Indianpreneurs and Entrepenatives: Native Nation Sovereignty and the Business of Being Cherokee

Courtney Lewis

Indianpreneurs and Entrepenatives: Native Nation Sovereignty and the Business of Being Cherokee

Monday, April 12, 2021
4:00pm

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https://duke.zoom.us/j/99864248652
Meeting ID: 998 6424 8652

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians nation boasts an unusually long history of citizen-owned businesses, but the past two decades have seen significant changes to this economy, including the launch of a casino and the Great Recession. Given these transformations, I ask: do American Indian small businesses still matter? If so, can they inform our understandings of political, economic, and even food sovereignty?

Dr. Lewis is an Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina in the Department of Anthropology and the Institute for Southern Studies. Her background in both economics and anthropology informs her work on issues of Indigenous economic justice, including her book, Sovereign Entrepreneurs, and her current work on American Indian food sovereignty.