Fungibility: Florida Seminole
Casino Dividends and the Fiscal
Politics of Indigeneity
Robert Lai
Background
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1979: Florida Seminoles open tribally
operated high-stakes bingo hall
2006: total gaming revenues reach $1 billion
Seminoles have used gaming revenues for:
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Various projects
Tribal social services
Per capita gaming dividends
Purpose of the Cattelino’s Article
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Explore the fungibility of money through a
case study of Seminole gaming-revenue
distributions
Examine how Seminoles selectively exploit
the fungibility of money to break or make ties
with one another and with non-Seminoles
Fungibility and Indigeneity
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Gambling is pure form of capitalism
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Thus Indian gaming is symbol of modernity
Money makes everything fungible
Money is responsible for impersonal human
relations
Thus, gaming revenues is seen as a threat to
Seminole distinctiveness
How Fungibility of Money Break Ties
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Gaming revenue could be used to reinforce
Native American cultural differences
Dividends can individualize people
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For example: Dividends are given to individuals
instead of nuclear families or clans
Marx: Money is “universal agent of divorce”
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Separated things with similar qualities
How Fungibility of Money Break Ties
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Seminoles “break ties” w/ fungibility of money
by:
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Reducing restrictions on economic activity that
would subject them to outside control
Three ways by which this is possible:
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Dividends give them flexibility within federal law
Dividends help establish distance from gambling
Dividends maximizes autonomy and
noninterference
How Fungibility of Money Makes Ties
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Can equate and connect things that seem
different
Make things comparable and measurable
Cash that is spent is same as other person’s
When money is made, Seminoles seem less
distinctive as a group
How Fungibility of Money Makes Ties
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Reinforces long standing leadership practices
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Example of the Green Corn Dance
Leaders gain legitimacy by sharing resources
Money conducive to Seminole political values
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Easily divisible
Its use is not easily controlled
Community Boundaries and Fungibility
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Conflicts between fungibility of dividend
money and social/biological issues
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Disagreements on whether to pay minors
“Dividend babies”
Outsiders who pretend to be Seminole
Conclusion
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The fungibility of money is used by
Seminoles to make and break ties
The article is related to the class
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Giving and exchanging of objects to build
relationships
Reference

Catellino, Jessica. (2009). Fungibility: Florida
Seminole Casino Dividends and the Fiscal
Politics of Indigeneity. American
Anthropologist, 111(2), 190-200.