This feeling of being together with your own: Indigenous gatherings in late 20th century Philadelphia

This dissertation traces the role of indigeneity in the formation of Philadelphia and the politics of performance and gathering in the resurgence of Indigenous people in the city during the late 20th century. Covering the 1970s and the 1980s, This Feeling of Being Together With Your Own examines how the fashioning of Philadelphia as a multicultural urban center relied on strategic inclusion of Native peoples. Throughout, Indigenous peoples held various gathering events that functioned as moments of embodied knowledge sharing and an assertion of Indigenous presence as modern people. At the center of this study is Philadelphia’s urban Indian center, The United American Indians of Delaware Valley (UAIDV), a place for both socializing and social services. UAIDV envisioned a world of what they called self-sufficiency for Indigenous people in which they could become economically vibrant community that simultaneously relied on wide inter-Indigenous social networks. These social networks were anchored in Indigenous models of recognition and a responsibility toward Lenape lands on which UAIDV built their community. Through gathering practices and performance, UAIDV enacted a multitribal politics of place that encouraged Indigenous people in diaspora to be in relation with Lenape territory as the pathway toward their own futures. Across five chapters I argue Native people were an active presence in the cultural development of Philadelphia and the body was a central feature in the economic, political, and social strategies of UAIDV. Through the sharing of knowledge in moments of gathering, a diasporic Indigenous consciousness developed whereby Indigenous peoples enacted a series of relations with an investment in multiple futurities.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Ridgway, Morgan L.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Oberdeck , Kathryn J
• Davis , Jenny L
• Burton, Antoinette
• Asaka , Ikuko
• Somerville , Siobhan B

• history
• Indigenous studies
• urban history
• performance
• queer Indigenous studies

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Morgan Ridgway

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115414

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F115414