Description
Book SynopsisMoves social movement theory beyond simplistic understandings of social-justice activism as either right-wing or left-wing, and urges a more open-minded approach to the role of religion in social movements. This title examines the interplay of Biblical scripture, gender, and nationalism in Christian Right and Native American activism.
Trade Review“Smith contributes a shrewdly innovative and theoretically ambitious analysis that transforms scholarship about progressive organizing and politics with her new insights on Native women organizing and theory, Christian Right arguments, and the intersections of ideas and interests that often are overlooked in western history.” - Myla Vicenti Carpio,
Western Historical Quarterly“
Native Americans and the Christian Right is an exciting and important project, one that can be improved by further research and the collection of more stories and accounts of effective change. It is written to encourage that very enterprise.” - Laurel C. Schneider,
Contemporary Sociology“
Native Americans and the Christian Right is an indispensible treatise on the radical relevance of indigenous criticism to interdisciplinary theory and all social movements. . . . Smith notably advances indigenous feminism not simply by reading ‘gender’ in indigenous politics but by engaging both indigenous and settler politics with indigenous feminist methodologies of alliance work for social change.” - Scott Lauria Morgensen,
Signs“Smith has produced a brilliant, complex, and deeply original work that will stand as an important contribution to fields as wide-ranging as Native American studies, social movement theory, political science, religious studies, and gender theory.” -
Tisa Wenger,
Journal of Church and State“[A] fascinating and complex argument. . . .
Native Americans and the Christian Right is a brave, provocative book. . . . Together with—as well as apart from—the political agenda of the book, Smith’s work presents a powerful analysis of social formation and identity articulation. She persuasively illustrates the ways contemporary Christian and Native groups alike are constituted by parties with
varying and variable interests that may align with those of unlikely allies in surprising and telling ways.” - Greg Johnson,
Journal of the American Academy of Religion“In refusing to accept the typical explanations for the motivations of both groups, Smith enriches and challenges the reader to probe deeper into these “unlikely alliances” and offers up ideas for political activism, as well as new ways to understand the deeper issues of race and gender within social and
political activism. Her work challenges scholars to re-think how they construct identity, Native peoples, gender, social activism, Native Christianity, and sovereignty. This book is clearly aimed at future scholar-activists who want to envision a new form of progressive organizing that goes beyond the current model, but it is also immensely useful to scholars of Native, religious, and gender studies who are thinking about different theoretical models for how to address complicated alliances and identities within their own work.”
- Angela Tarango,
Religious Studies Review“Not many scholars could even imagine bringing together Native women activists with the Christian Right, but Andrea Smith manages to do so with the sort of intellectual integrity that has become a hallmark of her work. Even when I disagree with her conclusions I can’t help but get swept up in the sheer joy and hope of the journey she imagines.”—
Robert Warrior, author of
The People and the Word: Reading Native Nonfiction“This is an amazing book that debunks many widely held beliefs about identity, Native activism, evangelical Christianity, sovereignty, and organizing. Andrea Smith’s analysis flows from race, to gender, to class, to nation, to income, to sexuality, to religion, and back to race in such a way that crude approximations of ideology or other notions of identity or consciousness are laid to rest. She has written an energetic and complicated work that will become an instant classic in Native studies, ethnic studies, religion, and feminist and gender studies.”—
Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of
Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California“
Native Americans and the Christian Right is an exciting and important project, one that can be improved by further research and the collection of more stories and accounts of effective change. It is written to encourage that very enterprise.” -- Laurel C. Schneider * Contemporary Sociology *
“
Native Americans and the Christian Right is an indispensible treatise on the radical relevance of indigenous criticism to interdisciplinary theory and all social movements. . . . Smith notably advances indigenous feminism not simply by reading ‘gender’ in indigenous politics but by engaging both indigenous and settler politics with indigenous feminist methodologies of alliance work for social change.” -- Scott Lauria Morgensen * Signs *
“[A] fascinating and complex argument. . . .
Native Americans and the Christian Right is a brave, provocative book. . . . Together with—as well as apart from—the political agenda of the book, Smith’s work presents a powerful analysis of social formation and identity articulation. She persuasively illustrates the ways contemporary Christian and Native groups alike are constituted by parties with varying and variable interests that may align with those of unlikely allies in surprising and telling ways.” -- Greg Johnson * Journal of the American Academy of Religion *
“In refusing to accept the typical explanations for the motivations of both groups, Smith enriches and challenges the reader to probe deeper into these “unlikely alliances” and offers up ideas for political activism, as well as new ways to understand the deeper issues of race and gender within social and political activism. Her work challenges scholars to re-think how they construct identity, Native peoples, gender, social activism, Native Christianity, and sovereignty. This book is clearly aimed at future scholar-activists who want to envision a new form of progressive organizing that goes beyond the current model, but it is also immensely useful to scholars of Native, religious, and gender studies who are thinking about different theoretical models for how to address complicated alliances and identities within their own work.” -- Angela Tarango * Religious Studies Review *
“Smith contributes a shrewdly innovative and theoretically ambitious analysis that transforms scholarship about progressive organizing and politics with her new insights on Native women organizing and theory, Christian Right arguments, and the intersections of ideas and interests that often are overlooked in western history.” -- Myla Vicenti Carpio * Western Historical Quarterly *
“Smith has produced a brilliant, complex, and deeply original work that will stand as an important contribution to fields as wide-ranging as Native American studies, social movement theory, political science, religious studies, and gender theory.” * Tisa Wenger Journal of Church and State *
Table of ContentsPreface ix
Acknowledgments xxxvii
Introduction: Why Rearticulation Matters 1
1. Set the Prisoners Free: The Christian Right and the Prison Industrial Complex 9
2. "The One Who Did Not Break His Promises": Native Nationalisms and the Christian Right 74
3. Without Apology": Native American and Evangelical Feminisms 115
4. Unlikely Allies: Rethinking Coalition Politics 200
5. Native Women and Sovereignty: Beyond the Nation-State 255
Conclusion 272
Appendix 1. A Brief Map of Christian Right and Native American Organizing 277
Appendix 2. Interviewees and Dates of Interviews 291
Bibliography 293
Index 351
