Essay On Indigenitude

Juan Gómez-Quiñones’ (2012), Indigenous Quotient, Stalking Words: American Indian Heritage as Future, is a creation of two essays: the first part is an attempt to counter the historiography surrounding Indian identity, culture, and history; the second half reveals the theory of Indigenitude and why it is important to incorporate the studies of the Indigenous into school curriculum. The term “Indigenitude” is presented by Gomez-Quinones as a shift from other terms that commonly label the Indigenous. His purpose in doing this is to take into consideration the ideas, thoughts, social and cultural heritage and any other history of the indigenous in order to better understand the indigenous. The incorporation of indigenous history is important in order to challenges the historiography that promotes disparagement of Indian heritage and a fundamental …show more content…
Rodriquez’s work and research is guided by a series of elder interviews (dialagoues) and a collaborative research relationship with elders. Rodriguez utilizes maiz as a decolonizing concept, such research is full of dangers, such as the violation of privacy and exploitation of knowledge, and misapplication of Western ideas, theories, language, and vocabulary to Indigenous universe, therefore all of these things can lead to a misinterpretation (Rodriguez, 11). Overall these two pieces of work bring to light the importance of Indigenitude or indigeneity, both of these authors are known for challenging the American history, and bring attention to the missing pieces of that history. This essay will carefully analyze both pieces of work, and compare the “Paradigm of Six” by Gómez-Quiñones, and the “Seven Maíz Based Values” by Rodriguez to see how they related to each