Native American Politics

Testimony focusses on a few relevant topics that influence today's Native American images in motion pictures. For further information on the hearing and other wittnesses' testimonies, go to: http://indian.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?hearingID=5172

The Ojibwe view all of life as the “Spiritual World” and have been speaking this simple truth, through out all of their plights, to any one who would and will listen and hear the truth of their words, not as words, but as a reality. They ask, “Where did you come from if not from your Mother (earth)?” And yet rarely are they heard. Time and again, they have been moved from place to place, with the claims of papers (treaties) stating that land can be owned and that they must move on. Meanwhile, they watch as those papers (treaties) eat up and destroy the only home that all have been gifted to live on from the Mother … earth.

Prior to the Civil War, racial exploitation was at the heart of the Anglo-American strategy of political and economic development. Put simply, the Anglo-American state successfully redistributed wealth from Native Americans and African Americans to white males and their families. Native American land was expropriated and sold at low prices or given to Anglo-American settlers fueling the agrarian economies of both the North and South. Chattel slavery deprived African Americans of both the fruits of their labor and their basic human rights. But it also underpinned the rise of cotton production in the South, a major driver of American economic growth in the antebellum period. These developments were not an accidental product of white racism, but the result of a political economy strategy, which created a dual American state: a contract state, premised on the rule of law, that promoted the growth of a prosperous, liberal democratic society of Anglo-Americans, and a predatory
state that financed white liberal society through its ruthless exploitation of Indian lands and African American labor.

Few in Hollywood knew that James Young Deer, general manager of Pathé Frères West Coast Studio from 1911 to 1914, was really an imposter. After all, Young Deer had earned a reputation as the first Native American producer and had worked alongside D. W. Griffith, Fred J. Balshofer, and Mack Sennett.  For decades, he eluded film historians.  But after ten months of poking through dusty archives and faded vital records, the identity of this mysterious filmmaker finally came to light.

This is a biographical sketch of the Odaawaa Chief Mookomaanish (aka Little Knife aka Mokomaunish aka Pebamitapi). Mookomaanish fought alongside the British during the War of 1812, was a chief of L'Arbre Croche, in upper state Michigan, specifically the village of the Cross (aka Cross Village), and later a chief in Wikwemikong on Manitoulin Island. He signed treaties on the American and Canadian side after the war. This paper traces his policies, diplomatic interactions and speeches.

Centering the Indigenous land protection activisms of Lori Riddle (Akimel O'odham), Teresa Leal (Opata Mayo), and Eloisa Garcia Tamez (Lipan Apache), the history of European (Spanish, Anglo, Ethnic-nationalist) roots of militarization are explored and analyzed.

NOW 100% uploaded! The exhibition catalogue presents a “different modernism” produced in North America: the art of the indigenous peoples that has co-evolved along with modern white Anglo- American Modernism. For the first time the museum’s extensive collection of modern Native American art, ranging from the 1970s to the present, is shown and published. The first section of this catalogue deals with the historical development of modern Native American art up to the foundation of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe in 1962. In the second section the book gives a compilation of statements from Native American artists, renowned art historians, critics and curators. This collage addresses topics such as cultural self-determination, Native Americans in World War II, the interrelationships between Native art and the art market, and the concept of art in North American literature.

