Holding Our Ground: Voices and Strategies Against Self-Indigenization w/ Kim TallBear
The Red Nation Podcast
The Red Nation
4.8 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 6 April 2026
⏱️ 78 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
TRN Podcast Nick Estes live in conversation with Kim TallBear about the conference they organized, Holding Our Ground: Voices and Strategies Against Self-Indigenization.
You can watch the individual panels that were livestreamed on our YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKWiQX270BMoLRv25dDskRfsJ2pptPf3Z
Conference description:
"This two-day, hybrid symposium will convene leading experts, community members, and "first responders" to the global issue of self-Indigenization, particularly in the form of "Indigenous ethnic fraud," or "pretendianism," as it is referred to in North America.
The symposium will be held in Minneapolis, on the traditional homelands of the Dakota people, who were imprisoned and eventually exiled in 1863 to aid settler appropriation of "Minnesota," a word also taken from the Dakota. On top of seizing land, US citizens have for centuries "played Indian" via sports mascots and appropriating Native nation names and iconography in scouting and in industries including the military. In the twenty-first century, we see ballooning numbers of US citizens make mythological claims to belong to Native lineages and nations. Some capitalize on those claims to appropriate Indigenous resources and opportunities, and to seize governance of institutions. We see an obviously violent example of self-Indigenization in the Department of "Homeland Security" whose agents seize governance of these lands, terrorize, imprison, and threaten to exile. As multiple forms of self-Indigenization converge, not all are grasped as violent, yet they combine to further colonial extraction.
Extractive self-Indigenization, including Indigenous ethnic fraud, not only targets American Indians, but also First Nations, Métis, and Inuit in Canada; and global Indigenous communities in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, and elsewhere. This symposium will bring participants together to engage in critical discussions, learn from one another, and discuss actionable strategies to disrupt this global problem."
Empower our work:
GoFundMe:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/empower-red-medias-indigenous-content
Subscribe to The Red Nation Newsletter:
https://www.therednation.org/
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I'm You're |
| 0:26.6 | Hamatakiapi, you are listening to a recorded episode with Kim Tallbear that was streamed on our YouTube channel on March |
| 0:41.7 | 4th of this year. |
| 0:43.9 | We are talking about a conference that was held here called Holding Our Ground, Voices |
| 0:49.8 | and Strategies Against Self-Indigenization. |
| 0:53.9 | This two-day symposium focused on topics about self-indiginization, also commonly known |
| 1:01.1 | as Pretendianism. |
| 1:03.1 | Kim is faculty in our department here at the American Indian Studies Department. |
| 1:09.4 | She's also an expert and a public's commentator on this |
| 1:13.8 | particular phenomenon. This conversation really prefaces the entire conference, which was held |
| 1:23.3 | over two days, entailed about eight different panels and guest speakers. |
| 1:28.8 | We were fortunate enough here at Red Media and Red Nation to live stream four of those panels, |
| 1:37.8 | which we are making accessible in audio version on our Patreon. |
| 1:44.7 | First and foremost, you can subscribe to get early access at patreon.com |
| 1:50.9 | backslash redmedia PR. |
| 1:53.2 | That's patreon.com backslash red media PR. |
| 1:58.3 | Those recordings include a panel on the Odak Abanaki in Vermont and their struggle to get to get |
| 2:10.3 | big Abanaki tribes held accountable is detailed there. We also did a panel on the role of the media and resisting |
| 2:21.4 | self-indiginization, a conversation with Cherokee scholars on sovereignty and identity. And we |
| 2:29.2 | did the last recording of the day, which was going beyond self-identification, which was looking |
| 2:36.4 | at institutional and state policy responses to this problem of self-indigenization. |
| 2:42.1 | There was a lot of high-profile academics, tribal leaders who attended this particular |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Red Nation, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Red Nation and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.