Is there a Native American and Indigenous Diaspora?

Diaspora has become a powerful theoretical and ideological lens through which scholars
of the American academy connect members of disparate groups. It has been described by Paul
Gilroy in The Black Atlantic as a “condition of modernity,” whereas Brent Hayes Edwards in
The Practice of Diaspora theorizes it as a methodological “practice,” which “can be articulated
only in forms that are provisional, negotiated, [and] asymmetrical.”1 But what is it exactly that
constitutes the articulation of a diasporic community? And can this practice be extended to
social groups that can be said to also constitute nations? Rachel Buff’s Immigration and the
Political Economy of Home and Renya K. Ramirez’s Native Hubs together offer a glimpse at
what such articulations might look like for (some of) America’s indigenous communities. Buff
and Ramirez each find utility in diaspora studies and read together they provide insights into the
ways in which Indian Country might constitute diasporic communities. Through seemingly
oppositional understandings of the concept of diaspora, the authors agree that as a condition or a
process diaspora is, at the least, an experience in which indigenous identities form. Citizenship,
however, is problematic in the context of Diaspora, because diasporic communities form in part
out of rejection of full membership to the nation-state. I argue, however, that in the context of
Native American and Indigenous studies, the nation-state and sovereignty are not coterminous.
Using Kim D. Butler’s conception of Diaspora as an epistemological construct or a discourse,2
this essay explores how American Studies scholars Buff and Ramirez employ Diaspora to
forward their theses and ultimately asks whether Diaspora theory should be applied at all in
Native American and Indigenous Studies.
Works Cited:
Buff, Rachel. Immigration and the Political Economy of Home: West Indian Brooklyn and
American Indian Minneapolis, 1945-1992. Berkeley: University of California Press,
2001.
Butler, Kim D. “Defining Diaspora, Refining a Discourse,” Diaspora, Vol. 10 No. 2 (2001):
189-219.
Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1993.
Ramirez, Renya K. Native Hubs: Culture, Community, and Belonging in Silicon Valley and
Beyond. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.

1
Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1993); and Brent Hayes Edwards, The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black
Internationalism, (President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2003): 318.
2
Kim D. Butler, “Defining Diaspora, Refining a Discourse,” Diaspora, Vol. 10 No. 2 (2001): 189-219.

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Bio and Contact Information:

Cierra Olivia Thomas-Williams

Department of Gender Studies
Department of American Studies
cthomasw@indiana.edu
Memorial Hall West 214
812-679-9385

Cierra Olivia Thomas-Williams is a member of the Miwok of the El Dorado Rancheria and is a
single mother of twin six-year-old girls who joined the inaugural class of the nation's first
Gender Studies Ph.D. program at Indiana University Bloomington in 2006 as the Indiana
University Diversity Scholar. In 2008, she was admitted to the American Studies PhD program
and is now working toward a combined PhD in Gender Studies and American Studies. Her areas
of interest include: representations of women of color in popular print media; transnational
feminisms as they intersect with theories of the Black Diaspora; feminist theory and activism;
and comparative critical theories. Cierra is an Associate Instructor in the Department of Gender
Studies and a 2007-08 Friends of the Kinsey Institute grant recipient for collaborative research
on sexuality with Dr. Lessie Jo Frazier. She has contributed to the academic journals Callaloo,
'emisferica, and On Campus with Women.

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