Native Americans’ reality and actual existence have been usually shut down by the image which the western civilization has forced upon them for the last centuries. The preconceived image of what an Indian should be like or how an Indian should behave is of major importance in the study of the stereotyping process that Native Americans have experienced for centuries, and still experience and suffer today when most Indian stereotypes and images are artificially constructed under the influence of the Western genre. The stereotyping process is still alive nowadays: there are sports teams that have Indians as mascots and perform rituals degrading them as part of their shows which are, nonetheless, broadly broadcast via TV not just to the whole country but to other parts of the world too.
When asked about the first concepts that come to their minds when they hear the word “Indian” most people answer “alcoholism,” “casinos,” “western fiction” etc. We have to ask ourselves why an ethnic group which had been living satisfactorily in the same region for hundreds of years before it was (re)discovered by the Europeans in the fifteenth century, has acquired such a negative image since the Europeans began to settle in their territory. And then, how is it possible that a nation that calls itself “The City Upon a Hill” forgets all the past crimes and injustices that took place in its country and keeps on living without having an exact idea of the real history of the place they call home?
The aim of my study is to bring Sherman Alexie’s work Ten Little Indians (2003) in context with the socio-cultural issues of Native Americans today. As this is a collection of short stories portraying lots of different aspects and problems faced by American Indians in contemporary America, I saw myself needing to focus on one of the short stories alone, leaving lots of interesting topics for possible further research.
With this aim in mind, I have devoted the first part of my work to a general approach to the history and culture of the Native Americans and then I will concentrate on the analysis of Alexie’s story and how it reflects some of the topics introduced in the first part. Thus, in the first chapters, before focusing on contemporary issues, I will offer a brief contextualization of the topic. Who exactly are those Native Americans living in the US? Why are there so many clichés about “Indians”? Why is there so little information about their situation nowadays? After studying the historical background I will try to state the main problems of reservation life. Why is it so difficult to live as an Indian? We will pay attention to the ambivalence between leaving the reservation to develop as an individual, and the constant feeling of betrayal after finally having left it.
The second part of this degree project focuses on the first story in Sherman Alexie’s Ten Little Indians to illustrate Alexie’s perspective on some of the previous topics. This part is divided into five different sections dealing with the writer’s depiction of his ideas on reservation life, tribalism, the romantization of the Indians, the cultural clash which affects Native Americans, etc. in the story “The Search Engine.”
In the first part I tried to deliver a timeline to show the development and changes faced by the original peoples of the land that is commonly called America, from the early settlements through the massacres caused by the European colonizers finishing with more contemporary issues and examples of the Indian Civil Rights movement. For this purpose I have used manuals and works by Sonneborn and Johnson, always checking the information with that provided by other authors. Since Alexie himself prefers authors that actually experienced what they are writing about and refuses to
accept works written about Indians by non-Indians, and is suspicious about Indians that have never lived in a reservation but do indeed write about it, I will try to contrast some
aspects with the information provided by Native American scholars like Mihesuah or Vine Deloria Jr in the first part.
For the second part of this degree project, I have resorted to Alexie’s collection of short stories to illustrate his point of view of the situation of his people in the U.S.
today. For this purpose, I have focused on the first short story of the collection, “The Search Engine,” to comment some of the points mentioned in the first part: reservation life and its problems, the question of “indiannes,” the stereotyping of the Indian as “other,” etc. Connette’s Master’s thesis Sherman Alexie’s Reservation: Relocating the Center of Indian Identity offers an interesting study of “the reservation as a center” in
Alexie’s works written before 2010 , so I have found it very useful to contextualize Ten Little Indians and his former works as a whole.

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, UNCED), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, held 3rd-14th June 1992, launched the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which operates through its annual roadshow the UN Conference of Parties (COP) that seeks to establish sustainable management of the global climate system.

The  'Earth Summit' by UN in 1992 brought the problems  in climate to the attention of even some of the world's most remote and isolated nations. One of these nations was the Hopi Nation in Arizona, a non-sovereign nation - which the UN labels as 'indigenous peoples'. In a long chain of events beginning from the League of Nations' decision in 1926 to deny the First Nations of Americas and the small island nations' representation in that international forum, its successor the United Nations, turned down four attempts by the Hopi Nation to raise the issue between 1948 and 1992. Finally, in the immediate aftermath of the Rio Earth Summit (1992), the United Nations Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar authorised the Hopi Nation to table the matter to the floor of UN General Assembly 10th-11th December 1992.

The First Nations of Americas Ethnoclimatology Motion and the Tradition-Keepers ('Faith-Keepers') background to that motion is elaborated here in this UNFCCC submission with further points were raised in 1st-2nd October 2018 at CRIAS conference. This contextualises the First Nations of Americas UN General Assembly Investigation Request 101292 which was the Concluding Plea of the World Indigenous Peoples' Joint Summit with the United Nations Parties ('Member States') Delegations to open the first UN Year of the Indigenous People (1993) to other ethnoclimatologies appearing world wide. The Geophysical Annotations were discussed at the Cochabamba-Tiquipaya Climate Summit (CMPCC1) in aftermath of the collapsed Copenhagen Climate Summit COP15 (2009) with the request from the UNESCO Delegation of the Plurinational State of Bolivia on 7th January 2010 and His Excellency President Evo Morales Ayma.

The key tenents of the Geophysical Annotations being:

(1) A signal noise from a substantial radiocarbon-dilution effect due to major sea level retreats and rises during the Ice Ages that depressurised methane clathrates - releasing copious amounts of methane and carbon dioxide into air from depressurised seabed clathrates and also from thawing terra firma permafrost; this results in regressive, or sideway, 14C  readings in tree rings ("tree rings in a wrong order"). Thus, the Ice Ages era (the last glacial maxium to holocene thermal maximum period) cores of the tree trunks can appear substantially 14C-younger than the tree trunks' latest (outermost) tree-rings which cannot be the case due to the extreme steadiness of the radiocarbon's decay rate.

