Reconfigurations of Native North America: An Anthology of New Perspectives

Implementing many of the most cutting-edge trends in contemporary indigenous studies, these seventeen original essays tackle indigenous identity, cultural perseverance, economic development, and urbanization in a wide array of American Indian and First Nations populations. The authors present and preserve indigenous voices and carefully consider native worldviews throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, and also address mainstream policies that influenced Native peoples in various eras and locales. The essays range from the specific—single peoples living in well-defined spaces during discrete time periods, to the expansive—broad comparative and international discussions. Yet the volume’s diversity extends beyond its topical breadth. The contributors themselves—many of whom are Native Americans or members of other First Nations—peer through scholarly lenses polished in Canada, Denmark, Finland, England, Sweden, and the United States. The ensuing synthesis helps to clarify the modern complexities of analyzing indigenous pasts.“In this innovative work, scholars from around the world, working in an array of disciplines, re-examine issues vital to Indigenous North America. John Wunder and Kurt Kinbacher have done an admirable job of assembling a collection of writers who span the arc from established and well respected academics like Peter Iverson and Susan Miller to new and exciting thinkers like Miia Halme and Sami Lakomäki. Reconfigurations of Native North America is blazing a new path and expanding the ways in which we consider Indigenous issues in the 20th century.”—Akim D. Reinhardt, Towson University