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M. Bianet Castellanos, Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera, and Arturo J. Aldama. Comparative Indigeneities of the Américas: Toward a Hemispheric Approach. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2012. 376 pp. Paper, $37.95.
As transnational and comparative methodologies enjoy increased attention, they are asking new questions, presenting new perspectives, and reconfiguring a host of disciplines and fields of academic inquiry. In line with these broad movements, American Indian and indigenous studies stand to benefit from reconsidering old topics in new comparative contexts. More importantly, comparative research promises to reveal entirely new topics for analysis heretofore unconsidered. The present anthology, edited by Professors M. Bianet Castellanos (University of Minnesota), Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera (Dartmouth College), and Arturo J. Aldama (University of Colorado Boulder), makes a strong statement for furthering such research. Professors of ethnic studies, American studies, and Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean studies, respectively, they bring a diversity of methodologies and interdisciplinary approaches to bear. Comparative Indigeneities of the Américas: Toward a Hemispheric Approach boasts twenty-one essays. Topical coverage is quite broad, but all contributions tie into the fundamental themes of identity and indigeneity.
The volume is divided into four parts and an introduction by the editors. The introduction presents a convincing argument: indigenous peoples across the American hemisphere share histories of "colonization, genocide, and racism" and deserve comparative analysis. The editors' conception of "indigeneity" is broad enough to include not only indigenous peoples throughout the Americas but also mestiza/o and Métis peoples by decolonizing their identities and stressing the "overlapping histories and oppositional subjectivities vis-á-vis colonial...