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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Selected Works

2011

American Indians

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Rhetorical Counterinsurgency: The Fbi And The American Indian Movement, Casey R. Kelly May 2011

Rhetorical Counterinsurgency: The Fbi And The American Indian Movement, Casey R. Kelly

Casey R. Kelly

This essay unfolds in three sections. First, I develop a theory ofrhetorical counterinsurgency and explain its refinement within theFBI as a method of threat control and management. Second, I situate rhetorical counterinsurgency within a series of migrating culturalcontexts, including the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and culturalstereotypes of American Indians. These contexts constrained theavailable interpretations of Indian, as well as non-Indian radicalism andjustified the application of techniques of counterinsurgency. Finally,I offer a rhetorical analysis of both the FBI’s use of communicativetactics as a method of counterinsurgency as well as the content of theirrhetorical constructions of AIM. I investigate two disarming …


Orwellian Language And The Politics Of Tribal Termination (1953-1960), Casey R. Kelly May 2011

Orwellian Language And The Politics Of Tribal Termination (1953-1960), Casey R. Kelly

Casey R. Kelly

From 1953 to 1960, the federal government terminated sovereign recognition for 109 American Indian nations. Termination was a haphazard policy of assimilation that had disastrous consequences for Indian land and culture. Nonetheless, termination cloaked latent motivations for Indian land within individual rights rhetoric that was at odds with Indian sovereignty. Termination highlights the rhetorical features of social control under capitalism portrayed in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), in which opposing principles are fused and inverted. This essay critiques termination’s Orwellian language to show how ideographs of social liberation are refashioned by the state to subvert Indian sovereignty and popular dissent.