In this ethnography of Navajo (Din’©) popular music
culture, Kristina M. Jacobsen examines questions of Indigenous
identity and performance by focusing on the surprising and vibrant
Navajo country music scene. Through multiple first-person accounts,
Jacobsen illuminates country music's connections to the Indigenous
politics of language and belonging, examining through the lens of
music both the politics of difference and many internal
distinctions Din’© make among themselves and their
fellow Navajo citizens. As the second largest tribe in the United
States, the Navajo have often been portrayed as a singular and
monolithic entity. Using her experience as a singer, lap steel
player, and Navajo language learner, Jacobsen challenges this
notion, showing the ways Navajos distinguish themselves from one
another through musical taste, linguistic abilities, geographic
location, physical appearance, degree of Navajo or Indian blood,
and class affiliations. By linking cultural anthropology to
ethnomusicology, linguistic anthropology, and critical Indigenous
studies, Jacobsen shows how Navajo poetics and politics offer
important insights into the politics of Indigeneity in Native North
America, highlighting the complex ways that identities are
negotiated in multiple, often contradictory, spheres.