Little Chahta News Bird: Indigenous Periodicals and the Performance of Nationhood

ABSTRACT: This article explores the Biskinik , a monthly newspaper produced by the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and in continuous circulation since 1978. It draws together methodological and theoretical investments from Native American and Indigenous Studies and Performance Studies in order to demonstrate how tribal newspapers such as the Biskinik are active sites of nations performing themselves. They curate actions and enact a story in which the nation is central. Explicating how performance and performativity reveal the ongoing process of Indigenous sovereignty within periodical publication, the article focuses on a 2022 issue of the Biskinik . It argues that the Biskinik should be read as a curation of Choctaw performance and a performance of Choctaw-ness, and as such the newspaper enacts nationhood in a complex and continuous movement of connection.