What is it about?
This article looks at use of baskets made by Coushatta women by tribal leaders as political tools to demonstrate American Indian identity and community self-sufficiency. These efforts helped the tribe achieve re-recognition from the federal government in 1973. In turn, the tribe's relationship with the Indian Arts and Crafts Board made Coushatta basketry more profitable.
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Why is it important?
The role of art as a political tool to achieve federal recognition is a new area of research, and the essay highlights the role of indigenous women on that process in a way not yet explored by many authors.
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This page is a summary of: Coushatta Basketry and Identity Politics: The Role of Pine-Needle Baskets in the Federal Rerecognition of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, Ethnohistory, January 2015, Duke University Press,
DOI: 10.1215/00141801-2821670.
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