Indigenous Peoples in Texas: Research to Strengthen Sovereignty
Team Advisor/PI
Project Description/ Research Team Goals
Native Peoples in Texas have been historically marginalized and often denied access to their traditional lifeways. Throughout the 19th Century, a deliberate strategy of violence against Native Texans meant many tribes were nearly erased: physically, culturally, and historically. Native populations were driven into hiding, and families concealed their family identities from their own children. In result, many Native Texans only discovered their true genealogies later in life as a result of family confessions or, today, DNA testing. The intermingling of borderlands across the state also means that many Native People have the ancestry of multiple tribes, often from both current-day Mexico and the United States.
In recent years, Native communities – long denied recognition and frequently referred to as “extinct” by official records – have reclaimed their heritage and demanded more recognition within local communities. Locally, this can be seen in the creation of organizations such as the American Indian Center of Houston and the newly reconstituted Karankawa Tribe of Houston. Increasing awareness and political action to defend ancestral homelands are reshaping Texans’ understandings of Native populations, culture, and history. Critical to this work is learning about and preserving the memories of Native Texans and identifying core challenges for and the needs of Indigenous Populations throughout the state.
Oral history is a critical tool for understanding Native populations, not only because of its use as a means of data collection and cultural dissemination, but because it connects to larger traditions of orality and storytelling common to many Indigenous Peoples. As researchers, engaging with communities – especially traditionally marginalized communities – demands leveraging research tools that respond to culturally specific contexts. As our partners have specifically requested oral histories be conducted, this method of data collection both respects community needs and desires, and, properly conducted, not only honors Native communication forms, preserves Native histories, but also allows to collect a wide array of datapoints to advance Native Sovereignty with our partners.
We are partnering with the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project (a Texas non-profit organization dedicated to reconnecting Native Texans to their historic foodways and culture) on this project. Connected to a recent data survey on Indigenous Texans, we will be performing oral histories with community members and elders throughout the state via phone and zoom. Through this, we will:
- Collect histories to better understand past and present Native lives in Texas, correcting conscious historical absences.
- Synthesize data to better understand common experiences, needs, and challenges to Native sovereignty throughout the state.
- Identify the needs of Native communities to better promote access to resources and political mechanisms to build Native sovereignty in Texas.
- Preserve these histories for future generations and ensure the data and findings are publicly accessible.
Issues Addressed
Indigenous history; Indigenous sovereignty; community-engaged research; qualitative data analysis; threats/challenges to Indigenous populations in Texas; resources for Indigenous peoples in Texas; Indigenous culture; food security; Indigenous health.
Research Methods and Technology
Oral History; Interviews; Community Engaged Research; Quantitative Data Analysis (Atlas.TI, AI Transcription software); Grounded Theory
Preferred Undergraduate Interests
Oral history/interviewing methods; history; interest in traditionally marginalized communities/Indigenous Peoples; qualitative data analysis.
Academic Majors of Interest
Open to all
Prior Preparation/Requisite Experience
None needed
Compensation
Work study-eligible students may receive compensation from OURI.
Course Credit
UNIV 290.002
Team Meeting
Weekly for 1 hour; time TBD
Actively Onboarding New Members
Yes
Ready to Apply?
Use the linked Google Form to submit your application!
Contact
For more information, please email Dr. Weston Twardowski (jwt5@rice.edu).