We All Live Downstream: Relational Accountability and Futurity Praxis on Display in the Illinois River Valley

Abstract

This thesis examines a forty-year t-shirt printing tradition within a Choctaw family as an example of an unexpected tool for Indigenous community building and knowledge preservation. By analyzing thirty-six annual t-shirt designs associated with a place-based kinship network centered on the Illinois River, the author applies a framework of relational accountability to show how these shirts operate as wearable archives that document kinship and place-based history. The research implements methods of personal storytelling and utilizes Social Network Analysis to quantify artistic design elements. Both the qualitative (storytelling) and quantitative (Social Network Analysis) approaches to the data reveal that inner tubes and human relatives are central to the place-based kinship network. These shirts serve as mnemonic devices that resist settler-colonial structures by treating the land and water not as resources, but as vital members of a reciprocal kinship network. Ultimately, the project argues that creative, localized practices, like annual t-shirts, can effectively repair historical ruptures and sustain Indigenous identities for future generations.