Search Results (5)

THE NAVAHOAX is a first-person account of ethnic fraud as told by an American Indian media professional whose tribal background was utilized by a presumed Native American author pursuing a film adaption of his work; it was later discovered the author was a white man masquerading as a Navajo citizen. A full narrative account will be given of the two-year ordeal and its aftermath as well as a contextualization within of the then-current socio-historical moment as it relates to the ongoing history of “playing Indian” as well as Native (in)visibility within the broader U.S. culture. This will be followed by an updated contextualization of this case in the wake of recent high-profile unmaskings of “pretendians” in the U.S. and Canada and the efforts of tribally-enrolled citizens in combatting such race-shifting. Full article

In 1978, the United States enacted the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) “to protect the best interest of Indian Children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families by the establishment of minimum Federal standards for the removal of Indian children and placement of such children in homes which will reflect the unique values of Indian culture.” The ICWA was codified to address centuries of genocidal government policies, boarding schools, and coercive adoptions that ruptured many Native families. Now one of the strongest pieces of legislation to protect Native communities, the ICWA was designed to ensure that Native foster children are placed with Native families. Implementing the ICWA has not been smooth, however, as many non-Native foster parents and state governments have challenged the ICWA. While the ICWA has survived these legal challenges, including the recent 2023 Haaland v. Brackeen Supreme Court case, the rise of non-Natives claiming Native heritage, also known as self-indigenizers or “pretendians,” represents a new threat to the ICWA. This Article presents a legal history and analysis of the ICWA to unpack the policy implications of pretendians in the U.S. legal context. This Article demonstrates how the rise of pretendians threatens to undermine the very purpose of the ICWA and thereby threaten the sovereignty of Native peoples. By legally sanctioning the adoption of Native children into non-Native pretendian homes, the ICWA can facilitate a new era of settlers raising Native children, rather than preventing this phenomenon as intended. In response, this Article offers concrete policy recommendations to bolster the ICWA against this threat. Full article

This article explores the recent rise in the use of self-identification as a key element of legitimacy in contemporary claims to Indigeneity. Emphasizing self-identification as a central dynamic of all identity-making in contemporary nation-states, the article argues nonetheless that this element of identity is insufficient for making ethical claims to Indigeneity. Emphasizing instead the importance of ongoing Indigenous relationality (i.e., kinship), it argues that genealogical databases potentially exacerbate the potential to engage in non-relational forms of belonging that undermine Indigenous communities’ and nations’ autonomy in defining the boundaries and contours of their citizenship. I undertake this argument in three broad parts. Part one undertakes a selective discussion of sociologist Stuart Hall’s conceptualization of identity, highlighting what I regard as two relevant elements key to his identity-making framework. Part two then undertakes a brief discussion of Geonpul scholar Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s discussion of white possessiveness as a useful lens for framing the growing self-Indigenization/Pretendianism literature as variegated examples of analyzing its practice; and finally, part three explores the potential of genealogical databases to encourage possessive/non-relational forms of identity-making, what I term here “inert kinship”. The article then concludes with a brief discussion regarding how genealogical databases might be used ethically with respect to claiming Indigenous belonging, and why this is key to the upholding of Indigenous sovereignty. Full article

Unlike in North America, where several “race-shifters”, “Pretendians”, or “self-indigenizers” have been exposed over the last decade, Indigenous identity appropriation has not been publicly exposed or even widely discussed in Aotearoa New Zealand. This study is the first to identify and to describe the methods and motivations of four Pākehā (White) self-indigenizers who are currently working, or were trained, in Aotearoa New Zealand, outlining also the harms they have caused. In addition, this study examines another type of Indigenous identity appropriation taking place in Aotearoa New Zealand, involving a small group of central North Island Māori, whose primary spokesperson is Monica Matāmua. The group claim to be descended from white-skinned Hotu, who they purport had migrated to Aotearoa New Zealand in the 200s B.C., making them the alleged true Indigenous people instead of Māori. Each type of Indigenous identity appropriation provides a range of benefits to those who thereby claim Indigenous status, and this is in part due to the valorization of certain aspects of Indigeneity that occurred from ca. the 1960s to the 1980s. Indigenous identity appropriation has further been encouraged by the backlash against so-called “Māori privilege” that has gathered momentum since ca. the 1980s. Full article

This article examines the type of family lore that leads white Canadians and Americans to claim Indigenous identities. Using a case-study approach, I demonstrate how 2000 descendants of a French-Canadian couple, born in the early 1800s near Montréal, joined one of the largest land claims in Canadian history as “Algonquins”. The tools of critical settler family history provide the necessary theoretical scaffolding to unpack how genealogical and geographical proximity to Indigenous people in the past are the bases for the family lore that propelled these individuals to become card-carrying, voting members of the land claim. Despite continued opposition to their inclusion by the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation, the only federally recognized Algonquin community involved in the land claim, these fake Algonquins remained potential land claim beneficiaries for over two decades, until an independent tribunal finally removed them in 2023. Family lore resolves the crisis in the family: no longer the colonizers responsible for Indigenous displacement and dispossession, white pretendians become the victims of settler colonial violence. Full article