Inter/Nationalism from the Holy Land to the New World: Encountering Palestine in American Indian Studies

Abstract

NAIS 1:2 FALL 2014 Inter/Nationalism from the Holy Land to the New World 125 STEVEN SALAITA Inter/Nationalism from the Holy Land to the New World: Encountering Palestine in American Indian Studies THIS ESSAY EXPLORES the conditions rendering Palestine, as both symbolic and living space and site of conflict, of interest to the field of American Indian studies (a broad field with degrees of overlap with Indigenous studies, Pacific Island studies, ethnic studies, and so forth). Numerous factors have contributed to this phenomenon, all of which illuminate valuable contexts of decolonial scholarship and advocacy. Understanding the conditions leading to what I term inter/nationalism (described below) among Natives and Palestinians offers crucial insight into the scholarly and material possibilities of American Indian studies and a variety of amenable fields. In particular, Native–­ Palestinian inter/nationalism forces us to assess the viability of, and the ethical questions inherent to, the scholarly imperatives of national liberation and its aftermath. I mainly focus on American Indian studies rather than on the more general Indigenous studies not as an overt political decision, but because this article is largely limited to North American nations. When I examine other areas of the world, I try to offer appropriate nomenclature, though all taxonomical terms used to describe Indigenous peoples are somehow contested (including the term “Indigenous”). Indeed, one of my goals is to undermine the mechanical analyses of naming, which produce conversations fundamentally entrapped in the dictates of colonization, thereby impeding the invocation of more pressing questions. This goal is not intended to demean the importance of various modes of identification; rather, I suggest that naming usually consigns us to the realm of symbolism at the expense of the intricate matters of liberatory dialogue and practice that render naming so complex and difficult in the first place—a situation arising from the peculiar juridical and discursive conventions of colonial practice. With the term “inter/nationalism” I emphasize action and dialogue across borders, both natural and geopolitical—not the nationalism of the nationstate , but of the nation itself, as composed of heterogeneous communities functioning as self-identified collectives attached to particular landbases (something I explore more fully below). Inter/nationalism is a way to ­compare Steven Salaita NAIS 1:2 FALL 2014 126 nationalisms, to put them into conversation, but also to examine how the invention and evolution of national identities necessarily rely on international dialectics. An interesting conversation that has developed recently in American Indian studies is the role of Palestine in the field, which forms the nucleus of this project. I am not merely interested in elucidating the processes by which Palestine has become a topic of interest in American Indian studies, although I will do that, but also in exploring the implications of incorporating Palestine into the field and the comparative possibilities that exist when it happens. I have discussed this topic before. My book The Holy Land in Transit was published in 2006, but I compiled most of the research for it in the early 2000s. In the book, I look at some of the ways colonial discourses in North America and Palestine arise from the same moral and philosophical narratives of settlement, examining how modern Palestinian and Native literatures incorporate and react to those discourses. Back then, there was good source material, some of which I had to mine from old documents, but the comparison of Palestine and Native America was pretty undeveloped. Ward Churchill had done some comparative analysis, as had Norman Finkelstein, neither especially strong.1 Robert Warrior had long before published his classic essay “Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians”2 and the American Indian Movement had released numerous statements in support of Palestinian nationhood .3 Thus I was not bereft of materials, but over the past few years, comparison of Natives and Palestinians has reached a level of sophistication and complexity I never could have imagined in 2006. Before I sort out what is happening in these comparisons, let me take a look at some of the reasons comparison of Natives and Palestinians has increased in recent years. I believe there are three primary factors, each with its own set of contradictions and subtexts: 1. The proliferation of blogs...