Copyright by Leighton Craig Peterson 2006
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Copyright by Leighton Craig Peterson 2006 The Dissertation Committee for Leighton Craig Peterson certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: TECHNOLOGY, IDEOLOGY, AND EMERGENT COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICES AMONG THE NAVAJO Committee: _________________________________ Joel Sherzer, Co-Supervisor _________________________________ Pauline Turner Strong, Co-Supervisor _________________________________ Samuel Wilson _________________________________ Elizabeth Keating _________________________________ Keith Walters TECHNOLOGY, IDEOLOGY, AND EMERGENT COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICES AMONG THE NAVAJO by Leighton Craig Peterson, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2006 Acknowledgments There are numerous people who both supported me personally and participated directly and indirectly in the planning, research, and writing of this dissertation. First and foremost, I’d like to thank my extended relations on the Rez and off, including the Halonas, the Nalwoods, the Walters, and the Bitonis. I owe an especially large debt to both Oswald Werner and Tazbah McCullah, who supported and nurtured both me and my work on the Navajo Nation from the beginning, many years ago. Thank you. I would also like to thank my many other consultants and colleagues (most of whom shall remain anonymous, but I hope you know who you are), including Bennie Klain, Linda Sloan, Karen Halona, Bill Riddle, Selena Manychildren, Phil Bluehouse, Starrla Curley, Tillman Long, James Maize, Irene Silentman, Sharon Maize, Roseann Willink, Julie Silentman, Marley Shebala, and Ana Nalwood. Furthermore, this dissertation would not have been possible without the expert advice and knowledge from experts in Navajo and Native American history and linguistics including Kathy M’Closkey, Jim Faris, Jennifer Denetdale, Loriene Roy, the Navajo Language Academy, Ellavina Perkins, Ely van Gelderen, Loraine Legah, Ted Fernald, and Leonard Faltz. I would also like to thank Tom Arviso, the publisher of the Navajo Times, for his insights into media and for granting me permission to use their wealth of images for this dissertation. For their help with archival research, I am indebted to Eunice Kahn at the Navajo Nation Museum and Deborah Bush at the Clinton Presidential Library. I am also grateful to Ron Maldonado at Navajo Nation Historic Preservation Department for his iv guidance and oversight, and to Joey Walker at the University of Texas for her help with grant applications and compliance. I was also blessed with two of the best dissertation advisors anyone could ever hope for, namely Polly Strong and Joel Sherzer. Their expertise, advice, and continuous patience with me are what got me through graduate school, fieldwork, and the agonizing writing process. My debt to both of them is incalculable. I was also lucky to have an excellent committee, with whom I have had many great discussions and taken many wonderful classes. I owe them a great deal, so my heartfelt thanks to Elizabeth Keating, Sam Wilson, and Keith Walters. I was lucky to have an amazing group of peers at the University of Texas, who helped me through the stressful times and supported and augmented my intellectual horizons. I wish to give a heartfelt thank you to Chris Beier, Lev Michael, and Anthony Webster, and most especially Faedah Totah, who diligently read multiple drafts of my dissertation while writing her own. Of course I couldn’t have done any of this without my parents and my family, as well as great friends with great insights, including Bennie Klain, Gwendolyn Saul, and Pieter Remes. Thank you. The research and writing of this dissertation were supported by a Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation (#0345787), an Individual Research Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation (#6991), a University of Texas Co-op Graduate Research Award, a Continuing Fellowship from the University of Texas, and a Research Fellowship from the Science, Technology, & Society Program at the University of Texas at Austin. v TECHNOLOGY, IDEOLOGY, AND EMERGENT COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICES AMONG THE NAVAJO Publication No.______ Leighton Craig Peterson, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2006 Supervisors: Joel Sherzer and Pauline Turner Strong This dissertation examines emerging cultural attitudes, language ideologies, and discursive practices among Navajos and Navajo speakers through the lens of new media technologies on the Navajo Nation. New media such as cell phones and the Internet are significant features of contemporary Navajo communities, and act as both a context for and medium of linguistic and cultural vitality and transformation. They have opened new vi spaces for Navajo language use, generated emergent uses of the Navajo language, and increased the spaces of language contact and change. This dissertation explores the ways in which ideologies of language and technology have shifted and converged, and describes multiple instances of the transformative nature of technology through the mediation of communities. New technologies do not exist in a vacuum, and novel practices emerge from a wide range of existing observable styles, registers, and norms in Navajo communities. Significant are the shifting geographies of communication, expansion of social networks, and increased circulation of bilingual Navajo hane’, or publicly shared “tellings” in the form of stories, jokes, and information that accompany them. This work analyzes the appearance of new media technologies in contemporary Navajo society within broader discourses of modernity and narratives of progress about, and among, Navajo communities. New technology is not incommensurate with existing practice; rather, emergent practices are part of the broader circulation of Navajo identities, defined here as a process linked to social activities, and emergent practices index the ways in which some Navajos are “doing” community in unexpected ways and unexpected places. New expressive forms and genres have appeared, including a migration to English emails by previously monolingual, illiterate elders, the transition of traditionally oral genres to widely circulated emails, and the appearance of locally created bilingual hip-hop music. These are crucial developments that have immediate implications for Navajo language vitality and cultural continuity. vii Table of Contents Table of Contents.............................................................................................................viii Table of Figures .................................................................................................................. x Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................................... 1 Mediated Discourse, Mediating Community............................................................. 12 Doing Fieldwork: Sights & Sites.............................................................................. 21 Methodology .................................................................................................... 22 Participation ..................................................................................................... 27 Ethical Commitments....................................................................................... 31 The “Navajo”............................................................................................................. 32 Overview.................................................................................................................... 37 Chapter 2: Níhízaad Niilyá: Navajo as a Living Language ............................................. 40 Language Ideologies.................................................................................................. 42 Language Ideology: A Navajo View............................................................... 45 The Sacred & the Mundane ............................................................................. 50 On Separating Language & Culture................................................................. 54 Language & Identity.................................................................................................. 57 Vitality ............................................................................................................. 61 Valorization...................................................................................................... 68 Navajo Ways of Speaking—and Being ..................................................................... 73 “Standard” Navajo ........................................................................................... 76 Language Contact & Emergent Forms............................................................. 80 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 86 Chapter 3: The Social Life of Technology ....................................................................... 89 The Gift...................................................................................................................... 92 “Access” to Technology................................................................................... 96 The Road to Modernity.................................................................................. 105 Discourses of Tradition,