Abstract
To fully grasp indigenous identity, it is important to explore beyond dominant ideologies and understand distinctive linkage to and practices in a particular place. This chapter challenges the dominant assumptions of what constitutes indigenous identity in the Americas. Fuller offers an overview of the prevailing racial ideologies that constitute indigeneity, examines how these dominant narratives on indigeneity that privilege biological ancestry constitute identity, and explores how a counter-narrative of human and nonhuman kinship ties in relation to place constitutes a culture-based indigeneity. Using a case study, Fuller suggests that the Gullah Geechee’s self-representation as racially black and culturally indigenous enables them to achieve a level of autonomy not typically afforded groups without de jure sovereignty.
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Notes
- 1.
The trickster is a central figure in most African and Native American myths whose role, as a god, an animal, or a human, is to model behaviour on codes of conduct between humans and nonhumans. West African Mende tribes tell stories of the Eshu, a trickster who serves as the messenger between the physical and spiritual worlds and models behaviour on change and quarrels (Gates 2014).
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Fuller, S.Y. (2019). Don’t Know Nothin’ ‘bout Subsistence. We Gullah! Construction of Self as Indigenous in the Americas. In: Essed, P., Farquharson, K., Pillay, K., White, E.J. (eds) Relating Worlds of Racism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78990-3_4
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