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.

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