Rezballers and Skate Elders: Joyful Futures in Indian Country

By: David Kamper

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Synopsis: Ethnographer and American Indian studies scholar David Kamper examines how Indigenous youth and adults are making basketball and skateboarding meaningful to their communities by sustaining the transmission of intergenerational knowledge and combatting intergenerational trauma. Kamper looks at how the events and tournaments built around rezball are similar to powwows in how they bring people together across localized communities and generations and he coins the phrase &“skate elders&” for those who use the social nature of skateboarding to build community and mentorships. Through a broad picture of North America, Kamper demonstrates how Native peoples have long indigenized cultural practices and material culture to assert Native sovereignty, creating joy and hope in the process. In Rezballers and Skate Elders Kamper considers how Native expressions of basketball and skateboarding show continuities with the historical transformation of practices that originated outside Indian Country to make them meaningful in Native life.