Category talk:Indigenous painters of the Americas

Re-inventing the wheel

Indigenous people of the Americas consistently means all Indigenous peoples of the Americas. I created most of these categories, as part of WP:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Discussion about the use of the "Native American" and "Indigenous peoples of the Americas" can be found throughout Wikipedia, but here's the discussion that resulted in the move from "Native American art" to Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas: Talk:Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas/Archive 1#Requested move. Throughout the categorization process, Indigenous peoples of the Americas categories cover all Indigenous peoples of the Americas, while "Native American" is defined as people indigenous to what is now the United States. Category:Native American people reads "This category lists notable Native Americans in the United States, for the most part by a number of sub-categories." Category:Native American artists reads "This is a category for Native American visual artists belonging to tribes from the United States" and is a subcat of Category:Indigenous artists of the Americas. Category:Native American painters reads "This category is for American Indian painters," which should probably be amended to included Alaskan Natives. It is a subcat of Category:Indigenous painters of the Americas. I created all the "Indigenous painters of Americas," which is probably overcategorization, when User:SarahStierch was creating what is now "Template:Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas" populated exclusively by categories. -Uyvsdi (talk) 17:34, 7 August 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Native means the same thing as indigenous, and sounds much better - why can't Native be used instead of indigenous? I can tell you indigenous is avoided especially in Canada and areas of French influence, as explained at Native American name controversy. So for instance I would rather see this category become "Native painters of the Americas". If you want to arbitrarily separate out 16th-century Natives from the future US and Puerto Rico in Category:16th-century Native Americans, then a new category above that is needed: Category:16th-century Natives of the Americas to hold Natives from outside the US, with corresponding subcats for painters. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 18:18, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Native and indigenous does not mean the same thing, except in some limited contexts. "native painters of the Americas" would include all painters born in the Americas, not just those who are "Native American" (in the US) or belong to an Indigenous people (Latin America) or First Nations (Canada). The concept of "Indigenous People" are preferable because it is a conceptual framework that is coherent across the globe and which is used in international legislation abd which does not rely on essentialist identity categories such as genetic heritage, or place of birth. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:45, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Every single one of these terms is loaded and delicate. Indigenous peoples of the Americas consistently through Wikipedia means all indigenous peoples of the Americas. "Of the Americas" clearly expresses both North and South America. To many people, "Native American" suggests "American" which suggests the "United States." I have friends that don't like the term "indigenous," others don't like "Native Americans," some hate "Natives" pluralized, some don't like "Aboriginal," and others don't like "American Indian." Yes, there is a diversity of opinions out there; however, the only things that matters here is what can be cited. Regarding "Indigenous" not being used in Canada, numerous authors would beg to differ.

If you peruse, the categories, there is a consistency in nesting and descriptions. Category:Indigenous people of the Americas -> Category:Native American people, which is described as "This category lists notable Native Americans in the United States, for the most part by a number of sub-categories." Category:Indigenous artists of the Americas -> Category:Native American artists, described as "This is a category for Native American visual artists belonging to tribes from the United States." Category:Indigenous painters of the Americas -> Category:Native American painters. Etc etc etc.

Incidentally, all the Native Americans by century categories, such as Category:16th-century Native Americans, the "Native Americans link in the description links to Native Americans in the United States.

Yes, the tribes and some of the individual peoples predate the existence of the United States. That's what "indigenous," "native," and "aboriginal" mean — the ethnic group predate the colonists and the nation-states in a region. The descriptions could easily be changed to say, "This page contains Native Americans, indigenous peoples from the present day United States, that are notable for actions during the 16th century." -Uyvsdi (talk) 00:07, 8 August 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi

We use 'Native American' for a reason, because it is the most common term and not 'Indigenous American', which is avoided for the same reason. I don't get the idea that 'Indigenous' is more "international", and there are stronger reasons for avoiding it altogether and replacing it with 'Native' across the board. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 01:17, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

So, that talk would be about renaming articles or categories, which should take place at Talk:Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Category talk:Indigenous peoples of the Americas, or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America. The issue at stake here, with the subcategories for this category is that you have twice reverted my removal of subcategories. -Uyvsdi (talk) 02:04, 8 August 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Til, in some circles "native" (little "n") is highly offensive, though just "Native" or "Native people" (capital "N") sometimes is not, at least between Native people, but white people saying it can be a minefield. (And I can't explain this to you, you have to sort of be there to get the nuance, notice how I am trying to use a lot of care in how I phrase things here). "Indigenous" is a word least likely to cause offense to one group or another. "Native American" has two problems: one is that it only is used for Native people in the 48 contiguous United States and is not really used in Alaska, Hawaii, Canada or Mexico. Also, to some people who are American Indian, it is viewed as a phrase created by academics to distinguish American Indians from Asian Indians and they consider it rather pretentious and not a word they choose to use (though also not inherently racist, so there's that). So let's just drop this entirely. Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Canadian First Nations People, Hawaiian Native people and the Native peoples of Latin America are ALL "indigenous." It's a perfectly fine word with less potentially racist baggage that would be offensive to the people so descriibed. Also, used by the United Nations, which counts for something. Montanabw^(talk) 21:02, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Funny, we were just talking about the difference between having sources for your assertions, and not having any. I haven't seen anything like a source yet suggesting what you're saying about "native" being offensive to anyone. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 21:25, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

This is a pretty good informal analysis of the situation: the main thing is the tone in a lot of ways. Just as an example of the "n/Native" thing,, [http://nativeappropriations.com/2013/07/i-saw-the-lone-ranger-so-you-dont-have-to.html "Capital N" Native is used. Don't feel like digging around on this, the issue is more the AIM crowd that loathes "Native American" too. Yet, to go and start saying "Indian" again, we will be constantly be flooded with accusations of racism from folks familiar with academe. What I have run into (just a "this is my story" comment) is that it is usually not too much "drahmahz" to say "Native American" to academics, do your best to call a person by their tribal affiliation, and just LISTEN to whether they prefer "Native" or an "Indian" as the generic, because I've seen that vary between two people in the same tribe! As Uyvsdi said, this is absolutely a no-win situation. Montanabw^(talk) 22:55, 9 August 2013 (UTC)