Professor Laurel Davis-Delano received a Springfield College Empowerment grant to fund data collection for two research projects focused on Native appropriation. Native appropriation is when non-Native people use Native American cultures, stereotypical pseudo-culture, and identities for their own purposes. In the first study, Davis-Delano worked (and is still working) with collaborators to study Native American attitudes toward Native appropriation, reasons for these attitudes, feelings when encountering Native appropriation, and behaviors taken in response to this appropriation.

In the second study, Davis-Delano worked with collaborators to study the relationship between White American attitudes toward Native appropriation and settler colonial historical memory (including glorification of colonialism, and its association with nationalism, militarism, white identity pride, and endorsement of masculine toughness). In this talk, Davis-Delano will discuss the main findings from each of these research projects.