ABORIGINALITY AT LARGE: VARIETIES OF RESISTANCE IN MALISEET LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION

Abstract

Maliseet is one of many Canadian aboriginal languages that are projected to become extinct within the next twenty years. This article examines the events surrounding Maliseet language instruction that contributed to enactments of resistive strategies that corresponded to varieties of power relations—a process I call aboriginality. The local acts of resistance are situated in the Canadian nation-state ideology of “two founding cultures.” I argue the local acts of resistance challenge local asymmetrical power relations while also addressing nation-state ideologies of dominance and coercion. Initially, the focus of resistance was confined to local domains, but over a period of three years, resistive strategies changed to confront global dominance and coercion. I argue the implications of such shifts in strategies and scales of resistance reflect an “aboriginal social imaginary,” which holds promise for the survival of aboriginal languages as well as meaningful participation in the “modern social imaginary” called modernity.