Rez Metal (REZ)istance

Keywords: Music, Native American Studies, Indigenous Studies, ReMapping,
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Located within the Navajo Nation, this research explores Indigenous forms of “sonic resistance” through the underground Heavy Metal scene called "Rez Metal."Rez" is a term that carries a physical location and cultural meaning. This research will investigate how Rez Metal artists have challenged and reclaimed dominant historical narratives that promote the erasure of Indigenous Peoples and reinscribe stereotypes of poverty, isolation, desolation and colonial drawn boundaries of the reservation.
This research aims to show how Rez Metal resists settler colonial boundaries of map making through the production of distinctive and visual images that help to (re)map longstanding settler colonial understandings of the Indian reservations and Native people’s connection to land. Visual images are a part of how we experience, imagine, learn, and produce knowledge. (Pink, 2021: 2.). Sound too plays a distinctive role shaping our experience of the world through its various manifestations in language, music, land, and sensory experiences. Native Americans uniquely experience absolute invisibility in many domains of American life. By tracing the origins of stereotypes about Indian people and by producing new photographic images and sonic representations of contemporary Rez Metal artists, fans, and promoters, this research utilizes digital photography and the analysis of musical performance/ appreciation as critical (re)mapping practices (Goeman 2008 & Iralu 2021) to "unsettle" and push against settler created borders and "expectations" (Deloria, 2004) of how Native people should be.