Immigrants as settler colonists: boundary work between Dakota Indians and white immigrant settlers |
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Authors: | Karen V Hansen Ken Chih-Yan Sun Debra Osnowitz |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Sociology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA;2. Department of Sociology, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong;3. Department of Sociology, Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA |
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Abstract: | With territorial expansion of the US came dispossession of Native Americans, supported by policies that made white immigrants settler colonists. On Indian reservations, the federal government encouraged land-taking by allotting land to Indians and making land available to homesteaders, many of them recent immigrants. Few scholars have studied relationships between Natives and newcomers. This paper draws on the concept of boundary work to analyse intergroup relations at the Spirit Lake Dakota Indian Reservation, where white settlers (principally Scandinavians) lived alongside Dakotas. To survive and coexist, Indians and immigrants marked and interpreted boundaries of belonging and exclusion. By establishing common practices, they enacted a mutuality that both reflected and subverted racial–ethnic hierarchies. |
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Keywords: | Settler colonialism race-ethnicity Native Americans boundary work immigrants Indian reservation |
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