From the Gold Rush to the Cryptocurrency Code Rush?: Communication of Currencies in Native American Communities
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Date
2019-09-18
Authors
Cordes, Ashley
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
This study unravels histories and locates meanings of specific Native and colonially imposed currencies from the 1850s to present day. Existing literature tends to reproduce colonial stereotypes of Native American peoples as technologically primitive, and has not addressed the shifts/integrations from land-based to emerging forms of digital currency. To intervene, this dissertation focuses on two case studies in which currencies–as communication technologies–are dynamic parts of much larger stories. The first case study focuses on land-based currencies–gold, coins, and beads–in the period of Oregon’s Gold Rush, specifically during the Rogue River War (1853-1856) between Native peoples and invaders/settlers. Additional chapters provide supplementary histories of related currencies and detail the political, social, and cultural shifts to digital currencies. The second case study centers on a limitedly used Indigenous cryptocurrency, or digital peer-to-peer currency, with a contested history and an explicit resistance to the U.S. dollar. Grounded in three theoretical areas, currency as communication and media, currency as entwined with nations, and de/post/settler colonialism, this dissertation works to answer a number of questions, mainly: What might the meanings embedded in land-based currency from the colonial past communicate about the present, and how does Indigenous digital currency of the present address the colonial past? Building on existing work, one finding of the first case study suggests that America’s democratic identity crisis was codified on currencies that were then used to dominate and shut out the various types of Native currencies in circulation. However, forms like shell and glass beads did not “vanish” after the Colonial Era, and remain as meaningful communicative forms that signify tribal identity present day. Findings of the second case study reveal how cryptocurrencies can be encoded with visions of tribal sovereignty, and can potentially serve tribal nations. However, they have proven problematic to implement. Further, this case study explicates the roles that racist discourses, circulated by journalistic media, play in contouring the meanings of Indigenous cryptocurrency. Native peoples have always found ways to challenge capitalism and settler colonialism. One way is through choices, re-articulation, and technological innovation around currencies.
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Keywords
communication, cryptocurrency, currency, Indigenous, media, Native American