Choctaws at the Crossroads

"Choctaws at the Crossroads" examines the political economy of the Choctaws at the end of the twentieth century. Forcibly relocated in the 1830s from the lower Mississippi Valley to the southeastern corner of Indian Territory, the Choctaws today are a dynamic and complex rural ethnic community in Oklahoma. Many work as non-unionised labourers for large corporations, yet they seek to maintain some aspects of their traditional way of life. Combining fieldwork and archival research, Sandra Faiman-Silva uncovers the processes by which the local economic and social practices of the Choctaws have become intertwined with and, in some respects, dependent on corporate and global economic forces. Sandra Faiman-Silva is a professor of anthropology at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts.