Studying African-Native Americans

Book excerpt: This book examines the academic study of the African and Native American contact, African cultural change in Native America, as well as the existence of African Americans with Native American ancestry and Native Americans with African ancestry in the Western Hemisphere. Drawing upon the fields of anthropology, history, and sociology that initiated research into these areas, this book attempts to provide understandings of how scholars have studied and continue to understand the experiences of African-Native Americans or individuals of blended − culturally and/or racially − African and Native American ancestry in the North, Central, and South America. It aims to illuminate problems, perspectives, and prospects for interdisciplinary research. The first part is structured to cover the problems – past and present − encountered in investigating the scope of the topic and presents an overview of the most important academic findings. The second part provides both anthropological and interdisciplinary perspectives on the lived experiences of African-Native Americans with both Native Americans and non-Native Americans. And, finally, it sketches out future directions in scholarship. This book will be of interest to anthropologists, historians, sociologists, and Ethnic Studies and Native American and Indigenous Studies scholars, from undergraduates interested in the topic to graduate students and researchers seeking to interrogate past research or fill explanatory gaps in the literature with new research.