Indigenous Literature Research Articles

Witnessing the Reversal of Indigenous Erasure: My Undergraduate Experience

This essay addresses how eighteenth-century studies can be more inclusive of Indigenous scholarship and knowledge, and the possibility of decolonizing the field. It follows an autobiographical narrative of undergraduate courses and a research project concerning the oral traditions and history of the Osage Nation. My experience shows that individual professors’ mentoring and their inclusion of Native American literature, authors, and topics in course offerings are crucial to advancing the decolonization and reversal of Indigenous erasure in university settings. In the field of Indigenous studies and literature, the previous work of ethnologist Francis La Flesche, anthropologist Garrick Bailey, and historian Louis F. Burns on the Osages provides a foundation for future scholarship on this tribe. My conclusion is that the willingness of professors to offer courses on Indigenous literature, or considerations of how Native American issues relate to and influence their field of study, are key to developing BIPOC inclusion in literary academia.

A subversive memoir of the Stolen Generations

A subversive memoir of the Stolen Generations Per Henningsgaard (bio) God, the Devil and Me. Alf Taylor. Broome: Magabala Books Aboriginal Corporation, 2021. 289 pp. A$29.99. ISBN 978-1-925936-39-1 Many books have been written about Australia's Stolen Generations. There have been books of history and scholarship, of course, but among the most powerful and affecting books are the numerous works of life writing. Certainly, the best-known book about the Stolen Generations would have to [End Page 390] be Doris Pilkington's Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, published in 1996 and adapted as a film in 2002. Pilkington was a member of the Stolen Generations, but Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence tells the story of her mother's and aunts' escape from the Moore River Native Settlement, where they had been taken after being removed from their families. It is, therefore, an unusual book for being a secondhand account but told by a member of the Stolen Generations. It is also unusual for being Pilkington's second book; her first was a novel titled Caprice: A Stockman's Daughter (1991), which won the 1990 David Unaipon Award for an emerging Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander writer. Among the many other works of life writing on the subject of the Stolen Generations, it is more typical for these books to be an author's first—or even their only—book. The first Aboriginal writer to have a book published was David Unaipon in 1929. Kath Walker's book of poetry We Are Going (1964) is arguably the next major milestone in the publishing history of Aboriginal literature. Nonetheless, as Anita M. Heiss writes in her seminal book on the subject, Dhuuluu-Yala—To Talk Straight: Publishing Indigenous Literature (2003), "Aboriginal written literature did not fully develop into a distinct genre until the 1970s, 80s and 90s" (25). It was also in the 1970s that some of the earliest works of life writing on the subject of the Stolen Generations began to appear. Margaret Tucker's If Everyone Cared: Autobiography of Margaret Tucker (1977) was one of these early standout books. The 1980s saw an even greater number of these books published, including such notable titles as Glenyse Ward's Wandering Girl (1987) and Ruby Langford Ginibi's Don't Take Your Love to Town (1988). All three of these books, and many more like them, describe their authors' firsthand experience as members of the Stolen Generations, and all of them were debut books for those authors. Jump forward more than thirty years, and Alf Taylor has added an important new book to the long list of works of life writing on the subject of the Stolen Generations. In God, the Devil and Me, Taylor proves that this subject is far from exhausted, even as the individuals with firsthand experience as members of the Stolen Generations grow older and many of them pass away (Taylor himself is seventy-four years old). Indeed, Taylor addresses in his book the very topic of the death of his peers: "I'd run into a few of the boys I went to school with, ask for such and such. Sadly I'd get the same response: 'Oh, he died through alcohol,' or, 'The piss has killed him and only in his late thirties or early forties, or a drug overdose.' I mean, after going through New Norcia Mission, was death the only salvation for these young warriors of yesterday?" (210–11). Clearly, Taylor does not shy away from difficult subjects. However, confronting the hard stuff—like floggings and meals of "sheep-head broth and weevils" (56)—is not what distinguishes God, the Devil and Me from previous works of life writing on the subject of the Stolen Generations; most of them are similarly unforgiving. Rather, one thing that distinguishes Taylor's memoir is that it combines the firsthand experience of books like Wandering Girl and Don't Take Your Love to Town with the finely honed craft found in a book like Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, which can be achieved only when a book is produced in an advanced stage of that writer's career. Like Pilkington, Taylor...

