The Appropriation of Native American Spirituality

ISBN-13: 9781441185303 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 214 str.

Suzanne Owen;Suzanne Owen

Opis

Native Americans and Canadians are largely romanticised or sidelined figures in modern society. Their spirituality has been appropriated on a relatively large scale by Europeans and non-Native Americans, with little concern for the diversity of Native American opinions. Suzanne Owen offers an insight into appropriation that will bring a new understanding and perspective to these debates. This important volume collects together these key debates from the last 25 years and sets them in context, analyses Native American objections to appropriations of their spirituality and examines 'New Age' practices based on Native American spirituality. The Appropriation of Native American Spirituality includes the findings of fieldwork among the Mi'Kmaq of Newfoundland on the sharing of ceremonies between Native Americans and First Nations, which highlights an aspect of the debate that has been under-researched in both anthropology and religious studies: that Native American discourses about the breaking of 'protocols', rules on the participation and performance of ceremonies, is at the heart of objections to the appropriation of Native American spirituality.

Spis treści

1. Introduction: The centrality of protocols
2. The repression of Native American religions and the rise of Lakota spirituality
3. Declaration against the appropriation of Native American spirituality
4. ‘Hucksters' and ‘wannabes': New Age appropriations of Native American spirituality
5. Intertribal borrowing of ceremonies among the Mi'Kmaq of Newfoundland
6. Academic exploitation? Current debates in the study of Native American religions
7. Conclusion