This dissertation pays critical attention to the "community" concept in archaeological research, casting it as the flexible and impermanent loci of identity formation and social reproduction. In three articles, it investigates various iterations and transformations of the Arikara community in North Dakota after European contact. First, I examine the ethnohistoric record of the Upper Missouri River to investigate how increased flexibility in Arikara settlement strategies during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries yielded new community configurations, with particular emphasis on Arikara coresidence with their occasional enemies, the Mandans. The second article analyzes archaeological spatial data to elucidate how the organization of open space at the nineteenth- century coalescent settlement of Like-A-Fishhook Village structured interactions between the Arikara and the Mandan-Hidatsa. The third article explores how the Arikara navigated the reconfiguration of their community space as a result of allotment policies during the early twentieth century, and how the now-inundated settlement of Nishu is situated in the social memory and contemporary identity of the Arikara people. The Arikara case demonstrates that social and spatial configurations of community are not always commensurate, and that understanding the multidimensionality of belonging requires both archaeological and ethnographic approaches.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/623151 |
Date | January 2017 |
Creators | Murray, Wendi Field, Murray, Wendi Field |
Contributors | Zedeño, Maria Nieves, Zedeño, Maria Nieves, Mills, Barbara J., Ferguson, T. J. |
Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
Source Sets | University of Arizona |
Language | en_US |
Detected Language | English |
Type | text, Electronic Dissertation |
Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
Page generated in 0.0059 seconds