Performing Indigeneity

“Performing Indigeneity lays out a sophisticated treatment of the cross-cultural politics embodied in the productive but hard-to-define category ‘indigeneity.’ Laura Graham and Glenn Penny’s ground-breaking collection brilliantly guides readers through the emergence and renegotiation of such tropes as cultural heritage, human rights, environment, and aboriginality.”—Philip J. Deloria, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg Collegiate Professor of History and American Culture at the University of Michigan and author of Indians in Unexpected Places

“One is not born indigenous. That’s the far-reaching upshot of this remarkable collection, which radically expands our notion of indigeneity. Along with their collaborators, Laura Graham and Glenn Penny break with any sense of essential selfhood, giving us a performative and dialogic concept that sees the indigenous as a creative space of collective imagination.”—Matti Bunzl, professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois

“This terrific set of essays brings together some of the best and freshest thinking in a field burgeoning with creativity. Native arts and activism are flourishing, and so are interdisciplinary conversations about Indigeneity. Every chapter offers surprises: gems of insight from unexpected angles. This is a bold step forward.”—Beth A. Conklin, chair of the Department of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University and author of Consuming Grief: Compassionate Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society