CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Pregozen, Keaton |
|---|---|
| Title | Addiction as a Biopolitical Tool: The 'Drunken Indian' Stereotype and the Politics of Removal in 19th-Century United States |
| Summary | This thesis examines how the concept of addiction, particularly as reified in the 'drunken Indian' stereotype, emerges as a racializing technology that legitimates settler colonial dispossession in early 19th-century United States. It argues that addiction is not a self-evident medical condition but a historically contingent discourse mobilized to justify Indigenous elimination. The central problem addressed is how addiction, under the guise of benevolent concern, functions as a biopolitical tool during the conjunctural moment surrounding the 1830 Indian Removal Act (IRA). Methodologically, the thesis applies conjunctural analysis following Stuart Hall, tracing the articulation of addiction discourse across newspaper articles, congressional records, and missionary writings from approximately 1787 to 1830. It also employs a theoretical framework grounded in settler colonial studies, cultural hegemony, and historical sociology, particularly drawing on the works of Patrick Wolfe, Lorenzo Veracini, and Raymond Williams. The research finds that the 'drunken Indian' stereotype can be analyzed through three dominant discursive types: the ‘child,’ the ‘murderous savage,’ and the ‘doomed addict,’ with each justifying a different mode of Indigenous transfer. These representations are operationalized through legal, religious, and ideological State apparatuses, culminating in the hegemonic acceptance of removal as moral and inevitable. The thesis concludes that addiction discourse not only facilitates the racialization and removal of Indigenous peoples but also continues to shape contemporary narratives around addiction, race, and state violence. |
| Supervisor | Rajaram, Prem Kumar; Bodnar, Judit |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/pregozen_keaton.pdf |
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