The Walls Came Tumbling Up: The Production of Culture, Class and Native American Societies

Abstract

In this paper, two historical moments in the continual formation of Native American societies are examined: the creation of distinct and bounded ‘Indian’ societies in the south‐eastern colonial United States, and the recent internal differentiation of the Lumbee Indian peoples in North Carolina. Four issues are at stake: the production of difference and inequality within and between Native American societies; the formation and transformation of ‘culture’ in this context; a re‐examination of the concept of class; and the simultaneous production of culture and class among indigenous peoples and perhaps more generally. This leads to a suggestion concerning the problem of hegemony in struggles over inequality.