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anyone (ideally more senior than I) interested in working together on a Perspective submission focusing on anti-Native racism/frameworks in historical scholarship? https://twitter.com/ahahistorians/status/1354490615669649409
ideally what this initiative needs is a handful of interventions (be that in the form of a Perspectives piece, a separate project, etc.) that exposes layers of anti-Native racism still existent today, including (though not limited to) the following issues:
1) archival content and context - we need to bring together works highlighting the violence inherent in the production of the colonial archive, archive-making as a process of colonialism, racist language the archive uses to restrict Indigenous agency, and exclusion/erasure
2) frameworks - a seeming reluctance amongst historians to take settler colonialism seriously as (1 of many) explanatory tools for study of US history. Early Americanists have done the work (see Ostler-Shoemaker in WMQ), but it's even more critical for modern scholars to engage
3) language - huge category, but i'm thinking mainly of James Merrell's "Some Thoughts" and "Second Thoughts," esp. the latter, in which vague language is still employed in 21st c. scholarship to erase historic Native peoples from landscapes (in addition to a vocab of Othering)
4) content - recently read this piece recapping "New Indian History," & a key takeaway is the gross dearth of scholarship on Native histories for the majority of AHR's existence (contingent upon a range of factors but still significant): https://www.jstor.org/stable/2168602?seq=1
5) erasure in the present - again, lots here (im just giving summaries/my own 2 cents). Any and all collections published/cosponsored by AHA that ignore Native histories is a form of anti-Native racism - & extension of settler colonialism. From where are these histories missing?
6) (cont. & brief return to #2) historians need to move away from historical tokenism and toward more effective frameworks that prevent erasure from continuing to happen. AHA should give NAIS-based scholars/work a sturdier platform. For guidance: https://www-jstor-org.libproxy.berkeley.edu/stable/10.5309/willmaryquar.75.2.0207#metadata_info_tab_contents
7) erasure in the past - where have historians used a so-called lack of archival evidence to excuse the absence of Indigenous historical actors? another issue of framework and approach that NAIS folks have provided solutions for (and rightly called out as BS)
8) (cont. & brief return to #3) - where (exactly - there are lots of instances) have historians gotten away with lumping diverse Indigenous polities into "Indian"? That has dramatically skewed our understanding of historical processes. It damages the discipline as a whole.
this isn't a comprehensive list, which only goes to show exactly how pervasive anti-Native racism is in the discipline-both now and in past generations of scholars. If the AHA is asking for org-specific connections, that's a place to start.
it's lazy (esp among settler scholars) to toss up hands & say the whole mission is kaput. It is. But if scholars will continue to write about Indigenous histories to fulfill their own personal goals (which they will), there needs 2 b a standard of ethics articulated by major orgs
this thread will continue to get more messy as I add: another idea would be for AHA to think about ways to integrate historical info produced by Land Grab U Project. Relatedly, how is AHA specifically supporting Native scholars and students? Scholarships? Programs? Etc
