David Kamper, Ph.D.

Professor
Email: [email protected] | Office: AL-329
Website

David Kamper has a Master's in American Indian Studies and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests include American Indian political economy, economic development, tribal sovereignty, race, gender, and culture in sports, labor studies, and American cultural studies.

His first book, The Work of Sovereignty: Labor Activism and Self-Determination at the Navajo Nation, offers a historical and ethnographic account of tribal labor relations. It explores how employees of the Navajo Area Indian Health Service use grassroots and labor activism to secure a voice in Navajo Nation politics. His research looks at how tribal self-determination is envisioned and enacted at the grassroots level as well as the tribal nation-state level.

His latest book is entitled Rezballers and Skate Elders: Joyful Futures in Indian Country, is published by the University of Nebraska Press. The book explores how Indigenous communities use basketball and skateboarding as powerful tools for cultural expression, resilience, and mentorship. Through ethnographic research, Kamper highlights how these sports foster intergenerational connection, community building, and the reimagining of tradition, offering a hopeful, sovereign vision for Native futures. These stories of Native participation in sport illustrate how indigenous people revive tradition and revitalize culture by engaging popular American culture to create new indigenous practices of meaning.

Kamper is also interested in the ways in which mainstream culture represents Indigenous peoples and the effects of these dominant representations. He has edited a book on American Indian casino gaming entitled Indian Gaming: Who Wins?