Kristina M Jacobsen

"Diné comedy duo James and Ernie perform in the Navajo reservation bordertown of Farmington, New Mexico.1 In the routine, we are in a smoky bar: a Diné country western band, Aces Wild, is playing a popular song (“The Aces Wild Song”), Navajo couples are two-stepping to the music, and various Diné men are trying unsuccessfully to pick up women in the bar. “Hey baby, what’s your CLAN?” one man asks with exaggerated intonation of the woman sitting next to him. With an air of impatience, the woman rolls her eyes and tells off the inquiring man: “Don’t even TALK to me if you’re Kinya’áanii!”

HOW DO CLANS FIGURE INTO contemporary Navajo life, and what personality traits might be attached to, say, Kinya’áaniis, or members of the Towering House clan, that would make individuals from this clan more or less attractive as potential mates? What can we learn about Navajo or Diné histories of cultural mixture, belonging, and inclusion through the many “adopted” Navajo clan names? Given that close to half of all Diné citizens now live off the Navajo Nation, what might a contemporary ethnography of Navajo kinship, a topic so tirelessly explored by early anthropologists to Navajo country (see Reichard 1928; Franciscan Fathers 1910, 424; Matthews 1894, 1897), look like?"

Recent Winner of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association's Prize for Most Thought-Provoking Article 2019.


"Kristina Jacobsen’s and Shirley Ann Bowman’s article offers an insightful view on the dynamic formation of the Diné/Navajo kinship system (k’é) through the practices of adopting and incorporating in clan formation in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, with some glances at the omnipresence of this history in present times. Moreover, this study throws light on how adoption became the terrain for multiform racial, cultural and geographical crossings in Navajo Nation building and permanence; as well as on the extent settler colonial policies on citizenship and “ancestry” historically disrupted this extraordinarily dynamic clan formation process. As a publication authored by a non-Indigenous and a Diné scholar, this article is a sample of collaborative practice and reciprocity, materialized in a well-grounded ethnographic, archival, linguistic and cultural research.  In our view, this study suggests important ways to historically reflect on questions of tribal enrollment, citizenship, identity, belonging, incorporation and movement of peoples in American Indian life." NAISA Prize Committee, 2019.

This article examines rural North American expressive culture visa -vis country music and language reclamation within minoritarian language contexts. Drawing on my previous ethnographic fieldwork performing and learning Navajo on the Navajo Nation, I explore how rural identities circulate transnationally in and through spoken and sung performances of country "roots" music in my more recent field site of Sardinia, Italy. In both Sardinia and on the Navajo Nation, this musical genre acts as a medium for heritage language reclamation and consequently allows for reconnection to a rural sense of self.

This article examines the 2014 Navajo Nation presidential primary election and language debate as a window into the politics of Navajo heritage language and identity. Using Facebook posts written in response to a videotaped hearing testing the fluency of one of the candidates that subsequently went viral, we analyse social citizenship and stigmatized language identities through the lens of critical Diné (Navajo) language consciousness. Focusing on generational differences between speaker groups that undergirded this debate, we analyse (a) the fluency test itself and (b) online and ethnographic responses to the fluency test. Using discourse analysis of Facebook posts of both heritage language and new Navajo speakers, we show how new speakers in particular express investment in their language and Diné cultural continuity and, through their emphasis on the heterogeneity of contemporary Diné communicative practices, offer an alternative template for ways to move forward in Diné language reclamation efforts.

[Italian]
Questo articolo esamina le elezioni presidenziali Navajo del 2014 e il dibattito linguistico fioritovi attorno come una finestra sulla politica della lingua nativa e dell'identità Navajo. Usando alcuni post pubblicati su Facebook in risposta ad un filmato (divenuto virale) relativo ad un test realizzato per mettere alla prova la fluidità nel linguaggio nativo di uno dei candidati, analizziamo come l'appartenenza sociale e le identità linguistiche vengano stigmatizzate attraverso la lente critica della consapevolezza linguistica Diné (Navajo). Concentrandoci sulle differenze generazionali tra i gruppi di parlanti Diné che hanno partecipato a questo dibattito virtuale, analizziamo (a) il test di fluidità stesso e (b) i commenti al test, sia quelli rinvenuti online che quelli relativi alle risposte dateci sul campo durante una campagna etnografica. Usando l'analisi del discorso sui post scritti su Facebook da parlanti principianti della lingua Navajo e da altri studenti della lingua, mostriamo come i nuovi parlanti esprimono un forte attaccamento nella loro lingua e nella continuità culturale Navajo e, attraverso l'enfasi sull'eterogeneità delle pratiche comunicative contemporanee Diné, propongono modelli alternativi per nuovi processi di rappresentazione e recupero del linguaggio native. (Transl. Diego Pani)

In this ethnography of Navajo (Diné) popular music culture, Kristina M. Jacobsen examines questions of Indigenous identity and performance by focusing on the surprising and vibrant Navajo country music scene. Through multiple first-person accounts, Jacobsen illuminates country music’s connections to the Indigenous politics of language and belonging, examining through the lens of music both the politics of difference and many internal distinctions Diné make among themselves and their fellow Navajo citizens.

