Who is an American Indian? Who is Choctaw? How do Indigenous individuals and communities think about and refer to themselves? Who gets to decide who one is? Who is believed? These difficult questions have long plagued individuals and scholars who have taken a taxonomic approach based on language or social affiliation to identify and define Native Americans. Individuals' self-identifications are rarely taken into consideration in these classifications, and the many social roles individuals fill at different points in their lives or the necessary fluidity of categories for a heterogeneous population are not acknowledged. Finally, an excellent sociocultural study addresses these issues and their consequences. Anthropologists Sean M. Daley and Christie Makosky Daley spent years interviewing more than 700 individuals about their identities. The resulting book is a model for mixed-methods research, combining semi-structured interviews and surveys leading to the identification of social variables such as family, language, culture, personal preference, and the impact of life experiences. It demonstrates how personal and community identities serve as both protective shields and believable declarations of who a person is. Highly recommended. All readers.

Choice Reviews

At last! A detailed report illuminating the demographic, geographic, cultural characteristics of the diverse category of tribal citizens and non-citizens who identify as American Indian or Alaska Native. Grounded in many hundreds of qualitative and quantitative interviews, this welcome addition to the research literature also invites its participants to discuss what lies behind their shared identity assertion. Themes emerge related to ancestry, family and community connections, spiritual practice, relationships to the natural world, and more.

Eva Garroutte, Boston College

This book makes an important contribution to a literature on Indigenous identity that had previously been primarily theoretical or grounded in personal experiences without systematic organization or analysis. The authors present data from a large, diverse, thoughtfully planned study, applying a robust yet not rigid methodology. The result is a clearly articulated multitude of voices describing complex, nuanced, and sometimes contradictory perspectives on Indigenous identity.

Hilary Weaver, professor emeritus, University at Buffalo