Trials of Navajo Youth: Identity, Healing, and the Struggle for Maturity

Abstract

In this article, we examine the experiences of Navajo youth living on the contemporary Navajo reservation with the aim of conceptualizing how they position themselves between overarching discursive tensions of what it means to be Navajo and the everyday constraints of existence on the Navajo reservation. We take up three topics in particular: the categorical problems and processes of Navajo youth specifically in terms of their use of such organizing terms as tradition, the multifaceted reservation and off‐reservation worlds that Navajo youth move through, and the mediating role of Navajo ritual healing in cultivating a sense of connectedness for adolescents, which in turn feeds into the broader task of negotiating a uniquely Navajo identity. This article is based on interviews with 11 adolescents and postadolescents who took part in the larger Navajo Healing Project