Native American Heritage Month
November is Native American Heritage Month, a time to celebrate rich and diverse cultures, traditions, and histories and to acknowledge the important contributions of Native people. Heritage Month is also an opportune time to educate the general public about tribes, to raise a general awareness about the unique challenges Native people have faced both historically and in the present, and the ways in which tribal citizens have worked to conquer these challenges.
Source: National Congress of American Indians
For more information, please see these websites:
Featured Reading
Creating Private Sector Economies in Native America: Sustainable Development through Entrepreneurship
Location: Online
Native nation economies have long been dominated by public sector activities - government programs and services and tribal government-owned businesses - which do not generate the same long-term benefits for local communities that the private sector does. Chapter authors provide the language and arguments to make the case to tribal politicians, Native communities, and allies about the importance of private sector development and entrepreneurship in Indigenous economies. This book identifies and addresses key barriers to expanding the sector, provides policy guidance, and describes several successful business models
Indigenomics: Taking a Seat at the Economic Table
Location: Online
Indigenomics lays out the tenets of the emerging Indigenous economy, built around relationships, multigenerational stewardship of resources, and care for all. Highlights include: The ongoing power shift and rise of the modern Indigenous economy, voices of leading Indigenous business leaders and the unfolding story in the law courts that is testing Canada's relationship with Indigenous peoples as well on the ground examples of the emerging Indigenous economy. Indigenomics calls for a new model of development, one that advances Indigenous self-determination, collective well-being, and reconciliation.
Network Sovereignty: Building the Internet Across Indian Country
Location: Online
In 2012, the United Nations General Assembly determined that affordable Internet access is a human right, critical to citizen participation in democratic governments. Given the significance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to social and political life, many U.S. tribes and Native organizations have created their own projects, from streaming radio to building networks to telecommunications advocacy. In Network Sovereignty, Marisa Duarte examines these ICT projects to explore the significance of information flows and information systems to Native sovereignty, and toward self-governance, self-determination, and decolonization.
Books for Native American Heritage Month
American Indian Business: Principles and Practices by
American Indian business is booming. The number of American Indian– and Alaska Native–owned businesses increased by 15.3 percent from 2007 to 2012—a time when the total number of US businesses increased by just 2 percent—and receipts grew from $34.4 million in 2002 to $8.8 billion in 2012. Despite this impressive growth, there is an absence of small businesses on reservations, and Native Americans own private businesses at the lowest rate per capita for any ethnic or racial group in the United States. Many Indigenous entrepreneurs face unique cultural and practical challenges in starting, locating, and operating a business, from a perceived lack of a culture of entrepreneurship and a suspicion of capitalism to the difficulty of borrowing start-up funds when real estate is held in trust and cannot be used as collateral.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2017
American Indians and the Market Economy, 1775-1850 by
Provides a clear view of the realities of the economic and social interactions between Native groups and the expanding Euro-American population The last quarter of the 18th century was a period of extensive political, economic, and social change in North America, as the continent-wide struggle between European superpowers waned. Native groups found themselves enmeshed in the market economy and new state forms of control, among other new threats to their cultural survival. Native populations throughout North America actively engaged the expanding marketplace in a variety of economic and social forms. These actions, often driven by and expressed through changes in material culture, were supported by a desire to maintain distinctive ethnic identities. Illustrating the diversity of Native adaptations in an increasingly hostile and marginalized world, this volume is continental in scope--ranging from Connecticut to the Carolinas, and westward through Texas and Colorado. Calling on various theoretical perspectives, the authors provide nuanced perspectives on material culture use as a manipulation of the market economy. A thorough examination of artifacts used by Native Americans, whether of Euro-American or Native origin, this volume provides a clear view of the realities of the economic and social interactions between Native groups and the expanding Euro-American population and the engagement of these Native groups in determining their own fate.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2011
Native American Entrepreneurs by
This book captures the entrepreneurial stories and mindsets of contemporary Native Americans. Native American entrepreneurs are important contributors to the American economy and social landscape. Faced with numerous challenges, many Native American entrepreneurs have learned to transcend tough obstacles, leverage resources, and strategically pursue opportunities to achieve business success. This book captures the entrepreneurial stories and mindsets of contemporary Native Americans.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2020
Native Pathways: American Indian Culture and Economic Development in the Twentieth Century by
How has American Indians' participation in the broader market - as managers of casinos, negotiators of oil leases, or commercial fishermen - challenged the U.S. paradigm of economic development? Have American Indians paid a cultural price for the chance at a paycheck? How have gender and race shaped their experiences in the marketplace? Contributors to Native Pathways ponder these and other questions, highlighting how indigenous peoples have simultaneously adopted capitalist strategies and altered them to suit their own distinct cultural beliefs and practices. Including contributions from historians, anthropologists, and sociologists, Native Pathways offers fresh viewpoints on economic change and cultural identity in twentieth-century Native American communities. Foreword by Donald L. Fixico.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2004
