PUBLICATIONS
January 2002 Issue
The Geographical Review
January 2002, Vol. 92 (1), pp. 23-44
MANAGING PLACE AND IDENTITY: The Marin Coast Miwok Experience
Jennifer Sokolove, Sally K. Fairfax, and Breena Holland
Keywords: claims, Coast Miwok, identity, Native
Americans, Point Reyes National Seashore, public land management.
ABSTRACT:
Group identity serves as a mechanism for
claiming rights of control and access to land in the United States.
Public land managers face myriad identity-based claims to land in
their care, especially in coastal Marin County, California. Identity
shapes claims that must appear valid within the strictures of a legal
system created by a dominant culture to serve its interests. The very
form of those systems--of which public lands are a large part--makes
possible the expression of particular forms of identity. The story of
the Coast Miwok community and the Point Reyes National Seashore
suggests that geographical links among identity, landscape, and
history are actively constructed through political work but rarely
are as obvious as they first appear. Both the formal legal process of
federal tribal recognition and restoration and the far less formal
Coast Miwok claims to land at Point Reyes National Seashore teach
important lessons about neotraditional identity-based claims to
public land.
Keywords: claims, Coast Miwok, identity, Native
Americans, Point Reyes National Seashore, public land management.
ABSTRACT:
Group identity serves as a mechanism for claiming rights of control and access to land in the United States. Public land managers face myriad identity-based claims to land in their care, especially in coastal Marin County, California. Identity shapes claims that must appear valid within the strictures of a legal system created by a dominant culture to serve its interests. The very form of those systems--of which public lands are a large part--makes possible the expression of particular forms of identity. The story of the Coast Miwok community and the Point Reyes National Seashore suggests that geographical links among identity, landscape, and history are actively constructed through political work but rarely are as obvious as they first appear. Both the formal legal process of federal tribal recognition and restoration and the far less formal Coast Miwok claims to land at Point Reyes National Seashore teach important lessons about neotraditional identity-based claims to public land.