This site was started by a group of natives who were concerned about misrepresentation of natives by non-natives. It has evolved to become a place to debate over where to draw the “Line in the Sand” on the issues of Native American cultural property, sovereignty, identity, ethnic stereotypes, the commodification of Native American culture.
Line in the Sand provides first-hand insights into issues discussed in some of course readings for this module, including Chapter 4 in Indigenous Cultures – Cyberspace Smoke Signals (Zimmerman, Zimmerman & Bruguier, 2000).
The site includes discussion pages on stereotypes. This area of the site includes discussion of stereotypes in sports team mascots, products, and the notion of looking “Indian enough” for Hollywood. There is also a link for teachers which reviews what the site suggests as books to avoid (such as “Indian in the Cupboard”), as well as papers and discussion about the persistence and effects of damaging stereotypes.
Cultural property is approached from a number of perspectives including:
The site also includes a page linking to responses from Native Peoples in the form of papers, speeches, essays, books, poetry, and awards.
The site may provide interesting insights from a range of sources for analytic papers in any of these areas.
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