Lakota experiences of (in)security: cosmology and ontological security

ABSTRACT

The security experiences and understandings of Native Americans can greatly impact the study of security in field of International Relations (IR). This article analyzes experiences of the Lakota Sioux in order to provide new insights into the conceptualization of security in IR, particularly around the notion of ontological security. It does so by unpacking various aspects of Lakota cosmology and then ethnographically exploring Lakota lived-experiences of (in)security. Lakota understandings offer glimpses into new constellations of being, premised on relations, purpose, balance and unity. This work represents multi-year interpretivist research on a Lakota reservation in the Great Plains, United States, and finds that Lakota cosmology provides significant insight to how traditions, culture and spirituality establishes a sense of security.

KEYWORDS:

• Security
• Lakota Sioux
• decolonization
• ontological security
• cosmology

Acknowledgments

For what I have come to learn about Lakota security and cosmology, I am eternally grateful to the many friend and teachers on the Lakota reservation, many of whom opened their doors and their hearts. I hope this work humbly honors their strength, wisdom and their continued efforts (in this world and the next) to reinvigorate their ways and culture. I am also appreciative of the anonymous reviewers, as well as John Little, Sahar Sattarzadeh, and Brooke Ackerly for their instructive feedback and edits. For this work, I received Institutional Review Board approval (ID# 575100-4) and Tribal Council approval (Memorandum dated 17 June 2014).

Disclosure statement

This article was originally submitted, reviewed and accepted before the author formally took up the post of Book Reviews Editor for IFJP. There is no conflict of interest to report.

Notes on contributor

Justin de Leon, Ph.D. is at the University of California, San Diego and teaches about class, race, gender, injustice, and Indigeneity. His research engages the Indigenous resurgence literature that explores the importance and potential of new modes of Indigenous sovereignty and recognition, locating his work at the intersections of critical security studies, gender studies, and Native American Studies. De Leon is a Rotary World Peace Fellow and award-winning documentary filmmaker.

Notes

1 Italics are used with Lakota words not to emphasize difference; rather, to recognize English translations do not fully does not capture meaning(s) of the Lakota words.

2 I utilize Native American (or Indigenous) as a noun, referring to original inhabitants of the Americas, while using indigenous as an adjective, as the pre-Columbian past. I give preference to Native because this is how the Lakota community refer to themselves.

3 Using “Third World” is to gesture to difference created within a colonial context (see Mohanty 2003). For more on Asian Settlers see Fujikane and Okamura (2008).

4 The term (in)security refers to the “indissoluble relation” of security and insecurity (Stern 2006b, 177). That is, struggles over security are intertwined with threat and danger.

5 This is not a comprehensive overview or authoritative account of Lakota cosmology. Though Lakota cosmology plays a significant role in the lives of many, this is not the only way Lakota live. Like any living culture, traditions and practices grow, adapt, change, are contested and navigated.

6 For omissions within IR, see Stern (2005), Shaw (2008) and Beier (2008, 2013).

7 There is a lot of diversity within the Lakota. They are one of seven Council Fires (or bands) that make up Oceti Sakowin, or Sioux Nation. Four bands (Mdewakanton, Wahpeton, Wahpekute and Sisseton) are known as Dakota, two (Yankton and Yanktonai) the Nakota, and the Teton (the largest band) the Lakota. The Lakota consist of further seven sub-tribes (Sichangu, Oglala, Itazipcho, Hunkpapha, Mnikhowozu, Sihasapa and Oohenunpa) residing on four reservations in North and South Dakota (Cheyenne River, Pine Ridge, Rosebud and Standing Rock). This work is derived from a specific time, location, and moment and not representative of all Lakota experiences. Additionally, the term sioux is problematic, as it stems from Chippewa and French words – Nadowessi is Chippewa for little serpent and -oux is French pluralizing, forming Nadowessioux, or little serpents (Makes Good 2009).