Centering Bhasha (Indigenous Languages): An Ecolinguistics Perspective

The 21st February is celebrated as the International Mother Language Day to commemorate the sacrifice of Bangladeshis who struggled to keep their mother tongue (Bangla) alive. The day is also celebrated to mark respect for world’s indigenous languages (Bhasha), which are on the verge of decline and demise. Notwithstanding the fact that, increasingly, English has gained most of the linguistic ground world over, the tacit and now most vocal resistance to ‘English imperialism’ is witnessed in at least the third world countries like India and its neighbors. In fact, because of extraordinary intervention of ICT and virtual world promoters like social media, the question of English has come to be the Shakespearian question in Hamlet; “to be or not to be”. The moot point is, should we resign and accept English as fait accompali or to think of alternative ways to turn ‘English advantage’ to our side without denying the fact that indigenous languages are disappearing at an alarming rate. As far as English in multilingual, multicultural and multireligious context like that of India is concerned, one must remember that language is a cultural product and also the potent vehicle to transit culture. Language is not only the medium but also the creator of thoughts and truth. These functions of language are necessarily associated with one’s mother tongue as these are the markers of one’s identity. Indian philosopher of language Bharthari (570 AD) said that language constructs our world; jagat sarvein sabdein bhashatei (we take cognizance of the world through language). Therefore construction of meaning is at the centre of language use, which is manifested through literature resulting in gyan (knowledge) and anand (bliss), the twin objectives of literature obtainable through indigenous literature created in mother tongues. The dwindling ecological diversity and declining linguistic diversity are the two greatest challenges before the world in modern times. The following research article discusses why we should care for promoting linguistic diversity (Bhasha) and solutions thereof.

“When a Nation Has No Leader, Poets Become Its Leaders” (Ukrainian Indigenous Literature as Viewed by Yevhen Malaniuk through a Mythological Prism)

The article discusses the literary-critical and national political activity of the outstanding Ukrainian poet and states figure Yevhen Malaniuk, using a corpus of his literary-critical essays. The author analyzes the oeuvre of diasporic writers in comparison with that of indigenous Ukrainian poets and prosaists who lived under the yoke of ideological prejudices and persecutions of the Soviet era, a symbiosis of “socialist realism” with stillborn “modernism”. Yearning for their homeland, Ukrainian diasporic writers created images of Ukraine the Vision, Ukraine the Dream, Ukraine the Goal, and an ideological political myth of a nation state. Yevhen Malaniuk fulfilled this philosophical and political objective brilliantly. His mythological thinking generated the concept of Ukraine the Hellas as a phenomenon of global importance. From his perspective, only by the glorious heroics of patriots and passionaries is it possible to foster national awareness. However, even with titans such as Taras Shevchenko, Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, Ivan Mazepa, and Symon Petliura, Ukrainian society was nevertheless unable to grasp such heroic endeavors adequately. Outstanding Ukrainian cultural activists never succeeded in viewing reality from a critical perspective. The poet debunks Russian colonialism and castigates Russian pro-imperial literature, the “split” Hohol, the chauvinistic propaganda of Russian culture. Yevhen Malaniuk’s oeuvre is seen as occupying a unique role in our literature

A recepção da literatura indígena desenvolvida com o Método Recepcional de leitura

O ensino de Língua Portuguesa deve incluir o estudo da cultura indígena, de escolas públicas e privadas, possibilitando a inclusão cultural e a superação do silenciamento e da invisibilidade da cultura indígena no sistema educativo, por meio da leitura de textos literários de autoria indígena e não indígena. Neste estudo desenvolve-se uma sequência didática, com finalidade pragmática, para promover atividades vinculadas à leitura de literatura indígena, com o intuito de responder: como se dá a recepção da literatura indígena por meio do Método Recepcional de Leitura (MRL)? Dessa forma, objetivou-se apresentar e validar uma proposta de organização de ensino da leitura de literatura de autoria indígena. Assim, parte-se da contextualização do objeto de estudo, problematização e relevância. A base teórica e metodológica que nortearam a pesquisa vincula-se aos pressupostos de leitura de literatura indígena de Thiél (2012) e Graúna (2013), ao MRL, de Bordini & Aguiar (1993) ancorado na Estética da Recepção de Jauss (1994, 2002). Foi possível observar que as modalidades literárias utilizadas, neste estudo, deram voz ao autor indígena contando a sua própria história, possibilitando a superação de algumas inverdades, legado do senso comum dos últimos 500 anos sobre os povos indígenas. A travessia pelas oficinas, por meio do MRL, da vivência estética e do conteúdo, com ênfase nas reflexões das textualidades indígenas, multimodalidade e pluralidade, promoveu a ampliação dos horizontes de expectativas dos alunos, aproximando-os dos horizontes de autores não indígenas e indígenas, mostrando empatia por meio das produções artístico-literárias.