As the second largest tribe in the United States, the Navajo have often been portrayed as a singular and monolithic entity. Using her experience as a singer, lap steel player, and Navajo language learner, Jacobsen challenges this notion, showing the ways Navajos distinguish themselves from one another through musical taste, linguistic abilities, geographic location, physical appearance, degree of Navajo or Indian blood, and class affiliations. By linking cultural anthropology to ethnomusicology, linguistic anthropology, and critical Indigenous studies, Jacobsen shows how Navajo poetics and politics offer important insights into the politics of Indigeneity in Native North America, highlighting the complex ways that identities are negotiated in multiple, often contradictory, spheres.

This course examines ethnographic writing through its specific engagement with the arts and arts-based research methodologies. Featuring brief, weekly creative writing assignments, seminar-based discussion, and selected readings from ethnographies on the 2022 finalist list for the Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing (Society for Humanistic Anthropology) as possible models for our own writing, the course draws on prompts from the co-edited craftbook, The Creative Ethnographer's Notebook: Exercises for Writing, Visualizing, Sounding and Performing Data (Cahnmann-Taylor & Jacobsen, forthcoming). 1 1 Indigenous Land Acknowledgement: UNM sits on the traditional and unceded homelands of the Pueblo of Sandia. The original peoples of New Mexico Pueblo, Navajo, and Apache since time immemorial, have deep connections to the land and have made significant contributions to the broader community statewide. We honor the land itself and those who remain stewards of this land throughout the generations and also acknowledge our committed relationship to Indigenous peoples. We gratefully recognize this history.

Course Description
This course focuses on learning to perform country music from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, also known as “honky tonk” music. Artists and material covered include songs by Kitty Wells, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams,, Buck Owens, Johnny Rodriguez and Charley Pride. Guest artists will be brought in to run clinics on singing and how to communicate with the sound engineer and also give general input on the dynamics of playing in a band.
Taught by performing country artists, the class focuses on country singing style, harmony, rhythm and lead instrumentation, song arrangement, and performance techniques for successful performance. The class is designed to be taught as a group, with students learning to perform as a band in the process.
Desired outcomes for this course include an increased appreciation for the poetics and nuance of country music performance (including stylistic details relating to honky tonk), hands-on knowledge of country music’s sonic progression and history, and a more intimate knowledge of country music’s thematic content from the perspective of someone who has performed it.

"Investigation of country music from an anthropological and ethnomusicological perspective, utilizing recordings and live performances to put scholarship on country music into conversation with social theory and literature on social class, space/place, and racial identities."
Course Goals:
This course will examine country music's history from the late 1920s to the present to better understand the cultural politics behind a polarizing music genre, which is hated by some and deeply loved by others. The class is writing-and listening-heavy, and includes opportunities to write music reviews and an original song in the style of songs listened to throughout the course. The course will be conducted as a discussion-based class, and is accompanied by optional participation in the " lab " course, the UNM Honky Tonk Ensemble. There is no need to be able to read or write music to take this course.

Class Accompanied by optional one-credit performance course, UNM Honky Tonk Ensemble, MUS 231/560 (Monday nights, 7:15-9:45)

This class uses expressive cultural practices (music, verbal art, photography, dance, radio, filmmaking, comedy, weaving, fiction) and politics to examine contemporary experience of Diné (Navajo) peoples. Featuring frequent guest speakers, this course will be discussion-based. Readings will be drawn from ethnomusicology, anthropology, Navajo Studies, Native American and Indigenous Studies and legal studies, and assignments will include weekly written responses, analysis papers, a final project and a class field trip to the Navajo Nation. Finally, although this course focuses on music in part, please know that the scope of the course is much broader than music, alone, and includes dense readings in a variety of disciplines. These readings will hopefully inform the way you think about sound and music, but part of your work in the course is to make these connections on your own where they are not, necessarily, self-evident.


Course Goals:
This course will inform students on music, language, poetry, film and expressive arts in the context of sovereignty and contemporary politics on the Navajo Nation.  The course will be conducted as a discussion-based class.  It is writing- and listening-heavy, and requirements will include listening, viewing and writing assignments.