Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant: "U.S. Veterans:" Two Fronts of Veteran Care among the Oglala, Lakota

历史上，美国印第安人的人均应征入伍率是美国所有种族中最高的。南达科他州的松岭保留地是数千名奥格拉拉·拉科塔族退伍军人的家园，许多奥格拉拉人认为参加军事活动是拉科塔社会的核心组成部分。然而，在原住民社区，退伍军人护理面临的风险最大。除了围绕土著民族自决和文化认同的持续冲突外，奥格拉拉退伍军人还经常面临与贫困、疾病、滥用药物和地理隔离有关的困难。本项目旨在了解以美国退伍军人事务部（VA）为代表的高度管制的国家权力领域如何与土著社区的文化习俗和实际现实相结合。通过比较不同时期的退伍军人——第二次世界大战、朝鲜战争、越南战争、伊拉克战争和阿富汗战争——这项研究还提供了一个视角，通过这个视角来审视联邦政府治理与土著生活之间复杂而不断变化的关系。这项研究将有助于建立一门科学，研究将不同层次的治理与当地生活联系起来的复杂界面模式。数据将在南达科他州西南部、松树岭印第安人保留地和附近的边境城镇收集。一个多世纪以来，松树岭退伍军人一直在位于西部边境城镇的VA医院接受治疗。已提出一项建议，将这家医院与较远的一家医院合并。围绕该提案的听证会、文件和对话为研究人员提供了一个记录和分析奥格拉拉退伍军人为寻求有效治理、适当护理管理和自决而开发的多方面实践的场所。研究人员将采用混合方法，包括生活史、半结构化访谈、调查和档案研究。计算机支持的定性文本分析软件将用于对历史上重要部落的退伍军人生活产生丰富的理解。这将补充关于贫穷、疾病和暴力的统计数据，这些数据经常伴随着对松树岭生活的描述。这项研究还将为致力于改善行政期望与特别脆弱但鲜为人知的人口之间的契合度的社区和决策者提供信息。

Historically, American Indians have had the highest per capita rate of military enlistment of any ethnic group in the United States. Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, is home to thousands of Oglala Lakota veterans and many Oglala view military participation to be a central component of Lakota society. Yet nowhere is veteran care more at risk than within Native communities. In addition to persistent conflicts over Indigenous self-determination and cultural recognition, Oglala veterans often face hardships associated with poverty, illness, substance abuse, and geographic isolation. This project seeks to understand how the highly regulated domain of state authority represented by the United States Department of Veterans Services (the VA) interfaces with the cultural practices and practical realities of Indigenous communities. By comparing veterans of different periods -- World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan -- the research also provides a lens through which to examine the complex and ever-changing relationship between federal governance and Indigenous life. This research will contribute to a science of the complex modes of interface that connect different levels of governance with local life wherever it is lived. Data will be gathered in southwest South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and in nearby border towns. For over a century, Pine Ridge veterans have been served by the VA hospital in a border town to the west. A proposal has been made to consolidate this hospital with a more distant facility. The hearings, documents, and conversations around this proposal provide the researcher a venue in which to document and analyze the multi-faceted practices that Oglala veterans have developed for seeking effective governance, appropriate management of care, and self-determination. The researcher will employ a mixed methods approach, including life histories, semi-structured interviews, surveys, and archival research. Computer-enabled qualitative text analysis software will be used to produce a rich understanding of veteran life in a historically important tribe. This will supplement the statistics of poverty, illness, and violence that so often accompany descriptions of life on Pine Ridge. The research will also provide information for communities and policy makers committed to improving the fit between administrative expectations and a particularly vulnerable but poorly known population.