On Indigenous Land: Shuttling Between Suburbs and the Rez as a Real Pale Indian

• In Event: Rural And...: A Symposium on Intersectional Diversity in Rural Education Research

Abstract

Presentation Summary: In the U.S. Indigenous peoples are often seen through a narrow stuck-in-the-past stereotype continually reinforced through curricula (Shear et al., 2015) and media (Fryberg et al., 2008; Leavitt et al., 2015). Furthermore, while most of the 574 federally recognized Native nations are in rural areas, education in Indian County is not typically affiliated with the field of rural education. This presentation offers an autoethnographic narrative about a Native educator and scholar who passes for White, and has spent considerable time throughout his life shuttling between the suburbs and his nation’s reservation as he and his family have negotiated their lives in an entangled settler-colonial reality. This story is intended to deepen peoples understanding of Natives in modern contexts, and bring visibility to the intersection of American Indian education, Whiteness, rural education, and culturally sustaining pedagogies (Lee & McCarty, 2017; Paris & Alim, 2017).

Objectives: The presentation will bring visibility to 1) personal and professional experiences in education at the intersection of American Indian Education, Whiteness, rural education, and culturally sustaining pedagogies; and 2) stories of colonial entanglement, navigation, and negotiation in a contextualized rural Native education context.

Theoretical Perspectives and Method: This critical Indigenous autoethnographic work (Bishop, 2020; Boylorn & Orbe, 2013; Whitinui, 2014) uses the concept of settler-colonial entanglement (Dennison, 2012) to frame personal stories that show the internal tensions encountered as Native people navigate and negotiate complex lived realities. Specifically, this work uses Osage ribbon work as a metaphor for entanglement (Dennison, 2013; Colleague et al., 2018; Author, 2016; Author, 2017) framing varied lived experiences as different ethnographic ribbons which are cut, folded, and sewn together in a way that creates balance and harmony out of dissonant lived experiences. In this sense, ribbon work autoethnography is the process of outlining various tensions experienced in entangled sociocultural realities, but also using story to bring them together as a unified whole.

Findings: 1) White privilege in Indian Country is a topic that needs more attention in the literature. Being a socio-cultural insider in Indian Country can be complicated considering each Native nation chooses their own rules for citizenship, and cultures and traditions vary widely across communities. With the reality that many descendants of Indigenous peoples have integrated with White communities, many Native people can pass for White in mainstream American contexts, yet simultaneously experience and internalize systemic racism.

2) The process of looking for economic and educational opportunity in the suburbs, and through predominantly white universities, works to reinforce Whiteness and assimilationist learning. Simultaneously, it affords individuals with new power and opportunity to advocate for change in their home communities.

Significance: This work allows educators and scholars in rural and Indian education contexts to deepen the conversation about privilege in educational systems. In turn, this points to a need for all leaders in education to examine their critical consciousness and their own lived experiences as they work to create more culturally sustaining pedagogical and revitalizing environments.

Author

• Alex Red Corn, Kansas State University