The effects of colonization on the Indigenous peoples of the Américas over the past 500 years have varied greatly. So too have the forms of resistance, resilience, and sovereignty. In the face of these differences, the contributors to this volume contend that understanding the commonalities in these Indigenous experiences will strengthen resistance to colonial forces still at play. This volume marks a critical moment in bringing together transnational and interdisciplinary scholarship to articulate new ways of pursuing critical Indigenous studies.

Comparative Indigeneities of the Américas highlights intersecting themes such as indigenísmo, mestizaje, migration, displacement, autonomy, sovereignty, borders, spirituality, and healing that have historically shaped the experiences of Native peoples across the Américas. In doing so, it promotes a broader understanding of the relationships between Native communities in the United States and Canada and those in Latin America and the Caribbean and invites a hemispheric understanding of the relationships between Native and mestiza/o peoples.

Through path-breaking approaches to transnational, multidisciplinary scholarship and theory, the chapters in this volume advance understandings of indigeneity in the Américas and lay a strong foundation for further research. This book will appeal to scholars and students in the fields of anthropology, literary and cultural studies, history, Native American and Indigenous studies, women and gender studies, Chicana/o studies, and critical ethnic studies.

Ultimately, this deeply informative and empowering book demonstrates the various ways that Indigenous and mestiza/o peoples resist state and imperial attempts to erase, repress, circumscribe, and assimilate them.

M. Bianet Castellanos is an associate professor of American studies at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of A Return to Servitude: Maya Migration and the Tourist Trade in Cancún. Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera is an assistant professor of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean studies and anthropology at Dartmouth College. Arturo J. Aldama is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is the author of Disrupting Savagism: Intersecting Chicana/o, Mexican Immigrant, and Native American Struggles for Self-Representation.

“This substantial edited volume includes contributions from more than twenty scholars who together provide an impressive range of scholarship on issues of indigeneity, mestizaje, ethnicity, hybridity, and race across the Americas and Caribbean.”—AlterNative
 
“Comparative Indigeneities’ surprising content will become a turning point in the academic fields of Mexican American, Native American, and transnational American studies.”—Studies in American Indian Literatures
 
“A much-needed interdisciplinary volume that gives voice to Indigenous peoples across the Western hemisphere in their continuous struggle to decolonize their own identities and ways of life.”—Canadian Journal of Native Studies

“This book goes beyond identifying and diagnosing colonial and neo-colonial identity constructs. It works to reveal and heal the rifts and disassociations between and among North American Indian, Chicana/o, and Latin American formulations of—and claims to—Indigeneity.” —Analisa Taylor, author of Indigeneity in the Mexican Cultural Imagination: Thresholds of Belonging

“This interdisciplinary collection is a significant contribution to the important, emerging field of comparative indigeneities.”—Irene Lara, San Diego State University