Indian Country

"Illustrated with fascinating images and photographs, Valaskakis' accounts are dense, intensely researched, theoretically sophisticated, and highly personal. The result is impossible to summarize, but tremendously enlightening and interesting to read." -- Margery Fee -- Canadian Literature, 191, Winter 2006
"One of the volume's strong points is its elimination of the artificial border we call the 49th parallel dividing Turtle Island into Canada and the United States. Another is that throughout the volume Valaskakis continually gives examples of the relationships between Indian people and non-Indian people ... in a well-balanced manner.... I recommend this volume highly to anyone who wishes to learn ... about the worldview of Indian people." -- William Asikinack
"There are books you wait for, patiently, because you know that when they finally arrive, your patience will be rewarded. I have been waiting patiently for Gail Guthrie Valaskakis's Indian Country: Essays on Contemporary Native Culture and my patience has been rewarded! These essays are a joy to read, filled with insights not only on Native culture, experience, and politics but also on the value and practice of cultural studies. Indian Country is one of those books you will share with your colleagues, assign to your students, and recommend to your friends. It is, quite simply, one of the best books on questions of culture, identity, and belonging that I have read in a long time." -- Lawrence Grossberg, Morris Davis Distinguished Professor of Cultural Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -- 200504
"Indian Country is an excellent example of the emerging paradigm of indigenous scholarship in its blend of the personal with indigenous and mainstream academic theory. It is firmly grounded in the personal lived experiences of the author, which ground and inform the theoretical analysis and reflection." -- David Newhouse, Trent University, Peterborough
"Creates an intriguing and insightful account of `interrelated realities: individual and collective, past and present, Indian and Other.'... Having read Valaskakis's book, researchers in 'Indian Country' will never again consider Native people and their articulations `transparent' but will extend their research into composite methods of `interpreting practice, decoding silence, and reconstructing absence' -- only to arrive at `truths' [that] are ... changeable and ambiguous." -- Renate Eigenbrod -- University of Toronto Quarterly, Letters in Canada 2006, Volume 77, Number 1, Winter 2008
"Indian Country is a perceptive analysis of the interrelated histories and family encounters of Natives in Canada and the United States. Gail Guthrie Valaskakis weaves the distinct narratives of personal experiences, political practices, treaties, and social science observations into a mature, memorable collection of critical essays." -- Gerald Vizenor, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley