Books by Samuel W Rose
Articles by Samuel W Rose
Dialectical Anthropology, 2021
The purpose of this article is to critically examine the practical and symbolic contradictory dim... more The purpose of this article is to critically examine the practical and symbolic contradictory dimensions of indigeneity in the contemporary cult of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha as it is practiced by and implemented for indigenous North American peoples, focusing in particular on her own people: Mohawks. I take a theoretical approach rooted in political economy to understand the basis and structure of these contradictions, tensions, and the social terrain in which indigenous people live, and in which these meanings are produced. The ethnographic dimension centers on a group of Mohawks that make regular/seasonal pilgrimages from their reserves/reservations along the Saint Lawrence River (Akwesasne and Kahnawake) to her shrine in the Mohawk valley. The shared meanings that exist for her devotees are embedded in material processes of exploitation and unequal power, and have been since the beginning. Kateri Tekakwitha's entire life was produced within the context of and as a result of the social devastation of imperialism and colonization. Since the late nineteenth century, the Catholic Church has actively promoted the figure of Kateri Tekakwitha as the Catholic face of the United States and in particular since at least the early twentieth century as the Catholic face of North American indigeneity. I explain indigenous participation in the cult of the saint as representing the struggle within and against domination as well as the struggle within and against indigenous 'culture' and 'tradition'.
Journal of Historical Sociology, Sep 2018
The purpose of this article is to elaborate on the history of the relationship between the politi... more The purpose of this article is to elaborate on the history of the relationship between the political ecological and political economic changes occurring in the Mohawk communities in the Saint Lawrence river valley during the Twentieth Century with three Mohawk efforts at land reclamation in Upstate New York and the reestablishment of a Mohawk residential community in the ancestral homelands of the Mohawk river valley. I demonstrate how each of these efforts is conceptualized and should be understood in historical materialist terms as a social response to the changing social, economic, ecological, and political conditions in those communities and the processes involved in the reshaping and remaking of those communities.
Dialectical Anthropology, Mar 2017
The purpose of this article is to discuss the relationship between Marxist theory and the anthrop... more The purpose of this article is to discuss the relationship between Marxist theory and the anthropology of Native North America. This includes a brief history of the origins, development, and application of Marxist theory in the anthropology and ethnohistory of Native North America, as well as a discussion of the theoretical and ideological tensions between Marxism, postmodernism, and indigenism in this regional context. That builds to a discussion of Rata's (2000) concept of neotribal capitalism as an application of and innovation on Marxist theory to settler-colonial situations, and its superiority over postmodern/indigenist-derived theory and analysis in actually understanding and explaining the processes (re)shaping Native North America. The article concludes by emphasizing the need for Marxist theory and analysis for properly understanding contemporary situations within Native North American societies.
Anthropological Theory, Jun 2015
The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how Elizabeth Rata's (2000) concept of neotribal ca... more The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how Elizabeth Rata's (2000) concept of neotribal capitalism can be used to better understand and illuminate the nature and practices of contemporary indigenous governments in the United States. The focus is especially on the workings of neotraditionalist ideology: how it conceals and depoliticizes the class relations at the heart of neotribal society; how this ideology serves to insulate these neotribes from criticism; and how it serves to promote capital accumulation. This is done through an examination of two thematic groupings of relevant issues in contemporary indigenous and scholarly discourses: the interconnected and interrelated issues around labor, class consciousness, and unionization within indigenous communities; and issues of indigenous identity, tribal citizenship, and the politics around the movement for disenrollment.
Wicazo Sa Review, Dec 2015
The purpose of this article is, through an examination of the academic literature, to showcase wh... more The purpose of this article is, through an examination of the academic literature, to showcase what indigenous populations are known to have existed in the twentieth century (and into the present) in New York State beyond the officially recognized tribes. This article thus discusses the nonrecognized indigenous communities within the state, and places a particular focus on the role that scholars have in shaping indigenous identity in relation to the colonial apparatus. It serves to bring back into the discussion of indigenous peoples those communities that for so many years have existed outside of mainstream discourse and consciousness, and outside of the existing colonial legal structure and its processes of recognition.
