Sovereign Acts: Contesting Colonialism Across Indigenous Nations and Latinx America

by Frances Negrón-Muntaner (Editor)

Overview

While the sovereign nation-state is considered the world’s political norm, millions of colonial subjects, immigrants, refugees, and native peoples appear to be without sovereignty. What claims have they to sovereignty? If they cannot ever constitute themselves into sovereign nation-states, are they out of the political game? Can a framework like sovereignty—used historically to exploit, dispossess, and even exterminate people—be a part of a struggle for political freedom?

Editor Frances Negrón-Muntaner and the contributors to Sovereign Acts engage in a debate around these questions with surprising results. Moving the idea of sovereignty beyond the narrow confines of the nation-state, beyond the concept of a power that one either has or lacks, this paradigm-­shifting work examines the multiple ways that Indigenous nations and U.S. territorial peoples act as sovereign and the possible limits of such sovereign acts within the current globalized context. A valuable contribution to the debate around indigenous and other conceptions of sovereignty, Sovereign Acts goes further than legal frameworks to investigate the relationships among sovereignty, gender, sexuality, representation, and the body.

From activist style and choreography to the politics of recognition, the scholars and artists featured in this unique volume map out how people disrupt modern notions of sovereignty, attempt to redefine what being sovereign means, or seek alternative political vocabularies. Sovereignty is not only, after all, a kingdom and a crown.

CONTRIBUTORS

Michael Lujan Bevacqua
Glen Coulthard
Jennifer Nez Denetdale
Adriana María Garriga-López
Jessica A. F. Harkins
Brian Klopotek
Davianna Pomaika‘i McGregor
Frances Negrón-Muntaner
Yasmin Ramírez
Mark Rifkin
Madeline Román
Stephanie Nohelani Teves
Fa‘anofo Lisaclaire Uperesa
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780816532124
Publisher:	University of Arizona Press
Publication date:	11/21/2017
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	408
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Frances Negrón-Muntaner is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, curator, scholar, and professor at Columbia University, where she is founding director of the Media and Idea Lab. Among her books and publications are Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latinization of American Culture and “The Latino Media Gap.” Negrón-Muntaner is also founding curator of the Latino Arts and Activism Archive at Columbia’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Library.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction Frances Negrón-Muntaner 3

I Navigating Sovereignty

1 Contested Sovereignties: Puerto Rico and American Samoa Fa'Anofo lisaclaire Uperesa Adriana María Garriga-López 39

2 Indigenous Peoples and the Politics of Recognition Glen Coulthard 82

3 The Decolonial Deadlock in Guam Michael Lujan Bevacqua 107

4 Recognizing Native Hawaiians: Reality Bites Davianna Pomaika'i McGregor 125

II Sovereign Bodies

5 Chairmen, Presidents, and Princesses: The Navajo Nation, Gender, and the Politics of Tradition Jennifer Nez Denetdale 153

6 Same-Sex Marriage in the Cherokee Nation: Toward Decolonial Queer Indigeneities Jessica A. F. Harkins 175

7 Bloodline Is All I Need?: Sovereignty and Hawaiian Hip-Hop Stephanie Nohelani Teves 199

8 Of Shadows and Doubts: White Supremacy, Decolonization, and Black-Indian Relations Brian Klopotek 230

9 The Look of Sovereignty: Style and Politics in the Young Lords Frances Negrón-Muntaner 254

III Life Without Sovereignty

10 Sovereignty Still? Madeline Román 285

11 Indigenizing Agamben: Rethinking Sovereignty in Light of the "Peculiar" Status of Native Peoples Mark Rifkin 296

12 King of the Line: The Sovereign Acts of Jean-Michel Basquiat Frances Negrón-Muntaner Yasmin Ramirez 336

Contributors 373

Index 379

Editorial Reviews

"The critical engagements with ethically and politically difficult topics in this book make for a frank and nuanced exploration of struggles for sover­eignty, their various manifestations, and their limitations."—Melanie Vasselin, NAIS

“A powerful and thoughtful collection…that grapples with the unruly, amorphous, and compelling aspects of the concept of sovereignty.”—American Indian Culture and Research Journal

“A much-needed anthology that intimately and intricately explores and challenges contemporary notions of sovereignty. It will without a doubt become the standard text in the field.”—Dylan A. T. Miner, author of Creating Aztlán
 
“An incisive and compelling contribution to the burgeoning study of U.S. imperialism and empire.”—Alyosha Goldstein, editor of Formations of United States Colonialism

From the Publisher