(2) Methane accumulates to upper troposphere, stratosphere, and mesosphere: hence any methane signature in the ice cores is only from methane-in-transit. Additionally the global warming episode that ended the ice ages had heavy methane loads that warmed and melted away most of the era's recent ice surfaces, thus obliterating the-then-most recently laid down snow stratum (leaving behind the earlier less methane rich snow layers). This caused incomplete records (time gaps) in the ice cores, and hence "global warming" always appears "before" higher atmospheric CO2 or CH4 levels (hence appearing as if them being 'respondents', rather than the drivers of climate warning).

(3) Noting that the partial melting equations can also be run inverse direction, it is proposed that the Pleistocene glaciations resulted in damage to Peridotite which partially melted producing basalt deposition in a large scale onto the seafloor in vast effusive eruptions with field emission of heat rather than radial spot emission of heat like in modern-day Surtseyan eruptions that have only a minimal heat crossing to sea surface due to small spatial extent of hot subsea surface. The vaporisation of sea water in field emission is vast due to spatial extent of hot subsea surface greatly exceeding the thickness of overlying water column, leading to runaway snowfalls. This caused an inflated size hydrological cycle which effectively washed out atmosphere-generated radiocarbon while geological seabed-associated depressurised carbon-12 was being released en masse leading to negligible carbon-14 readings (the radiocarbon-dilution effect by the Pleistocene's hydrological cycle / sea bed depressurisation).

On these three premises, the First Nations of Americans Ethnoclimatology Motion at the United Nations General Assembly on 10th-11th December 1992 is proposed as a variant possibility to the climate theories advocated aggressively by the Western Group of Nations and their influential academia. Its implications to present-day climate change suggest that the Polar Ice Caps will continue on their much-faster-than-anticipated loss trajectory to violent collapses. This aspect was highlighted in Sea Research Society's Evidence Giving at the UK Houses of Parliament in Environmental Audit Committee evidence giving on 5th and 24th April 2017. The urgency of situation is underlined by the fact that despite world-wide economic shut down by covid-19, carbon dioxide has continued its rapid rise to 417 parts per million indicating that time to act is running out as the remaining North Pole marine ice cap is soon to melt away and then destabilise the surrounding glaciers post Arctic sea ice (most notably the Greenland Ice Sheet).

The case of Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith is complex and rife with controversy. Any time the interests of the State are pitted against the interests and freedoms of the individual there is always an expectation of backlash from the losing side. This case exemplifies the clash between societal needs and individual rights. The State has a duty to prevent possible harm and provide for the general welfare of the public, while safeguarding the rights of minorities from the tyranny of the majority. This becomes increasingly difficult in a society that contains a multitude of political, religious, and intellectual persuasions. This difficulty is compounded when the parties involved have an intricate historical and political relationship with the State. The distinctive and multifaceted historical relationship between the Native American Peoples and the United States Government presents unique constitutional and legal questions in determining what constitutes a proper balance between the rights of the citizens and the powers of the State. Furthermore, in determining the extent of religious protections afforded by the First Amendment, this case illustrates that the line between religious belief and religious exercise may not be as obvious or clearly defined as many would suppose.

Stephen Kinzer's new book, "The True Flag," suffers from an alarming fault among historical writers: blindness to history.  The book's subtitle—"Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of the American Empire"—demonstrates the blindness: the American Empire was born more than 200 years before the era of Roosevelt and Twain. Kinzer's subjects were protagonists in the expansion of the American Empire, not its birth. Kinzer's unacknowledged truncation of U.S. history mars what would otherwise be a good book; as we shall see, it also prevents him from coming to a useful conclusion and a happy end.

Indigenous sovereignty has been both expanded and restricted in the current self-determination era of federal Indian policy in the United States. This has allowed both the expansion and strengthening of indigenous governments, as well as the continued successful efforts to restrict and regulate these sovereign indigenous nations. The existing models of governance, development, and planning fail to adequately account for these challenges to the fundamental legitimacy of indigenous governments. I propose the model of the ‘indigenous shadow state’ based around community land trusts and other indigenously-controlled nonprofit organizations, as a complementary model, to compensate for these challenges as a means of ensuring the long term viability of indigenous social and political institutions. I discuss how a community land trust can be utilized to perform the role of a government and serve the long term needs of its citizens in the areas of housing, economic development, and land reclamation. I also briefly discuss how this model can be applied in the urban context.

