Day 134 of reading an article on Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Studies everyday:

Ronald G. Stover, “Minnesota Dakota Diaspora.” Free Inquire in Creative Sociology 40, no. 2 (Summer 2012): 53-59.

Yikes, do not read.

An absolute garbage piece of “scholarship.” Full of passive voice that serves to erase American culpability (like “thirty-eight Dakota men were hung in Mankato”). One of the worst on the US-Dakota War I have seen. Only briefly mentions the post-war diaspora on the last page.

The author had no grasp of Native Studies and uses bizarre language like “First Americans” instead of Indians or other terminology. He has a paragraph giving a variety of names for the war, most of which haven’t been used in a century & he doesn’t use the names in use today.

The author cites mostly internet sources and a number of documentaries like Kens Burns’ The West. I suspected this might be an undergrad paper, turns out the author is professor emeritus at South Dakota State. Why did this get published?

Because I'm a glutton for punishment and his other article title seemed remarkably similar, I read this one too:

Ronald Stover, “A Graphic Representation of the Minnesota Dakota Diaspora.” Great Plains Sociologist 24 (2014): 32-44.

This was obviously the same article, although somewhat rearranged and some language changed. There were a few omissions and additions, but this one said even less about the post-war Dakota diaspora. It uses the same problematic and weird language.

The author also added some maps, most of which were not alluded to in the text. They were not good maps, with little explanation, some completely inaccurate. They did not add anything to the article. Neither of these articles should have been published.