I introduce the Indigenous methodology of talking-while-walking, which refers to how I learned to connect with P’urhépecha knowledge and traditions through the [...] Read more.
In this essay, I recover queer Indigenous P’urhépecha histories in Michoacán, México, by claiming queer P’urhépecha research methods. To do so, I introduce the Indigenous methodology of talking-while-walking, which refers to how I learned to connect with P’urhépecha knowledge and traditions through the voice of my P’urhépecha grandfather. Since the colonial system eradicated queer histories from my land, I seek historical narratives about queer people in Michoacán from any source available to me, including oral histories, archives, information in the media, and interviews. I argue that queer P’urhépecha histories are unstable and non-linear, and that P’urhépecha bodies have been hunted and their histories distorted, provoking fear and false speculations about queerness among the collective. I also examine the attachment of P’urhépecha people to gender binary traditions and heteronormativity and how the narratives behind these practices relate to colonial violence and the persecution of queer P’urhépechas. Thus, I demonstrate how P’urhépecha queerness has been marginalized and simultaneously displaced from the archival records while I claim queer P’urhépecha histories and build queer P’urhépecha archives. Finally, I propose a sensitive and personal approach to queer histories guided by the voices of my queer P’urhépecha interlocutors and the histories that my P’urhépecha abuelo passed to me. Full article
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