8 For instance, integrating Indigenous perspectives in IR (Wilmer 1993; Crawford 1994; Epp 2000; Geeta and Nair 2004; Beier 2005; Stern 2005, 2006a, 2006b; Lightfoot 2016), impact of Indigenous cases on democracy (Bedford and Workman 1997), indigenous pluralistic security communities (Crawford 1994, 2006), Indigenous contributions to diplomacy (Beier 2005, 2009, 2013; De Costa 2009; Parisi and Corntassel 2009; Stewart-Harawira 2009) and Indigenous contributions to self-determination (Kuokkanen 2009, 2011). Indigenous experiences influences on social ordering such as multi-layered arrangements of sovereignty and political arrangements (Deloria and Lytle 1983; Jaimes 1992; Boldt and Long 1985; Boldt 1993; Kymlicka 1989, 1995; Tully 1995; Ivison et al. 2000), Indigenous engagements with international institutions (Lightfoot 2008, 2016), establishment of post-colonial sovereignties (Chatterjee 1986, 1993; Nandy 1983) and treaty relations and self-determination (Lightfoot and MacDonald forthcoming).

9 Embracing messiness accounts for an array of feminist security scholarship, including women and military structures (Enloe 1989, 2000; Herbert 1998; Whitworth 2004; Belkin 2012), femininity for war-making (Bayard de Volo 2001; Haq 2007; Yuval-Davis 1997; Woollacott 1998), rape in war (Baaz and Stern 2009; True 2012), domestic violence and warfare (Mrsevic 2001) and patriarchal societies and war-fighting (Enloe 1987, 1998; Cockburn and Zarkov 2002; Cockburn 2004; Whitworth 2004; Duncanson 2013).

10 There is a vast amount of CAS literature, generally divided into distinct approaches and sharing common critiques of traditional approaches (CASE Collective 2006; Gad and Peterson 2011; Rumelili 2015). This review is not a comprehensive overview; rather, a slice of relevant works to understand ontological security in relation to Lakota experiences.

11 Placing Lakota cosmology into conversation with ontological security highlights an important tension. Must Indigenous concepts be placed as a function of or in relation to Western conceptual constructs? Indigenous knowledge does not need Western mediation. I write because I am aware of my audience: IR studies of security. My aim is to suggest IR theorizing can be expanded by attentiveness to Indigenous experiences and knowledges.

12 Ontological security initially concerned itself with individual-level phenomena and expanded by Mitzen (2006) and others (Huysmans 1998; Zaretsky 2002; Kinnvall 2004; Steele 2005) to examine both individual- and state-levels (see Krolikowski 2008).

13 Solomon (2013) is unclear in describing affective attachments. My interpretation is informed by Shouse (2005), describing affect as,

A non-conscious experience of intensity; it is a moment of unformed and unstructured potential. […] affect is the most abstract because affect cannot be fully realized in language, and because affect is always prior to and/or outside of consciousness. […] affect is what makes feelings feel. It is what determines the intensity (quantity) of a feeling (quality), as well as the background intensity of our everyday lives.

14 J. Marshall Beier (2005) refers to a “Western cosmological ascendancy” that limits epistemological and ontological possibilities, defining the “boundary between the ridiculous and sublime” (45).

15 To a person, all could speak to community histories and impacts of forced removals, assimilation policies, and urban relocations. Additionally, I recognize insecurity has immediate material exigencies that are situational, contextual and contingent. I wish not to that portray security is not experienced as physical – manifestations of multiple power relations (white supremacy, racism, classism and/or settler colonialism) provide real challenges the Lakota navigate daily. These realities are both temporal and persistent – temporal as the Lakota have persevered through various waves of oppression and persistent in that settler colonialism configurations reflect the “remarkable durability and dexterity of racial ideologies and practices” (Benjamin 2016, 153).

16 This approach places researcher as a productive aspect of data collection (Shehata 2006; Jackson 2011). For more on political ethnography see Schatz (2009) and Pachirat (2011), the importance of nonverbal expressions and “meta-data” see Fujii (2010), ethnography within political science Wedeen (2010), ethnography within critical theorizing Vrasti (2008) and participant observation in the exploration of (in)security Ratelle (2013).

17 I am open to the idea my methodology is, in fact, not feminist nor Indigenous. Much like Stern (2006) who raises a similar dialogue, asking, “Why is my method feminist? My answer is simple: it is not necessarily feminist” (196–197). This project is not to define feminist or Indigenous research; but rather, born out of perceived limitations of IR theory. I suggest this research is feminist because it is based on feminist methodological convictions (articulated by Tickner 2005; Stern 2006; Schwartz-Shea and Yanow 2012) and is inspired by Stern (2005). I offer it is Indigenous since it (1) foregrounds Indigenous voices, experiences and knowledges and (2) is based a critical perspective to research and its pernicious impact on Native communities (Smith 2012; Wilson 2008; Tuck 2009).

