Indigenous and Ethnic Minority Politics

Indigenous peoples in Mexico and the United States are some of each state’s most marginalized citizens, with past generations subjected to explicit genocidal agendas, and current communities dealing with ongoing assimilationist state projects, particularly in the classroom. Culturecide, meaning the intentional repression of cultures, including languages, is not just a thing of the past, but in fact continues via Indigenous cultural exclusion throughout Mexico and the United States. Yet some Indigenous communities are finding ways to reassert their rights to cultural survival. While many Indigenous movements have been analyzed institutionally within political parties or contentiously in the streets, Culture Kids documents Indigenous resilience within high school classrooms, highlighting the education sector as a space to challenge culturecide.

​This article examines two case studies of unsettling settler colonialism in the far north of California: the inclusion of Yurok language electives in public high schools, and land return to the Wiyot Tribe. These two cases demonstrate repertoires of Indigenous resistance to historic and ongoing culturecide—the killing of culture—and show what unsettling settler colonialism looks like in the region. The central research question in this article is: How does unsettling happen in settler colonial-controlled public institutionalised spaces in far northern California? I argue that acts of Indigenous voice-raising and place-making constitute forms of resistance to ongoing erasure of Indigenous peoples in settler-colonised spaces. Concretely, both Yurok language course inclusion in public schools and land return of Duluwat Island to the Wiyot Tribe disrupt patterns of culturecide and promote new kinds of settler-Indigenous relations in the region.

This article discusses how Sierra Leone's language regime, moderated through formal and informal education, contributes to postwar globalization dynamics. Analyzing the linguistic history of Sierra Leone, as well drawing on interviews and political ethnographic work, the study argues that language and identity shifts connected to postwar globalization reflect tensions between upward socioeconomic mobility and cultural survival. This article examines two case studies of unsettling settler colonialism in the far north of California: the inclusion of Yurok language electives in public high schools, and land return to the Wiyot Tribe. These two cases demonstrate repertoires of Indigenous resistance to historic and ongoing culturecide—the killing of culture—and show what unsettling settler colonialism looks like in the region. The central research question in this article is: How does unsettling happen in settler colonial-controlled public institutionalised spaces in far northern California? I argue that acts of Indigenous voice-raising and place-making constitute forms of resistance to ongoing erasure of Indigenous peoples in settler-colonised spaces. Concretely, both Yurok language course inclusion in public schools and land return of Duluwat Island to the Wiyot Tribe disrupt patterns of culturecide and promote new kinds of settler-Indigenous relations in the region.

This news article examines the effects of virtual learning on school-age children during the pandemic and, more specifically, how the shift away from classroom learning has changed education politics overall.  The article explores these politics in the context of Indigenous rights research, and discusses, for example, stereotypes, assimilation, and the un-schooling of harmful social and racial myths.

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Examines bilingual and intercultural education policies and practices in El Salvador and Mexico. Analyzes, in the context of legacies of assimilation and neoliberal homogenization, the way that certain kinds of citizenship become prioritized over others. By considering ethnic minority education in both El Salvador and Mexico using a comparative perspective, this article addresses the ways that indigenous people have been rendered invisible as citizens unless they are willing to assimilate in the arena of formal education.

This article examines the impact of democratization in El Salvador and Guatemala in the educational sphere, documenting narrative trends on the topic of civil wars and indigeneity in formal and informal education settings. It argues that distinct democratization and transitional justice processes have created opportunities and challenges for teaching and learning about indigenous peoples’ roles and experiences in the civil wars in each country. Methodologically, the article draws on analyses of educational policy and formal curriculum in both contexts, supplemented by ethnographic data.

Examines how minority communities use memories of state and paramilitary violence to shame states into cooperating with minority cultural agendas such as the right to mother tongue education.  Draws on six case studies in Mexico, Turkey, and El Salvador to show how memory-based narratives serve as emotionally salient leverage for marginalized communities to facilitate state consideration of minority rights agendas.