Description
Selling the Indian: Commercializing and Appropriating American Indian Cultures is a collection of eight scholarly essays that explore the issues around the politics of representation and cultural imperialism. Edited by Carter Jones Meyer and Diana Royer, this book published by the University of Arizona Press is organized around two themes. The first theme looks at staging the Indian through four essays. The essays deal with 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition that exploited a small group of Cocopa Indians as living exhibits; Seattle's Tillicum Village that presents a spectacle for tourists; hoop dancer and Plains flute performer Kevin Locke's presentations of Lakota and Baha'i spirituality; and the way the images of Native American men and women are objectified and stereotyped in popular culture. The second theme in the book deals with the marketing of the Indian. The four essays discuss the ways feminist organizations promoted Indian arts in support of self-sufficiency; the promotion of Pueblo arts and Cherokee basket weavers; and the development of Mayan crafts in Chiapas. Whether it is Native People's performances or commodification of their cultural objects, the dominant society has appropriated, distorted, and commercialized the Indian for their own purposes. The authors all draw attention to this cultural imperialism and its repercussions for Native American cultural identity. The book contains an index, bibliography and several black and white photographs.