Native Acts: Law, Recognition, and Cultural Authenticity by Joanne Barker


Native Acts: Law, Recognition, and Cultural Authenticity
Title : Native Acts: Law, Recognition, and Cultural Authenticity
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0822348519
ISBN-10 : 9780822348511
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 296
Publication : First published January 1, 2011

In the United States, Native peoples must be able to demonstrably look and act like the Natives of U.S. national narrations in order to secure their legal rights and standing as Natives. How they choose to navigate these demands and the implications of their choices for Native social formations are the focus of this powerful critique. Joanne Barker contends that the concepts and assumptions of cultural authenticity within Native communities potentially reproduce the very social inequalities and injustices of racism, ethnocentrism, sexism, homophobia, and fundamentalism that define U.S. nationalism and, by extension, Native oppression. She argues that until the hold of these ideologies is genuinely disrupted by Native peoples, the important projects for decolonization and self-determination defining Native movements and cultural revitalization efforts are impossible. These projects fail precisely by reinscribing notions of authenticity that are defined in U.S. nationalism to uphold relations of domination between the United States and Native peoples, as well as within Native social and interpersonal relations. Native Acts is a passionate call for Native peoples to decolonize their own concepts and projects of self-determination.


Native Acts: Law, Recognition, and Cultural Authenticity Reviews


  • Winoka Begay

    Joanne Barker’s compelling text is an historical analysis bounded by case studies that analyze the social, legal, and cultural themes of Native authenticity. Barker breaks from federal recognition in relation to Native nations to individual recognition and membership between the individual and their tribes. Barker highlights the long-standing concept of “what it means to be Native” by linking cultural definitions of Native authenticity to tribal citizenship. Barker argues that these traditional practices are nothing but disingenuous concepts derived from non-native western concepts that privilege patriarchy and racialization. She also examines the relation between tradition and Native governance. She examines the initiatives of Cherokee and Navajo governments in their ruling against gay marriage as a means of rationalizing on the grounds that same-sex marriage rights go against traditional practices of the tribes, only asserting how much colonial practices and western concepts have influenced Native American tradition and culture. This text is an important analysis of Native authenticity that in my opinion many Native people need to read. Native identity, authenticity, and recognition are often discussed in Native realms from a cultural perspective with the belief that cultural and linguistic knowledge are important characteristics of being Native; however, many don’t realize how much our Native communities are influenced by colonial practices. Joanne Barker’s Native Acts brings this issue to life by acknowledging the complexity of tribal recognition from different perspectives.

  • Mills College Library

    323.1197 B2555 2011