This thesis explores Oneota use of native copper in the Lake Koshkonong locality between A.D. 1100 and 1400. Over 600 pieces of Oneota copper artifacts originating from four sites were documented and analyzed in order to investigate distribution, production, utilization, and the ideological and social significance behind this raw material. The artifacts analyzed for this study were recovered from Oneota sites adjacent to Lake Koshkonong in Jefferson County, Wisconsin: Crabapple Point (47JE93), Schmeling (47JE833), Koshkonong Creek Village (47JE379), and Crescent Bay Hunt Club (47JE904). These assemblages primarily included awls, beads, pendants, and fragmented material. The data set also includes unique items, such as adzes and a copper mace.
Data collected through this project supported multiple conclusions surrounding Lake Koshkonong Oneota copper use. Manufacturing marks on beads provide arguments for multiple manufacturing traditions in the area. The use-wear observed on awls both support and question previous assumptions of their use. Additionally, the distribution of these artifacts among the sites and the iconographic symbols present among the collections suggest larger ideological and social significance of copper within Oneota groups. It also appears that the Lake Koshkonong locality has a prolonged tradition of metalworking that extends from Archaic to Historic period, implying a cultural association with metal production and the physical setting of these sites. Overall, these conclusions suggest that the Oneota viewed copper as a prestige good. These valued items both established and reaffirmed social order and legitimized the ideological, economic, military, and political power of certain individuals or kin groups living along the northwest shores of Lake Koshkonong at this time.

On April 25, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Lewis v. Clarke, a case involving the scope of Mohegan sovereign immunity. The substance of the decision—an employee of Mohegan Sun Casino was acting on his own and not protected by Mohegan's immunity—focused on general immunity rules. One commentator pointed to an ominous sign—which should be a wakeup call to Native Nations' lawyers: "The court declined to reconsider … core issues of the scope of tribal sovereignty (such as whether there should be any separate tribal sovereignty). Although recent opinions have teed up these questions...."  the Supreme Court has "teed up" the question "whether there should be any separate tribal sovereignty." If Native Nations fail to challenge the presumption that the U.S. "owns" Native Nations' lands, they leave the field to parties who want to "terminate" Indigenous sovereignty and land rights altogether. These are pre-colonial, pre-U.S. Constitution rights, equally significant as civil rights. The battle looms; where are the warriors?

The Seminole Nation has a high profile in litigation about Indian gaming. In 1991, the Seminole sued the State of Florida under the U.S. Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA). The Seminole argued Florida had violated IGRA's requirement of "good faith negotiation," by refusing to negotiate inclusion of certain activities in a tribal-state gaming compact. Now the Seminole are back in court, with another Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida lawsuit, again in federal district court—this time about renewing a section of the gaming compact the two parties eventually finalized in 2010. When the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the first Seminole lawsuit against Florida, it stated IGRA "grants the States a power that they would not otherwise have, viz., some measure of authority over gaming on Indian lands." The Seminole lawyers pointed out the same thing: "IGRA empowers the states; it does not encroach upon their rights. Before IGRA, the states had no power to regulate gaming on tribal lands."
But the Seminole did not challenge the IGRA expansion of state power over Indian Territory. They only wanted to enforce the IGRA provision allowing them to sue Florida In fact, the Seminole brief embraced "Congress' complete power over the Tribes (!)" and said "IGRA's grant of power to the states, conditioned … on the duty to negotiate in good faith with Indian tribes, is protective of federalism." What about protective of Native sovereignty?

Despite shortcomings of the empowerment idea in regards to persisting power structures, the US Congress has passed the Empowerment Acts to help improve the socio-economic situation in the poorest regions of the country. In the case study about the Oglala Oyate Woitancan Empowerment Zone, the author discusses whether this community development approach is recommendable in the American Indian context. From 1998 to 2009 the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation held the status of an empowerment zone. The combination of federal dollars, technical assistance and tax incentives were to assist the Oglala Lakota in achieving the kind of sustainable development they want for their communities. During the entire funding period Sonja John witnessed the program’s progress. She examined the program in the context of empowerment theory and determined whether it improved the living conditions by enhancing capabilities and freedoms and meeting the pre-set program objectives. Although this enacted empowerment program ended zigzagging along the path of red-taped bureaucratic roadblocks, the author argues, the concept bears potential for more than pseudo-empowerment and therapeutic politics if true participation is feasible. The outcomes of this case study have important policy ramifications for other participation-based development programs as well.

