Indian time for nature? A multi-level approach to American Indian outdoor time in everyday life

ABSTRACT

Social scientists have utilized daily time use studies as one method of understanding everyday lives. The bulk of this research, usually quantitative, identifies broad racial, ethnic and gender differences. Yet, certain groups and questions are typically excluded in daily time use research. One such group is American Indians. To address this lacuna, we look at the deeply discussed view that American Indians are closer to nature than other US ethnic groups. We use a nationally representative sample of individual daily time use (American Time Use Survey; n = 136,960) to look at leisure time outdoors. Our results show that American Indians report greater time spent outdoors but that this is only statistically significant for those who identify as exclusively American Indian (not for American Indians that are multi- and bi-racial). This study confirms previous qualitative research that suggests American Indians have a distinct relationship with nature.

KEYWORDS:

• American Indians
• quantitative methods
• indigenous
• daily time use
• racial identity

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Australian Research Council DECRA (project number DE150100228). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian Research Council.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. As does any all-encompassing concept, the term nature affinity is limited as it overlooks the wide variety of perspectives that range from potential stereotype or trope in popular culture to what American Indians say about how their cosmologies are tied to the natural world.

2. ‘Federally recognized reservations’ are the territory of tribes recognized by the federal government through treaty, administrative process or Congressional Act. These tribes have a direct relationship with the federal government that supersedes that of state governments and tribes who are federally recognized have more self-governing rights over their reservations. Alternatively, state-recognized tribes, usually the legal vestiges from treaties before the American Revolutionary War, do not have these rights.