Paper short abstract:

Loopholes in US laws facilitate the unrelenting diaspora of Navajo designs impoverishing thousands of contemporary Navajo weavers. Given the sustained century-long commercialization and appropriation of Navajo designs, implementation of the UNDRIP, supporting weavers' rights will prove challenging.

Paper long abstract:

Thousands of Navajo weavers encounter intense competition sustained by the importation of "knock-offs" from over twenty countries. Although the Navajo Nation recently trademarked its name, protection for communal property rights eludes producers. Books authored by scholars containing large colour photographs of Navajo textiles are purchased by entrepreneurs and become templates for future production of knock-offs. As long as the imports are not labelled "Indian-made," sales of knock-offs are permitted because the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Board Act (1936, 1990), truth-in-advertising legislation, protects consumers, not producers. Because many Navajos endure third world living conditions, my presentation challenges political economists' support for the unauthorized re-production of Navajo designs by Latin American Indigenous weavers over the past three decades (Cohen 1998, Stephen 1991, 1993, 2005, Wood 2000, 2008). The production of knock-offs is well-publicized in books and high-profile journals such as Human Organization, Dialectical Anthropology and Cultural Survival read by thousands of scholars. Yet there has been no response from the academy acknowledging the long-term consequences of appropriation. Thus publications featuring Navajo textiles side-step the manner in which artisans are now enmeshed in globalization. Given the sustained century-long commercialization of the region and its residents, implementation of Articles 11, 20 and 31 of the UN Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples, supporting artisans' rights to protection, will prove particularly challenging.