The U.S. rails against "religious extremists" as "terrorists," and calls for respect for religious diversity. America wants to be a world leader for religious tolerance and separation of church and state. But the continued application of "Christian Discovery" to Indian lands gets in the way. American legal doctrines once again threaten its reputation, exposing the U.S. to scrutiny and scorn. The legal structure of U.S. property law—not just Indian law, but property law for all land in the country—rests on "Christian Discovery." This fact belies the talk of American "tolerance" for "religious diversity."As the world confronts religious wars rooted in monotheisms of past centuries, and land claims based on religious domination, the Navajo Nation takes the lead among Indian nation governments, opening a legal dialogue about peoples and lands for the 21st century.

The article discusses the processes of global participation and political listening towards the indigenous claims on land rights activated by the #NoDAPL movement against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The focus is stressed on hashtag activism, which had a crucial role in the mediatization of the struggles. Using the #NoDAPL hashtag as a specific case of study, I aim to examine how Standing Rock activists reframed the debate around settler policies to adjust and broaden public perceptions of indigenous rights and environmental issues to the global present. Hashtags such as #NoDAPL and #WaterIsLife captured the international attention of media, politicians, and the public, thus providing a transmedia commentary of the ongoing demonstrations at Standing Rock, as well as inviting individuals and groups around the world to flash mobs, marches, informative seminars, and any sort of gathering in support of the indigenous struggles. On-site and online activism provide rich phenomena for exploring the relationships between marginalization, participation, and political listening. Through mediatization and virtualization theory applied to digital ethnography, the aim is to analyse the aforementioned context and recompile a brief summary of the impacts that the #NoDAPL movement has had within the contemporary processes of indigenous voicing and policymaking in the US and across the globe.

The rhetoric of "self-government" requires careful analysis. The surface looks appealing, since it seems to support what Native Peoples are demanding; but beneath the glittering surface lurk difficult and dangerous assumptions and institutional forces. In the Spanish case, "self-government" policy presumed Native Peoples would abandon their Indigenous modes of life and adopt Christian modes—including modes of land ownership and political leadership. In the United States, federal "government-to-government" programs presume that Native Peoples will subordinate themselves to settler-state extractive economic programs and land laws based on Christian Discovery claims.

The U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) seems complicit in the burying of its most profound action to date: the critique of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery issued at its 13th Session in May 2014: "Study on the impacts of the Doctrine of Discovery on indigenous peoples, including mechanisms, processes and instruments of redress." In a few weeks, we will know whether the U.N. Permanent Forum has forgotten about the Doctrine of Christian Discovery altogether, or whether it will insist that the question of Indigenous Peoples land rights must include a revocation of the Doctrine and the papal bulls out of which the dominating patterns of the Doctrine emerged. The urgency of Indigenous land title has been increased by the awareness that, as the UNPFII 14th Session reported, suicide among Native Peoples "is linked to the loss by indigenous peoples of their rights to their lands and territories, natural resources, traditional ways of life and traditional uses of natural resources."

The pre-Contact foraging communities of the north-west coast of North America have long been recognised as exhibiting many of the features we associate with agricultural societies, including sedentism and social inequality. Evidence from the pre-Contact plank house communities of Meier and Cathlapotle throws new light on the spatial organisation of these societies. Detailed analysis of stone tools allows the spatial division of labour to be determined within these large, multi-family households. This reveals that while some tasks were associated with particular social ranks, a hierarchical community can be identified in each plank house. Overall, the differences lie in the degree of engagement rather than the kind of activity, helping to characterise labour organisation among these unique, sedentary foragers. The results also provide insight into the potential of stone tool analysis for social reconstruction.

""""""In 1989, The National Museum of the American Indian Act (NMAIA) was successfully passed after a long and intense struggle. One year later, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) followed. These federal repatriation statutes—arguably some of the most important laws in the history of anthropology, museology, and American Indian rights—enabled Native Americans to reclaim human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony.

Twenty years later, the controversy instigated by the creation of NMAIA and NAGPRA continues to simmer. In the Smaller Scope of Conscience is a thoughtful and detailed study of the ins and outs of the four-year process behind these laws. It is a singular contribution to the history of these issues, with the potential to help mediate the ongoing debate by encouraging all sides to retrace the steps of the legislators responsible for the acts.

Few works are as detailed as McKeown’s account, which looks into bills that came prior to NMAIA and NAGPRA and combs the legislative history for relevant reports and correspondence. Testimonies, documents, and interviews from the primary players of this legislative process are cited to offer insights into the drafting and political processes that shaped NMAIA and NAGPRA.