18 Archival research was conducted with an ethnographic sensibility in both Native and non-Native archives, including Oglala Lakota College Woksape Tipi Library (Kyle, SD); Tribe’s Cultural Preservation private library; public libraries on reservation and in surrounding towns; Wounded Knee Museum in (Wall, SD); National Museum of the American Indian (DC) and American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia, PA). Participant observation took place at community gatherings, community meetings, powwows, Tribal Council meetings, spiritual ceremonies, Keystone XL resistance group gatherings, Bigfoot Wounded Knee Memorial Rides, Carlisle Industrial Indian School, President Barack Obama’s visit to Standing Rock, family gatherings and daily routines and conversations.

19 For instance, the National Guard was conducting dental exams and it was suggested by community members that the National Guard was on reservation to show the military can penetrate Lakota territory at any time. On multiple occasions, in person and on the phone, I was warned of conversations being tapped. On another instance, a military-style airplane flew over town in a low pattern, sparking conversations (online and in person) suggesting, however jokingly, the US military was conducting raids.

20 Community members had a remarkable understanding and awareness of various insecurities caused by US policy. To a person, all could speak to community histories and impacts of forced removals, assimilation policies, and urban relocations. Additionally, I recognize insecurity has immediate material exigencies that are situational, contextual and contingent. I wish not to that portray security is not experienced as physical – manifestations of multiple power relations (white supremacy, racism, classism and/or settler colonialism) provide real challenges the Lakota navigate daily. Settler colonialism configurations reflect the “remarkable durability and dexterity of racial ideologies and practices” (Benjamin 2016, 153).

21 This article uses pseudonyms and identifying information has been masked. This is in accordance to pre-fieldwork methodological convictions that shaped research protection consent protocols. Because interviews focused on security, anonymity provided space to speak candidly about family, community, tribal and national affairs. Additionally, no one was aware of others being interviewed. I struggle with anonymity versus proper attribution, particularly because of feminist citation practices that act as a corrective to continued silencing of particular voices. Though I share nothing sensitive and I assume most would be fine with proper attribution, I choose to uphold the consent agreements. My sensitivities to erasure and silencing were superseded by efforts to create safe spaces for those with whom I interacted. Jennifer is a Lakota mother of two that spent her life on and off reservation, interview 21 July 2014.

22 Beatrice is a young Lakota mother, 14 August 2014.

23 Roger is a middle-aged Lakota man participating at a spiritual ceremony, 3 August 2014.

24 Conversation with Penny, a Lakota woman in her 40s, 4 April 2014.

25 Maryanne is a respected Lakota grandmother, interviews on 7, 10 and 18 August 2014.

26 The Chanupa is a sacred pipe that allows for closer connection to Creator. The Manifestation of God for the Lakota is the White Buffalo Calf Woman, who came to show how to live and pray and bestowing upon them a sacred pipe. While there are multiple sacred pipes used in various ceremonies, the original pipe from the White Buffalo Calf Woman is still kept in possession of the Lakota. Filled with sacred tobacco, the pipe would be equivalent to the Arc of the Covenant, or a physical representation of the relationship between Creator and humanity. Juliette is a Lakota grandmother in an area with highest concentration of “full blooded” Lakota, 23 July 2014.

27 Veronica is a Lakota grandmother who teaches at the local school, 4 August 2014.

28 Marshall is a Lakota man in his 60s who, along with holding a central role in the affairs of the tribe, also has been active in the preservation of Lakota traditional practices, 23 July and 8, 10 and 18 August 2014.

29 Ian is a respected Lakota grandfather for storytelling and traditional dancing, 5 July 2014.

30 Ian.

31 Maryanne.

32 Maryanne.

33 In 1948, the Army Corp of Engineers constructed the Oahe Dam in the Missouri River and flooded 155,000 acres, eliminating available timber and natural foods. In 1876, Black Hills were taken and opened to mining. The Cheyenne River flows from Black Hills to Missouri River is currently one of the most polluted rivers in the state with large quantities of cyanide, zinc, arsenic and uranium. Broken treaties include Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851, 1868 and 1877.

34 Interview with Penny, 23 June 2014.

35 Penny.

36 Emma, 5 April 2014.

37 Penny, 3 April 2014.

38 For more on human spiritual qualities and global politics, see Penn and Malik (2010).