Indigenous Activism in the Midwest

Margret McCue-Enser is a professor of communication studies at St. Catherine University. Her recent work explores the role of rhetoric of place in constituting diasporic communities. Her published research has explored the ways that Indigenous communities in Minnesota assert Indigenous terms of belonging and expose farmer-settler narratives of place and how Menominee restoration leader and first female Indigenous head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Ada Deer centers her identity and her argument on Menominee land and culture. McCue-Enser won a top article award from the American studies division of the National Communication Association and a top paper award (with Derek Sweet) from the rhetoric and public address division of Western States Communication Association. Her work has appeared in Decolonizing Native American Rhetoric: Communicating Self-Determination, Reconsidering Obama: Reflections on Rhetoric, the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication Studies, and Argumentation and Advocacy, among other outlets.

“Indigenous Activism in the Midwest offers a thoughtful analysis of the importance of places and lands for Indigenous refusal and resurgence. Using Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s theorization of refusal, grounded normativity, and radical resurgence as analytics, McCue-Enser’s analysis offers a story of Dakota ways of knowing and being in relationship with lands. Drawing upon both a critique of settler colonialism and an amplification of Indigenous-led movements for lands and life, this book demonstrates the value of and need for more scholarship in the field of communication focused on Indigenous rhetorics.”—Danielle Endres, professor of communication and director of the Environmental Humanities Program at the University of Utah