Above all else, this landmark work distinguishes itself from earlier legislative histories with the quality of its analysis. Invested and yet evenhanded in his narrative, McKeown ensures that this journey through history—through the strategies and struggles of different actors to effect change through federal legislation—is not only accurate but eminently intriguing.""""""

In the .pdf you will find the announcement in English for an international conference to be held May 18, 2012, in Irun, Euskal Herria (Basque Country) sponsored by Jauzarrea (see below). The conference is entitled Atlantiar: Human Traces on the Atlantic Façade of Europe. The first conference in the series of four that are programmed examines territories around the Bay of Biscay with a focus on the Palaeolithic. The document contains a description of the conference and registration materials.

What follows is a description of Jauzarrea in Spanish outlinging the projects has supported in the past and the areas of research currently is promoting. The material below also includes an interview with the director of Jauzarrea, Xabi Otero, a well-known Basque historian, writer and photographer.


Un grupo de trabajo consolidado
La Editorial Txoria Errekan, con sede en Jauzarrea (Arraiotz), ha realizado desde 1984 más de 200 publicaciones en el ámbito del patrimonio cultural del País Vasco. Xabi Otero es su responsable y como consecuencia de esa tarea, ha concebido una doble idea: la creación de una institución estable, JAUZARREA –como fondo para el estudio y difusión de la Cultura Vasca– y el desarrollo del proyecto temporal, ATLANTIAR, como una herramienta para reunir el conocimiento más actualizado sobre la historia de los vascos.

Antecedentes.
Xabi explica la génesis del proyecto: “Desde 1972 he desarrollado mi labor en el ámbito profesional, estableciendo una sólida amistad con muchas de las personas con las que he trabajado. Gracias a la cantidad y diversidad de temas que he tenido que tratar, he atesorado un conocimiento sobre muchas materias que tiene dos vertientes realmente interesantes.

Por una parte, el proceso de aprendizaje me ha proporcionado una visión general muy completa para establecer conexiones e interacciones y plantear así un proyecto de divulgación de gran envergadura como es ATLANTIAR.

Por otra, el tejido de relaciones que he establecido, permite aglutinar a esas personas que constituyen, con su sabiduría, un aval científico para el proyecto –por el conocimiento que han acumulado sobre diversas facetas del ser humano, y porque la información que poseen es de primera mano, generada por sus propias investigaciones–, en torno a la editorial TXORIA ERREKAN.

Con esos elementos he implicado en el proyecto a un grupo cualificado de personas de mi entorno, artistas, investigadores, generadores de nuevas materias, gestores en diversos ámbitos, profesionales. Personas creativas que abarcamos el abanico de oficios que se da en nuestra sociedad; personas con ilusión y con una particular manera de encarar nuestro futuro juntos, desarrollando en la medida de lo posible la innovación cultural.

La calidad y el entusiasmo de este grupo humano lo convierten en el motor de una institución estable, JAUZARREA, constituida como fondo para el estudio y difusión de la cultura vasca desde Euskal Herria.

El conjunto de expertos que participan en el programa de congresos ATLANTIAR –integrado en su mayor parte por investigadores de otros países–, constituye un sólido núcleo científico de alto valor, con un bagaje profesional tras de sí rotundo”.

JAUZARREA desarrolla un modelo de gestión que permite:

• Difundir la cultura en la sociedad de manera dinámica y efectiva.

• Impulsar el conocimiento para mejorar la percepción de la cultura, especialmente cuestiones con implicación en las relaciones sociales.

•  Crear conexiones interculturales –la relación entre culturas, común a varias culturas– y multiculturales –convivencia de diversas culturas–.

•  Combinar actividades en los ámbitos del patrimonio material e inmaterial, potenciando estudio, investigación y difusión de la cultura de los vascos y su interrelación con la de otros pueblos indígenas.

•  Consolidar y ampliar la base social con personas que constituyen el soporte en red que impulsa el proyecto.

JAUZARREA gestiona difusión de nuestra cultura, con presencia en proyectos de instituciones colaboradoras, aunando disciplinas necesarias para regenerar la información, con una dinámica activa de investigación y una divulgación fluida en la sociedad.

Una herramienta: el programa de congresos ATLANTIAR.
ATLANTIAR es un programa con cuatro congresos sobre la historia de los vascos, que se desarrollarán en 2012 y 2013, abordando cada uno de ellos el análisis multidisciplinar de un período histórico:

•  PALEOLITÍCO, desde hace 45.000 años hasta el final del Magdaleniense.

