Reorganizing Structure: Sovereignty, Cultural Repertoires, and American Indian Identity

• In Event: Identities, Repertoires, and Interpretive Resources

Abstract

This paper presents my dissertation proposal and seeks feedback on its epistemological approach as I begin fieldwork. The project addresses a central paradox: Indigenous identification and tribal nationhood have expanded within a settler colonial structure designed for elimination. I argue that dominant sociological frameworks rooted in race and ethnicity misclassify Indigeneity as minority-group culture rather than as a political formation grounded in sovereignty, jurisdiction, and collective continuity.

Drawing on Sewell’s theory of structure as duality, Swidler’s conception of cultural repertoires, Du Boisian insights on political subjectivity, and Hall’s theory of articulation, I reconceptualize sovereignty as community agency: the collective capacity to reorganize structural relations by mobilizing available cultural and material resources. Sovereignty is treated not as a static legal status but as an ongoing process through which communities reshape schemas, institutions, and classifications across time.

Empirically, the project focuses on the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Using a longitudinal, multi-method design—approximately 250 archival oral histories, 20–25 new interviews employing Anishinaabeg storytelling methods, and five decades of tribal documentary materials—I examine how federal recognition, institutional development, and jurisdictional authority reconfigure the cultural tools through which identity is lived and interpreted. The analysis asks how sovereignty alters the availability and salience of identity repertoires; how narrative labor and kinship practice articulate local belonging with federal categories; and how historically eventful moments reshape the structural conditions of identification.

As I enter the data collection phase, I seek input on how to theorize Indigenous resurgence as a structural and cultural reorganization rather than resistance alone. By positioning Indigenous nations as active rearticulators of structure, the project contributes to cultural sociology’s understanding of how political subjects transform constraint into durable forms of collective continuity.

Author

• Billie Sams, Brown University