Record Details
Kinship as strategic political action : the Northern Cheyenne response to the imposition of the nation-state
ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Title | Kinship as strategic political action : the Northern Cheyenne response to the imposition of the nation-state |
| Names |
Berndt, Christina Gish
(creator) |
| Date Issued | 2008 (iso8601) |
| Note | Access restricted to the OSU Community |
| Abstract | "This dissertation raises questions about the applicability of state-based constructions of sovereignty to non-state based social formations. I ask how do peoples without state based formations construct a sense of sovereignty and how is this sense of sovereignty exercised. The dissertation also raises questions about the appropriateness of state-based constructions of sovereignty for interpreting American Indian history. I suggest an alternative reading of Cheyenne history which foregrounds Native epistemologies to explore the ways that the Northern Cheyenne asserted sovereignty over their lives and lands without state-based constructions. Historical scholarship often assumes that, while Native peoples lacked the institutions of the state, the construction of their sociopolitical formations mirrored those of the state in the sense that they had rigid external boundaries and remained internally homogenous. Therefore scholarship often assumes rigid social, cultural, and political categories to guide historical analysis. In a historical narrative, these assumptions tend to erase or distort historical events or people who exist on the margins of national categories. In the case of the Northern Cheyenne, assuming the people are unified by rigid sociopolitical categories leads to the distortion or even erasure of historical moments emphasized in Cheyenne narratives. This dissertation addresses these distortions by asking how the Northern Cheyenne asserted their sense of sovereignty in negotiations with the United States government. These questions emerged out of a study of the establishment of the Northern Cheyenne reservation."-- P. 1. |
| Genre | Thesis |
| Topic | Cheyenne Indians -- United States -- Government relations |
| Identifier | http://hdl.handle.net/1957/48578 |
