Who is an American Indian?

Abstract

Who is an American Indian? This study draws on complexity theory and Deloria’s concept of spatial thinking to suggest that practical and conceptually useful qualitative differences in Indianness can be expressed by understanding tribes as complex adaptive systems (CAS). This understanding supports a model of American Indian identity that more fully reflects the diversity of Indian identities that exist and continue to evolve in the larger context of American society. American Indian identities can be placed on a continuum. At one end lies a spatially defined Indian identity fundamentally shaped and literally “grounded” in specific, geographically identifiable places. At the other end lies an aspatial Indian identity that is essentially disconnected from a geographically identifiable place and formed in the dominant American society.

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