Elouise Cobell died of cancer at the beginning of October, in Great Falls, Montana. While not a name most know, Cobell is a household name across Indian Country; she was the lead plaintiff on a 15-year legal battle with the U.S. Department of the Interior, the agency that manages Federal Indian land — and the Indian Trust. Cobell’s lawsuit was about whether or not the government had properly accounted for trust funds over the hundred-plus years that they had been managing the trust. (Full disclosure — I worked on Indian Trust issues at the Department of the Interior for two years.) In ... Read More
Academic Research Does Not Take Holidays Off
November 24, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
We gather together some of the more provocative papers of recent years, which are guaranteed to enliven the dinner table by providing fresh fodder for family squabbles. Genocide, With Stuffing and Gravy Anthropologist Janet Siskind of Rutgers University views the Thanksgiving holiday in sociopolitical terms in her 1992 paper “The Invention of Thanksgiving.” The traditional gathering, she writes, “subtly expresses and reaffirms values and assumptions about cultural and social unity, about identity and history, about inclusion and exclusion.” She views the holiday, which ritually ... Read More
