Public Native America
Public Native America
Tribal Self-Representations in Museums, Powwows, and Casinos
The Native American casino and gaming industry has attracted unprecedented American public attention to life on reservations. Other tribal public venues, such as museums and powwows, have also gained in popularity among non-Native audiences and become sites of education and performance.
In PublicNative America, Mary Lawlor explores the process of tribal self-definition that the communities in her study make available to off-reservation audiences. Focusing on architectural and interior designs as well as performance styles, she reveals how a complex and often surprising cultural dynamic is created when Native Americans create lavish displays for the public’s participation and consumption.
Drawing on postcolonial and cultural studies, Lawlor argues that these venues serve as a stage where indigenous communities play out delicate negotiations—on the one hand retaining traditional beliefs and rituals, while on the other, using what they have learned about U.S. politics, corporate culture, tourism, and public relations to advance their economic positions.
Public Native America is a rich, thoughtful, and compelling book [that] joins a growing body of interdisciplinary, theoretically informed work to make sense of how and why Indians and Indian tribes labor to affect how they are acknowledged and understood in a variety of ways and with myriad outcomes in mind.
Mary Lawlor is an associate professor of English and director of American studies at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Introduction
1. Identity in Mashantucket
2. Displaying Loss at Navajoland
3. Wind River Lessons
4. Keeping History at Acoma Pueblo
5. Indigenous Internationalism: Native Rights and the United Nations
Notes
Index
