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

从历史上看，美国印第安人的人均征兵率是美国任何族裔群体中最高的。南达科他州的松岭保留地是数千名奥格拉拉科塔老兵的家园，许多奥格拉拉人认为军事参与是拉科塔社会的核心组成部分。然而，没有任何地方比土著社区内的退伍军人护理更危险。除了在土著自决和文化承认方面的持续冲突外，奥格拉拉退伍军人还经常面临与贫困，疾病，药物滥用和地理隔离有关的困难。 该项目旨在了解由美国退伍军人服务部（退伍军人部）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，越南，伊拉克和阿富汗-研究还提供了一个透镜，通过它来检查联邦治理和土著生活之间的复杂和不断变化的关系。 这项研究将有助于科学的复杂模式的接口，连接不同层次的治理与当地生活，无论它是生活。数据将在南达科他州西南部、松岭印第安人保留地和附近的边境城镇收集。 世纪以来，松树岭退伍军人一直由退伍军人管理局医院在边境城镇西部。有人建议将这所医院合并为一个更远的设施。围绕该提案的听证会、文件和对话为研究人员提供了一个场所，可以记录和分析奥格拉退伍军人为寻求有效治理、适当的护理管理和自决而制定的多方面实践。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被用来产生一个丰富的了解退伍军人生活在一个历史上重要的部落。这将补充贫穷，疾病和暴力的统计数据，这些数据经常伴随着对松岭生活的描述。 这项研究还将为致力于改善行政期望与特别脆弱但知之甚少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.