American Indians and the Urban Experience (Volume 5) (Contemporary Native American Communities, 5) - Softcover

Joy Harjo; Jack D. Forbes; Dugan Aguilar; Carol Miller; Octaviana V. Trujillo; Joan Weibel-Orlando; Deborah Davis Jackson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0742502759 ISBN 13: 9780742502758

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2001

Synopsis

Modern American Indian life is urban, rural, and everything in-between. Lobo and Peters have compiled an unprecedented collection of innovative scholarship, stunning art, poetry, and prose that documents American Indian experiences of urban life. A pervasive rural/urban dichotomy still shapes the popular and scholarly perceptions of Native Americans, but this is a false expression of a complex and constantly changing reality. When viewed from the Native perspectives, our concepts of urbanity and approaches to American Indian studies are necessarily transformed. Courses in Native American studies, ethnic studies, anthropology, and urban studies must be in step with contemporary Indian realities, and American Indians and the Urban Experience will be an absolutely essential text for instructors. This powerful combination of path-breaking scholarship and visual and literary arts―from poetry and photography to rap and graffiti―will be enjoyed by students, scholars, and a general audience. A Choice Outstanding Academic Book.

About this title

About the Author

Susan Lobo is a cultural anthropologist and consultant working primarily for American Indian tribes and community organizations in the U.S. and Central and South America. Kurt M. Peters is associate professor of Native American and comparative ethnic studies at Oregon State University.

Review

Topics and approaches are almost as diverse as the one-half to two-thirds of American Indians who live in cities, not on reservations. The multiplicity of disciplinary angles helps accentuate the many facets of urban Indian experience....A richly suggestive gateway to an all-too-neglected aspect of Native American history and ongoing life. (D. F. Anderson, (Northwestern College, Iowa) CHOICE)

Policy studies have focused on the federal government's relocation program....Social sciences studies have have addressed issues relating to drinking and group membership exclusively through the use of quantitative surveys ... Lobo and Peters' edited collection tries to move beyond these concern and present a fuller, richer picture of American Indian urban life....The majority of essays ... cover an extraordinary wide range―from pre-Columbian urban centers to urban Indians in fiction to the funding challenges faces by urban Indian institutions today....This eclectic group of essays, poems, and photographs effectively introduces readers to the lives of Indian people living in cities. (James B. LaGrand, (Messiah College) American Studies)

Unbounded by the restraints of traditional research agendas, the contributors to this work bring together research, art, and poetry to discuss themes in the lives of urban Indians.... This phenomenal and long overdue collection is especially useful to those who teach courses in Native American studies, ethnic studies, anthropology, and urban studies. (Linda Rhone, Cowley County (Kan.) College Multicultural Review)

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0742502759
• ISBN 13: 9780742502758
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336
• Editor: Susan Lobo, Kurt Peters