Native Appropriations is a is a blog that critically discusses the ways that Indigenous people are shown in the mainstream, “Euro-American dominated, culture”. Active since 2010, the blog is run by Cherokee scholar Adrienne Keene. Some of the most talked about topics are “hipster headdresses”, the Native American mascot controversy and appropriation and misrepresentations of Native American cultures in big Hollywood blockbusters.
Author Archives: remixportfolio
Graphic Novel: The 500 Years of Resistance
The 500 Years of Resistance by Gord Hill is a historical comic that showcases the documentation of radical activism, which enables individual citizens to question their government, and critique how history is built by media (the Internet) and on the pages of textbooks. The graphic novel challenges the representation of events from the Spanish colonization of the Americas (1492) to the Six Nations land reclamation (2006) focusing on how the European Invasion and colonization of the Americas violated Indigenous culture. Without a doubt, storytelling is an important element of Indigenous political activism, and in 500 Years of Resistance artfully articulates an anti-capitalist and pro-activist challenge to audiences.
Graphic Novel: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which gives students a good perspective of what it was like living on a reservation in the US and what the main character, Junior, was going through. For those of you who haven’t read it, the book follows Junior, a 14-year-old boy living with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation near Wellpinit, Washington for a school year. The book is written like a diary, moving from the first day of school to summer break. The book gives the reader a look into Junior’s life, which includes his drawings (which are funny at times), but often commenting on a much larger and accurate depiction of life on the reservation.
Shadows of the Indian: Stereotypes in American Culture
In Shadows of the Indian: Stereotypes in American Culture by Raymond William Stedman, pop culture images of the American Indian are used to draw out the implications of stereotypes in advertisements, film, and mass culture. Stereotypes from Westerns include the humble and comedic sidekicks like Friday and Tonto, the noble and vanishing savage, and the red rapist warrior. Stedman offers no narrative, but the curation of the collection sutures together illustrations that are an integral part of how the image and bodies of Indigenous individuals were manipulated by racist stereotypes from the 1960s onwards.
The Healthy Aboriginal Network and Native Realities
The Healthy Aboriginal Network (HAN), provides Indigenous youths with a positive and recognizable representation of Indigenous bodies. Another wonderful resource for our K-12 students is Native Realities. NR provides original and authentic representations of Native and Indigenous peoples through stories and texts that educate and entertain children, youth and adults. Featuring the incredible tales of Indigenous icons, First Nations freedom fighters, Aboriginal astronauts, and Native American superheroes whose stories have long been co-opted, unheard or ignored.
Ethnomusicology
Many of you may have heard of the group A Tribe Called Red blending a raw, energetic use of electronic music, hip-hop, and traditional music. This article talks about the use of remix culture in hip-hop and how storytelling, music, and language with Indigenous Peoples have helped shape traditional learnings in other ways. This article helps bridge Indigenous music with other mediums, (music and film) creating and sending a powerful message. Using transmedia and ethnomusicology to do so, the artists have placed much importance in how their music will shape us all. In its simplest form, transmedia is the creation of a distinct type of media through the simultaneous use of multiple existing media platforms. Transmedia storytelling makes use of video games, novels, mobile apps, television, mus, c and many other media institutions to tell stories.
Other: The Critical Public Pedagogy of A Tribe Called Red’s new music video R.E.D
Spirals of Inquiry
The Spirals of Inquiry help shape a framework for transforming learning in schools. While more mainstream than other resources, we can draw some good from this, by looking at how it is able to give us different approaches that involve all learners, their families, and communities in the act of learning. More importantly, this shift in learning addressed how learning through inquiry will empower students to develop learner agency and help students identify and address issues in their learning environments.
Ensouling Our Schools: A Universally Designed Framework for Mental Health, Well-Being, and Reconciliation
This wonderful resource was given to me this year where its main focus draws on healing, mental health and reconciliation. Ensouling Our Schools: A Universally Designed Framework for Mental Health, Well-Being, and Reconciliation is a book that couldn’t have come any sooner. In a world void of empathy, and where schools have become anxious places where the marginalized are misrepresented, this resource helps us heal and rebuild. In Ensouling Our Schools, author Jennifer Katz weaves together methods of creating schools that engender mental, spiritual, and emotional health while developing intellectual thought and critical analysis.
Augmented Reality & Reclaiming Land
Augmented Reality (AR) has helped shape the physical space and an altered reality to bring stories and knowledge to anyone with a smartphone. Wikiupedia has helped bring attention to marginalized people and is a perfect example of what some of are doing in reclaiming spaces. Certain AR apps allow its creators to develop stories or in this case, “the app is another way that allows people to access traditional knowledge that isn’t really readily available”. While AR can be entirely important in sharing these stories, and knowledge, it could be used in ways that spread misinformation to change how the physical space is viewed. Using AR, in this case, empowers and enables people to reclaim land both in the physical sense and digital. Apps like Wikiupedia can be cathartic to some who view the spaces that have been stolen from them.
Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace
Elizabeth LaPensée, is an award-winning designer, writer, artist, and researcher who creates and studies Indigenous-led media such as games and comics and has develop and lead an amazing initiative called ABTEC. ABTEC (Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace), is an Aboriginally determined research-creation network whose goal is to ensure an Indigenous presence in the web pages, online environments, video games, and virtual worlds that comprise cyberspace.