Danielle Dominique Lucero

DANIELLE D. LUCERO, then a graduate student at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, was awarded funding in April 2021 to aid research on “Indigenous Citizenship, Reproductive Nation Building, and Contemporary Pueblo People,” supervised by Dr. Bryan Brayboy. Studies of Indigenous citizenship by legal scholars and anthropologists have frequently approached the topic through juridical-political frameworks that understand Indigenous identity through self-identification or specific sets of ascribed cultural practices. This dissertation examines existing tribal enrollment practices’ impacts on the reproductive and social labor of Pueblo people through an interdisciplinary lens, with specific attention given to Pueblo women’s perspectives on rules governing tribal membership. In particular, it asks how tribal enrollment regulations have impacted dating, child rearing practices, and traditional family structures within Pueblo communities. Through semi-structured interviews and photovoice elicitations with 24 individuals, the researcher unpacks Pueblo peoples’ experiences navigating the fraught relationships between identity, race, gender, and place. This work highlights the social precarity of mixed race and intertribal people in Indigenous communities, as well as the interplay between traditional Pueblo membership practices and settler colonial “shadow systems” within tribal governments. By exploring participants’ experiences with interpersonal/romantic relationships in their families and home communities, this study expands the understandings of the sexed and gendered dynamics of Pueblo identity, governance, and belonging. A key finding of this project supports the notion that Pueblo communities rely on women’s reproductive and social labor to ensure cultural and demographic continuity into the future.