Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2010
Publication Title
Western Journal of Communication
First Page
351
Last Page
371
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10570314.2010.492821
Abstract
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.
Rights
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in WESTERN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION on July 19, 2010, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/10570314.2010.492821.
Recommended Citation
Casey R. Kelly. Orwellian Language and the Politics of Tribal Termination (1953-1960). Western Journal of Communication, 74 (2010): 351-371. Available from: digitalcommons.butler.edu/ccom_papers/28/
