Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond

Episode #1: Tribal Recognition, Acknowledgment, and Termination: U.S. State and Federal Policy
Join your host, J. Kehaulani Kauanui for a selection of presentations from the first Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) conference held May 21 - 23, 2009 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which drew more than 600 scholars from 16 countries and dozens of tribal nations to exchange research and professional support. The presentations featured on the program include: “Altered State?: “Recognition”, Native Rights, and the Maneuverings of Indian Policy in Connecticut,” by Amy Den Ouden and Ruth Garby Torres; and “State Recognition and ‘Termination’ in Nineteenth-Century New England,” by Jean M. O’Brien. O’Brien is an enrolled member, White Earth Reservation, Mississippi Band, Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. She is an Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Minnesota, and author of a book titled, Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650-1790. Torres is a Citizen of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, former tribal councilor & treasurer who also served on STN Constitution Revision Committee. Den Ouden is associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. For over a decade she worked as a researcher and consultant for the federal acknowledgment projects of the Eastern Pequot Nation and the Golden Hill Paugussett Nation. She is the author of Beyond Conquest: Native Peoples and the Struggle for History in New England. Original air-date: 1-09-09.

Episode #2: Crisis in Peru: State-Back Massacre in Response to Indigenous Resistance
Join your host J. Kehaulani Kauanui for a special edition that focuses on the recent state-backed police massacre of indigenous peoples in the northern Amazon of Peru. On Friday, June 5th, which happened to be World Environment Day, some 600 riot police and helicopters attacked a peaceful indigenous blockade outside of Bagua a northern Peruvian Amazonian province. According to leader Miguel Palacin, president of Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indigenas (CAOI) or the Andean Coordination of Indigenous Organizations, the police killed at least 250 indigenous Peruvians and injured more than 150. Witnesses attest that the police fired live ammunition and tear gas into the crowd who were engaged in a peaceful blockade to protest oil and mining projects in the region as part of the Peru Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Reports in the U.S. state that over 30,000 indigenous people have been blockading roads, rivers, and railways to demand the repeal of new laws that allow oil, mining and logging companies to enter indigenous territories without seeking their prior consultation or consent. Our guest is Shane Greene who joins the show by telephone from Lima, Peru. Greene is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Indian University where he is a Faculty Associate, Anthropological Center for Training and Research on Global Environmental Change (ACT). He is the author of a book just released this year titled, Customizing Indigeneity: Paths to a Visionary Politics in Peru, which examines indigenous activism among the Aguaruna, an ethnic group at the forefront of Peru’s Amazonian Movement. Original air-date: 06-16-09.

Episode #3: For the Seventh Generation: American Indians, Youth, and Education
Join your host, J. Kehaulani Kauanui for an episode that will focus on the politics of education, representations, and youth. The first guests is Debbie Reese (Nambe Pueblo Tribe), publisher of an Internet blog and resource called American Indians in Children’s Literature that is used by parents, librarians, teachers, and college professors in Education, Library Science, and English Literature. Reese will offer critical perspectives of indigenous peoples in children’s books, the school curriculum, popular culture, and society-at-large. Reese is an assistant professor in the American Indian Studies program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she teaches courses including: Politics of Children’s Literature, Introduction to American Indian Studies, and History of American Indian Education. Her current research projects include a book titled, Indians as Artifacts: How Images of Indians are used to Nationalize America’s Youth. The second guest is Loren Spears (Narragansett), the Founder and Executive Director of the Nuweetooun School, Rhode Island. Nuweetooun is a Native school open to all children that has a core curriculum of Native culture and history combined with environmental studies. Spears received her Masters in Education from the University of New England in 2002. She spent 12 years teaching under-served youth in Rhode Island public schools. She was a Narragansett Tribunal Judge, and is currently serving her people on Tribal Council. Original air-date: 06-23-09.