•  SOCIEDADES PRODUCTORAS, desde el Neolítico hasta el final de la Edad del Hierro.

•  NUEVA ERA, desde los vascones prerromanos hasta la invasión del Reino de Navarra en 1512, por las tropas de las coronas de Castilla y Aragón.

• ERA MODERNA, desde 1512 hasta el presente.

Con este programa, los más de 100 expertos internacionales vinculados al proyecto, nos acercan a los resultados de sus investigaciones, con una línea de trabajo en la que confluyen todas aquellas evidencias de vanguardia, que tienen que ver con nuestra cultura y modos de vida. Se trabaja en una dirección compartida, liderada por JAUZARREA. Creando un corpus de conocimiento accesible, cuyo resultado será un proyecto editorial de amplio espectro, que reúna a estos autores de más de 40 instituciones científicas participantes. Desarrollando una campaña de marketing cultural en permanente evolución, dando a conocer nuestro bagaje creativo.

ATLANTIAR es un modelo integrador y riguroso de estudio que trabaja la clarificación de conceptos, renovando la información con nuevas lecturas, con la ayuda de los avances en ciencia y tecnología. Arma un corpus de conocimiento para ser canalizado e instalado a través de las instituciones participantes, para cohabitar –con sus señas de identidad, las de la cultura vasca–, con el resto de cátedras o grados que sean impartidos, dando a conocer nuestra historia y cómo ésta se articula y se entremezcla con la del resto del mundo. Creando y potenciando un modelo de referencia, del mismo modo que se utilizan conceptos específicos que definen e identifican a otras culturas.

Se desarrollan este y otros proyectos –estableciendo sinergias con grupos de trabajo–, que emitan una imagen de nuestra sociedad y cultura como referente de identidad y de prestigio. Creando una fuente para consulta de la cronología histórica sobre la civilización de los grupos de primeros pobladores europeos y su devenir hasta el día de hoy, como el conjunto de la población vasca.

Ejemplo práctico de un objetivo concreto: OREINA URKIAN KANATA.

A la par que cumplimos con el programa de congresos, se desarrolla en este caso un proyecto tan importante como el matriz, ATLANTIAR, ya que lo complementa, y constituye un adelanto de lo que será la puesta en práctica de JAUZARREA, como centro operativo de investigación y difusión.

En 2010, JAUZARREA presentó el proyecto OREINA URKIAN KANATA a la UPV/EHU, para efectuar una búsqueda de linajes genéticos vascos en los Pobladores de las Primeras Naciones. El Congreso Internacional Tras la estela de los balleneros vascos: Patrimonio Cultural y Genético de Vascos y Nativos Americanos del Atlántico Norte, celebrado el 21 y 22 de setiembre de 2011, en el Paraninfo de la UPV/EHU de Bilbao (BIZKAIA ARETOA), supuso el comienzo del proyecto, con objeto de poner al día la información existente sobre estas relaciones.

La búsqueda de los linajes de ADN –que la población vasca pudo haber aportado desde la baja edad media hasta el siglo XX–, se justifica por el intenso comercio establecido con los nativos desde el inicio de los viajes al litoral Atlántico Americano, llevado a cabo por nuestros pescadores de bacalao, cazadores de ballenas y tratantes de pieles. Destacando la buena relación de amistad existente; ya que los vascos – como pueblo– jamás arrebatamos territorio alguno, ni nos impusimos a ningún otro, produciéndose sin embargo una cooperación de manera ininterrumpida, con transferencia de conocimiento y tecnología entre ambas naciones. Continuando el contacto establecido desde hace años por JAUZARREA con las Primeras Naciones, retomamos el flujo de relaciones en más de treinta comunidades de Mi’kmaq, Malisset, Mohawk, Abenaki, Cree, Huron, Innu, Attikamekw, Algonkin y Ojibwa; con sus líderes y Consejos de Bandas. En un extenso territorio que abarca desde Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Québec, Ontario, New England, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentuky y región de los Grandes Lagos.

Realizando un estudio que comprende disciplinas como historia, folklore, arqueología, antropología, etnología, lingüística, biología o geología y la interpretación multidisciplinar de sus resultados; para determinar como ha tenido lugar esa relación y desde cuando se ha dado.

Conseguiremos un notable flujo de información, beneficioso, para poderlo aplicar con inmediatez en las comunidades objeto del estudio. De igual modo servirá para establecer una relación intercultural más sólida a ambas orillas del Atlántico.

