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"Duane Champagne, PhD (Professor of Sociology, UCLA) has complied, and elaborated upon years of scholarly and editorial work to be able to offer readers accessible and thought-provoking discussion on issues pertaining to Indigenous peoples. This book brings the complexities of Indigenous concerns out of the shadows that so unnecessarily define the margins of society in order to educate readers and, as such, spur on critically informed debate aimed at bettering the position of Indigenous--and by extension, as we are all inhabitants of Turtle Island--non-Indigenous, peoples within modern nation states."--

Duane Champagne has been presenting a series of comments on Indian policy, history, and culture since October 2006 in the newspaper Indian Country Today. This book provides a compilation of many of these editorials, plus two chapters not previously published. The contemplative writing by this well-respected scholar are comments and thoughts on a variety of issues that have arisen in his academic work and the classroom, but mainly through his direct contact and work with tribal communities. The purpose of these thought-provoking editorials is to create discussion about the issues that confront

Native American peoples are often considered to be conservative or traditionalistic and to have over the past five hundred years strongly emphasized retention of cultural identity, community organization, and social-cultural institutions. The conservative orientations found in Native American communities are inherent in their cultural world views, their cultural organization, and sociocultural institutional orders. Working from Weberian and contemporary sociological theory, three mutually complementary and supporting explanations are given for American Indian conservatism. American Indian world views are interpreted as emphasizing preservation of the sacred social and natural order. The relations among Native American cultural elements - religion, art, ceremony, causality, and morality - are undifferentiated and inhibit cultural change. The relations among cultural, political, economic and community institutions in American Indian societies, while varying greatly, tend toward undifferentiation and also inhibit change in social and cultural relations. All three arguments are mutually supportive and point toward inherently and powerfully conservative orientations for Native American community members and culture bearers. The combined arguments help to explain the persistence of Native American communities and identities after five hundred years of colonialism. Studies of change or cultural traditionalism among Native Americans must take into account their inherently conservative cultural orientations and cultural and institutional relations in order to arrive at more holistic and complete understandings of Indian life, change, and preservation.Gli Indiani d'America sono spesso considerati conservatori o tradizionalisti per avere fortemente enfatizzato negli ultimi cinquecento anni la conservazione della loro identità culturale, dell'organizzazione della comunità e delle loro istituzioni socio-culturali. Gli orientamenti conservatori riscontrati nelle comunità degli Indiani d'America sono elemento intrinseco al loro retaggio culturale nel modo di porsi nei confronti del mondo, alla loro organizzazione culturale e al loro assetto socioculturale. Partendo da teorie sociologiche contemporanee e Weberiane si riescono a dare tre spiegazioni complementari e mutualmente esaustive dell'atteggiamento conservatore degli Indiani d'America. I loro modi di porsi nei confronti del mondo sono interpretati come una conservazione enfatizzata dell'ordine sociale e naturale, entrambi sacri. Le relazioni tra elementi culturali quali religione, arte, rituale, causalità e moralità sono inalterate ed inibiscono un rinnovamento culturale. Le relazioni tra istituzioni culturali, politiche, economiche e della comunita nelle società degli Indiani d'America pur variando in misura notevole, tendono ugualmente ad una certa immutabilità che inibisce un ricambio in relazioni sociali e culturali. Tutte e tre le argomentazioni si rafforzano a vicenda e si indirizzano verso orientamenti fortemente conservativi sia per i membri della comunità sia per coloro preposti a preservare l'eredità culturale. Questa combinazione di elementi aiuta a spiegare la continuità delle comunità degli Indiani d'America e delle loro identità dopo cinquecento anni di colonialismo. Studi riguardanti possibili mutamenti o continuità nelle tradizioni culturali tra gli Indiani d'America devono prendere in considerazione l'elemento inerentemente conservativo presente nei loro orientamenti culturali e nelle loro relazioni istituzionali e culturali in modo da arrivare ad una maggiore e più completa comprensione della vita, dei mutamenti e della conservazione degli Indiani d'America.

In Memoriam

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.

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.