Indigenous Textual Cultures: Reading and Writing in the Age of Global Empire ed. by Tony Ballantyne, Lachy Paterson, and Angela Wanhalla (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Indigenous Textual Cultures: Reading and Writing in the Age of Global Empire ed. by Tony Ballantyne, Lachy Paterson, and Angela Wanhalla Savannah Esquivel (bio) Indigenous Textual Cultures: Reading and Writing in the Age of Global Empire edited by Tony Ballantyne, Lachy Paterson, and Angela Wanhalla Duke University Press, 2020 INDIGENOUS TEXTUAL CULTURES examines literacy practices and communication technologies in Indigenous societies impacted in particular by British and French intrusion in the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries. Literacy has often been examined from the point of view of imperial agents or anti-colonial leaders. Indigenous Textual Cultures shifts focus by highlighting the potency of orality and auditory practices. It contends Indigenous societies used alphabetic literacy to intervene in emergent transregional communication networks, often sustaining Indigenous knowledge practices through a "symbiotic relationship" between literacy and orality (149). A range of studies examines how Indigenous textual literacy exposed contradictions within colonial matrices of power, undermined the authority of the written or printed word, and compelled colonial agents to rethink material and discursive contours of mass literacy campaigns. The volume delivers a nuanced picture of how Indigenous mobilizations of literacy created new intellectual forums in an increasingly interconnected world. Indigenous Textual Cultures presents a range of approaches for uplifting the writing and reading practices of Indigenous societies from models that place literacy and orality in opposition. On the one hand, contributors deftly engage canonical debates about literacy and orality to establish a framework for delinking settler-colonial perspectives and historiographical antecedents from analyses of writing and reading in Indigenous communities. By showing that Western notions of literacy do not align with the Indigenous knowledge traditions inscribed on paper or recorded on cassette tapes, the authors in this collection underline the necessity for new interpretative approaches that address the push-pull dynamics of literacy and incorporate the perspective of Indigenous writers, readers, and listeners. On the other hand, the volume's meticulous examination of the sonic contours of a range of "texts" in imperial and ancestral languages—from grief chants to pidgin-language newspapers, didactic narratives to radio broadcasts—opens up new avenues for analysis of the performative and imaginative [End Page 195] dimensions of Indigenous literacy practices. Indeed, examining Indigenous writing through the lens of the "durability of orality" (196) reminds us that colonial impositions could serve as potent vehicles for expressing Indigenous priorities. Organized thematically into four parts, Indigenous Textual Cultures intersects with recent work on textual media and communication systems often engaged on a hemispheric level. The volume's twelve chapters and introduction focus on southern Africa, Australia, North America, and the Pacific Islands. Notably, the collection enfolds scholarship on imperial and vernacular literacies in Africa, initiating a conversation that transcends disciplinary and geopolitical boundaries. The first part, "Archives & Debates," engages the underutilized archive of Indigenous-language sources in the Pacific. Studies demonstrate Indigenous societies actively participated in writing and used textual practices and technologies for the intergenerational exchange of knowledge embedded in oral culture. In particular, Lachy Paterson stresses the "interplay of oral and textual forms" (92) when documents were read out loud as a reminder that nonwriters were nevertheless active participants in literacy culture. The second part, "Orality and Texts," examines how Indigenous communities maintained a "primacy of orality" (136) alongside new communicative practices, technologies, and skills. The introduction of writing fostered auditory practices that bolster Indigenous historical memories and oral recitation structures. The third part, "Readers," focuses on the creation of new publics, notably centering societies for whom colonization and the introductions of writing and reading is a living memory. Here, studies of literacy transmission reveal Indigenous peoples engaged with newspapers in vernacular and imperial languages, Christian radio broadcasts, and missives in unexpected ways, compelling missionaries and bureaucrats to reformulate strategies to accommodate the preferences of new Indigenous publics. The fourth and final part, "Writers," considers how Indigenous literacy intervenes in colonial textual regimes that erase and rework Indigenous texts. By examining how Indigenous writers take a "portfolio approach to authorship" (247), the authors posit an expansive notion of literacy to encompass the dynamic social relations embedded in the practices Indigenous writers mobilized when writing for their own communities. The most compelling chapters in Indigenous Textual Cultures...