Critique of Anthropology, Dec 2014
The purpose of this article is to use a comparative case study method to evaluate the different e... more The purpose of this article is to use a comparative case study method to evaluate the different existing economic development practices of American Indian peoples in the United States and Canada. The basis of comparison is the organizational structure of businesses with the comparison being between capitalist and cooperative forms. The goal is to understand how organizational type (or mode of production) is connected to the production of contemporary culture and social relations. The main conclusion is that, while not equivalent to traditional indigenous economies, cooperative structures are closer than capitalist ones to facilitating and reproducing traditionalist forms of sociality and cultural production.
Nonprofit Policy Forum, Nov 2011
Indigenous sovereignty has been both expanded and restricted in the current self-determination er... more Indigenous sovereignty has been both expanded and restricted in the current self-determination era of federal Indian policy in the United States. This has allowed both the expansion and strengthening of indigenous governments, as well as the continued successful efforts to restrict and regulate these sovereign indigenous nations. The existing models of governance, development, and planning fail to adequately account for these challenges to the fundamental legitimacy of indigenous governments. I propose the model of the ‘indigenous shadow state’ based around community land trusts and other indigenously-controlled nonprofit organizations, as a complementary model, to compensate for these challenges as a means of ensuring the long term viability of indigenous social and political institutions. I discuss how a community land trust can be utilized to perform the role of a government and serve the long term needs of its citizens in the areas of housing, economic development, and land reclamation. I also briefly discuss how this model can be applied in the urban context.
Blog Posts by Samuel W Rose
Focaal Blog, 2020
The purpose of this work is to examine and elaborate on the relationship between the people of Na... more The purpose of this work is to examine and elaborate on the relationship between the people of Native North America and the material and ideological content of developmentalism as examined within the fields of anthropology and Native American or Indigenous studies. I observe that Indigenous North American peoples are frequently excluded from discussions of economic development within anthropology. I try to reconcile this situation and reinsert native peoples into the anthropology of development by demonstrating the historical and political continuities between United States Indian Policy with the exported ‘development apparatus’. In doing so, I follow Neveling (2017) and others in pushing back against postdevelopment’s dematerialization of development and its emphasis on development as discourse. Instead, I argue that a historical materialist or political economic approach (Rose 2015, 2017, 2018) that conceptualizes development in the terms of Neveling’s (2017) “political economy machinery” better explains the situation of Indigenous North American peoples and the processes that make and unmake their lives. The overall point here is that in order to properly understand the political economic basis and ideological dimensions to the Post-War developmentalism project it is necessary to understand and examine the history of those political economic models and the history of those ideological dimensions. While there likely were developmentalist antecedents in the policies of the European empires, a major distinctive feature of post-war developmentalism is that it was rooted in the political economy and hegemonic position of the United States. As such, it is crucial to understand the local antecedents for American developmentalist policies, which necessarily brings us to Indigenous peoples as they were the early laboratories of these policies and political economic models.
Focaal Blog, 2015
This contribution elaborates on the relevance of the concept of mode of production in understandi... more This contribution elaborates on the relevance of the concept of mode of production in understanding contemporary North American indigenous populations. While examination of Native American peoples played a crucial role in early Marxist thought, Marxist theory has never been popular in examinations of North American Indians and has even been rejected by many indigenous intellectuals as ethnocentric, colonialist, and otherwise irrelevant to the political interests of indigenous peoples. This discussion has two parts: first, I briefly discuss the history of Marxist engagements with Native American anthropology, showing how this engagement played a crucial role in the development of anthropological and Marxist theory. In the second part, I draw from Elizabeth Rata’s (2000) concept of neotribal capitalism to discuss the relevance and advantage of mode of production–based analyses to Native North America.
Book Reviews by Samuel W Rose
PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 2020
Book Review of "The River Is in Us: Fighting Toxics in a Mohawk Community" by Elizabeth Hoover
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Books by Samuel W Rose
Articles by Samuel W Rose
Blog Posts by Samuel W Rose
Book Reviews by Samuel W Rose