July 3 – Guest Lecture “‘You can go dig him out of his grave’: Anishinaabe Resistance to Racialization in the 1910s” 🗓

Professor Jill Doerfler will detail the various ways in which White Earth Anishinaabe/Ojibwe people described their identity and shrewdly resisted US racialization efforts in the 1910s. She will examine the concept of blood quantum including US legal definitions of “mixed-blood” and “full-blood” and the economic motivation behind those definitions. She will also discuss both the historic and contemporary significance of identity.

Jill Doerfler is a professor and department head of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. She grew up on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota and is the daughter of an enrollee. Dr. Doerfler has lectured and published widely on the topics of citizenship, blood quantum, and constitutional reform. Her monograph, Those Who Belong: Identity, Family, Blood, and Citizenship Among the White Earth Anishinaabeg, examines staunch Anishinaabe resistance to racialization and the complex issues surrounding tribal citizenship and identity. She also co-authored The White Earth Nation: Ratification of a Native Democratic Constitution with Gerald Vizenor and co-edited Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World Through Stories with Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair and Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark. Recently, she co-edited a special guest issue of American Periodicals with Cristina Stanciu and Oliver Scheiding focused on cultural and political work of Indigenous periodicals.

You can download the poster for the event here.