K-12 Education in New Mexico since the 2018 Martinez/Yazzie Decision is undergoing a major transition in terms of the historical neglect of Native American, English Language Learners and "At-Risk" students. As the politics of the U.S. has become divisive and Critical Race Theory has become a lightning rod issue in many states including NM. The NM Public Education Department is under pressure to at the same time show that the Martinez/Yazzie Decision is being implemented and after 20 years the social studies curriculum is being updated with culturally and linguistically relevant curriculum, part of the Martinez/Yazzie Decision. NMLESC Senior Policy Analyst and Chicanca and Chicano Studies Adjunct Professor Dr. Joseph J. García provides a brief overview and takes questions about this historical time in NM education history.

Colonialism, neo-colonialism, post-colonialism: These terms arise in discussions of Indigenous Peoples' relations to political-economic agendas of the global nation-state system. Too frequently, the terms appear as rhetoric, with little or no theoretical framework and empirical context to explain them. Moreover, a linear view of history often accompanies their use, so that colonialism refers to something past, while neo- and post-colonialism refer to competing views about the present. All three terms often appear in binary opposition to a situation presented as non-colonial autonomy, so that the potential for a nuanced understanding of colonialism disappears in a simplistic, vague, and historicist muddle—which may nonetheless involve heated discussion. These considerations help us understand why discussions of U.S. federal Indian law so quickly become problematic.  A helpful framework exists in the concept of "Collaborative Colonial Power," the title of a 2009 history of colonialism in Hong Kong, by Law Wing Sang. Sang summarizes the theory of "collaborative colonialism" by asserting that "domination is only practicable in so far as alien power is translated into terms of indigenous political economy." The theory's major benefit in our time stems from its power to help us understand power formations that have shifted from open colonialism while still operating on the original colonial basis: i.e., formations like "government-to-government" coexisting with the doctrine of Christian Discovery.

A new book and documentary film, "Mashpee Nine," by Paula Peters, tells a story of "cultural justice" that grew from injustice, followed by outrage, activism, and vindication for a group of Wampanoag drummers and a community practicing ancient Wampanoag ways. The story begins with a July 29, 1976, midnight police raid, SWAT style, on a camp for Mashpee children at the site of a recreated 17th century Wampanoag village. The drummers—some in tents for the night, others talking around the fire—were set upon, handcuffed and arrested by police in riot gear with dogs. The police destroyed the camp and damaged village structures and gardens.
"Mashpee Nine" tells the story within the larger context of Wampanoag existence in what today people call "Cape Cod"—from first contact with the English boat people, through the intervening centuries, to the events and aftermath of the police raid. The Mashpee Wampanoag still live in their homelands—nearly four centuries after the boat people arrived and began the Christian colonial assault on the northeast coast of Turtle Island. This fact becomes a central lesson in "Mashpee Nine."

The conference summary is as follows:

“The Basques established relations with Native Americans in the St. Lawrence River area over many centuries, and evidence of this appears in historical records. A wealth of historical, archaeological and even language records have been preserved as a result of these relations. One can therefore assume that the DNA lineages may also bear witness to these relations, owing to the contribution resulting from the constant trade established with the Native Americans by our whale hunters, cod fishermen and fur traders from the Lower Middle Ages and up until the 20th century.”

The list of participants includes: Dr. Marian M. de Pancorbo (UPV/EHU), Xabi Otero (JAUZARREA), Juan Antonio Urbeltz (IKERFOLK Institute), Dr. Stephen Augustine (Museum of Civilisation, Hull-Ottawa, Traditional Mi’kmaq Chief, Restigouche), Dr. Paul Charest (Laval University, Québec), Ghislain Picard (Head of the Assembly of the First Nations of Québec and Labrador), Dr. Charles A. Martin (University of Montreal), Dr. Stephen Oppenheimer (University of Oxford), Dr. Daniel G. Bradley (Trinity College, Dublin), Dr. Sergio Cardoso (UPV/EHU), Jon Maia and Amets Arzallus, Dr. Roldán Jimeno Aranguren (Public University of Navarre), Dr. Jacques Lacoursière (Laval University, Québec), Dr. Miren Egaña Goya (Aranzadi Scientific Society, Donostia), Dr. Brad Loewen (University of Montreal), Dr. Peter Bakker (University of Aarhus, Denmark), Dr. Robert Grenier (Parks Canada, UNESCO), Xabier Agote (ALBAOLA Association, Pasaia), Dr. Aurélie Arcocha-Scarcia (Université Michel de Montaigen-Bordeaux3, Centre de Recherche sur la Langue et les Textes).