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The Appropriation of Narive American Spirituality

Continuum Advances in Religious Studies

Suzanne Owen

Continuum Advances in Religious Studies is a groundbreaking series offering original reflections on theory and method in the study of religions, and demonstrating new approaches to the way religious traditions are studied and presented.

Series editors: Gregory Alles (McDamiel College, USA);
James Cox (University of Edinburgh, Scotland);
Peggy Morgan (Oxford University, UK).

'Owen's work perceptively combines the examination of complex issues involved in the appropriaton of Native Spiritualities by non-Natives with the reappropriation of traditions by a specific Native group.'
- Raymond Bucko, professor of Anthropology, Creighton University, USA

Native Americans and Canadians are largely romanticised or sidelined figures in modern society. Their spirituality has been appropriated on a relatively large scale by Europeans and non-Native Americans, with little concern for the diversity of Native American opinions. Suzanne Owen offers an insight into appropriation that will bring a new understanding and perspective to these debates. This important volume collects together these key debates from the last 25 years and sets them in context, analyses Native American objections to appropriations of their spirituality and examines 'New Age' practices based on Native American spirituality.

The Appropriation of Native American Spirituality includes the findings of fieldwork among the Mi'Kmaq of Newfoundland on the sharing of ceremonies between Native Americans and First Nations, which highlights an aspect of the debate that has been under-researched in both anthropology and religious studies: that Native American discourses about the breaking of 'protocols', rules on the participation and performance of ceremonies, is at the heart of objections to the appropriation of Native American spirituality.

Suzanne Owen completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.