Renewing Indigenous Economies by
The history of Indigenous economies in the Americas presents a puzzle: When Europeans first encountered Indigenous peoples, they discovered societies with high standards of living, vast trading networks, and flourishing markets. But colonizers changed the rules of the game, and by the twentieth century, most Indians had been forced onto reservations and saddled with institutions inimical to their customs and cultures, and incompatible with wealth creation. As a result of being wrapped in the federal government's "white tape," these once thriving societies are today impoverished and dependent. This volume charts a course for reversing the decline in Indigenous economies and establishing a path to prosperity based on secure tribal property rights, clear jurisdiction and governance, and fiscal and financial power. It explains how the rules of the game promote or hinder the development of wealth; gives an overview of institutional conditions in Indian Country today; and identifies improvements with significant potential to renew Indian economies. Both data and contemporary stories of success and failure illustrate how revitalizing institutional frameworks can restart the engine of economic growth to generate business and employment, raise living standards in Indian communities, and, most importantly, restore the dignity Native Americans once had and still deserve.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2022
Reservation Capitalism : Economic Development in Indian Country by
This unique book investigates the history and future of American Indian economic activities and explains why tribal governments and reservation communities must focus on creating sustainable privately and tribally owned businesses if reservation communities and tribal cultures are to continue to exist.Native American peoples suffer from health, educational, infrastructure, and social deficiencies that most Americans who live outside of tribal lands are wholly unaware of and would not tolerate. By creating sustainable economic development on reservations, however, gradual, long-term change can be effected, thereby improving the standard of living and sustaining tribal cultures.Reservation "Capitalism": Economic Development in Indian Country supplies the true history, present-day circumstances, and potential future of Indian communities and economics. It provides key background information on indigenous economic systems and property rights regimes in what is now the United States, and explains how the vast majority of native lands and natural resource assets were lost. The book focuses on strategies for establishing privately and publicly owned economic activities on reservations and creating economies where reservation inhabitants can be employed, live, and buy the necessities of life, thereby enabling complete tribal self-sufficiency and self-determination.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2012
Sovereign Entrepreneurs: Cherokee Small Business Owners and the Making of Economic Sovereignty by
By 2009, reverberations of economic crisis spread from the U.S. around the globe. As corporations across the U.S. folded, however, small businesses on the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) continued to thrive. In this rich ethnographic study, Courtney Lewis reveals the critical roles small businesses such as these play for Indigenous nations. Lewis's fieldwork followed several businesses through the Great Recession and against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding EBCI-owned casino. Lewis's keen observations reveal how Eastern Band small business owners have contributed to an economic sovereignty that empowers and sustains their nation both culturally and politically.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2020
Tiller's Guide to Indian Country: Economic Profiles of American Indian Reservations by
The long-awaited third edition of Tiller's Guide to Indian Country tells the collective story of the little-known economic success attained by tribal enterprises owned by the 568 Indian tribes and Alaskan Native villages in thirty-three states. It has been recognized since 1996 as the ultimate resource on contemporary tribal economies and has become indispensable to government entities, businesses working with the tribes, libraries, and scholars. This reference edition profiles each tribe's history and culture, with detailed information about their communities, natural resources, enterprises, and environmental concerns, as well as their contact information. It also features profiles on leading tribal enterprises, businesses doing business with tribes, and nonprofit organizations that have made significant contributions to economic development in Indian Country. This must-have reference resource is also available as an e-book.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2015
Gambling on Authenticity: Gaming, the Noble Savage, and the Not-So-New Indian by
In the decades since the passing of the Pamajewon ruling in Canada and the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in the United States, gaming has come to play a crucial role in how Indigenous peoples are represented and read by both Indians and non-Indians alike. This collection presents a transnational examination of North American gaming and considers the role Indigenous artists and scholars play in producing depictions of Indigenous gambling. In an effort to offer a more complete and nuanced picture of Indigenous gaming in terms of sign and strategy than currently exists in academia or the general public, Gambling on Authenticity crosses both disciplinary and geographic boundaries. The case studies presented offer a historically and politically nuanced analysis of gaming that collectively creates an interdisciplinary reading of gaming informed by both the social sciences and the humanities. A great tool for the classroom, Gambling on Authenticity works to illuminate the not-so-new Indian being formed in the public's consciousness by and through gaming.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2017
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