Collaborative Creative Processes That Challenge Us as "Anomaly", and Affirm Our Indigeneity and Enact Our Sovereignty

Collaborative Creative Processes That Challenge Us as "Anomaly", and Affirm Our Indigeneity and Enact Our Sovereignty

The Urgent Need for Anticolonial Media Literacy

In this article, we advocate for anticolonial media literacy as an important complement to critical race media literacy. Given the pervasive misrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in media, teachers must explicitly learn to challenge colonizing and dehumanizing representations of Indigenous life and help their students to do the same. By outlining several Native studies theories, we forward anticolonial media literacy to help teachers detect and interrupt colonial logics. After modeling anticolonial medial literacy in practice, we draw from Nambé Pueblo scholar Debbie Reese’s framework of “critical Indigenous literacies” to support teachers in including and creating respectful alternatives.

Dismantling of the Dominant European Discourse in the Poetry of Jeanine Leane

Until very recently a marginalised voice in Australian literary studies, Australian Indigenous literature has obtained an important role in the articulation of Indigenous peoples’ political thought, constituting an indictment of white Australian racism, a recuperation of neglected Aboriginal history, and a call for change. Based on the premise that literature can play an important role in both maintaining and disrupting the exercise of power, and written against the backdrop of post-colonial theory, the article deals with the collection of poems Dark Secrets: After Dreaming A.D. 1987-1961 (2010) by the contemporary Australian Indigenous author Jeanine Leane. Taking Leane’s poetry as exemplary of post-colonial textual resistance to colonialist representations, the article shows how the poet, relying on the “transgenerational blood memory” intervenes in the presupposed irreducible division between subjugating and subjugated cultures, that is, the assumptions about whiteness as a static privilege-granting category and a system of dominance upon which the logic of coloniality often stands. I argue that, by mobilising various techniques and strategies to challenge the reproduction of whiteness and affirm Indigenous Australians’ authentic, rather than an imposed cultural personality, Leane’s verse performs both personal and collective empowerment of Indigenous Australians, and represents an important site for the renegotiation of inter-racial relationships.

What Does Canadian Indigenous Literature Impart About Colonization and the Future?

This review article focuses on perspectives from Canadian Indigenous literature about decolonizing education on behalf of Aboriginal populations. The research informs accountability, education, and policy in Canada and globally. Components of colonization parsed in sources are tribal injustice, dispossession, discrimination, conflict, and miseducation. Experiential interventions for decolonizing curriculum, classrooms, and communities are described. Colonialism as a systemic problem to be tackled in education is a takeaway. Accountability in support of futurity is a life-sustaining direction.

Hannah Burdette. Revealing Rebellion in Abiayala. The Insurgent Poetics of Contemporary Indigenous Literature.

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Invoking body and voice: deixis and multivalency in the Techialoyan manuscripts

A referential, gesturing figure and the word “here” punctuate the pages of a corpus of New Spanish, late colonial manuscripts known as the Techialoyans. These pictorial and textual deictic features direct readers’ attention to specific foci in the documents. Although the presence of pictures is less common in indigenous-language documents of the later colonial period, in this case images played a critical role. In conjunction with alphabetic script, pictures harken back to earlier traditions, while simultaneously iterating a new pictorial strategy to reinforce the aim of protecting indigenous territory and political authority. This article examines the role of deictic pictures and text, as well as the multivalency of language and declamatory tone, to understand better how indigenous authors of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries drew upon earlier ritual and scribal practices in order to invent new communicative traditions. The documents’ emphasis on images, oral discourses, and performative features in addition to alphabetic text broadens understandings of what constituted indigenous literacies of the later colonial period.

Teaching Indigenous Literatures for Decolonization: Challenging Learning, Learning to Challenge

This paper examines the significance of colonial contexts that influence the teaching of Indigenous literatures. It draws upon conversations I held with Indigenous writers and with secondary educators, in which we discussed the relationships between Indigenous communities, Indigenous literatures, and classroom teaching in Canada. In dialogue with teachers’ and authors’ perspectives, this paper argues that, when Indigenous stories are told and taught, readers are invited to challenge colonial understandings and are implicated into challenging classroom experiences. The pedagogical experiences precipitated by Indigenous literatures can be difficult for teachers and students, leading to unsettling dynamics, but are importantly decolonizing. Keywords: Indigenous literatures, Indigenous education, decolonization, resurgence, métissage Cet article examine la signification des contextes coloniaux qui influencent l’enseignement des littératures autochtones. Il puise dans des conversations que j’ai eues avec des écrivains autochtones et des enseignants du secondaire au cours desquelles nous avons discuté des rapports entre les communautés autochtones, les littératures autochtones et l’enseignement en classe au Canada. S’appuyant sur les perspectives des enseignants et des auteurs, l’article soutient que lorsqu’on raconte ou qu’on enseigne des récits autochtones, on invite les lecteurs à remettre en question des perspectives coloniales et à participer à des expériences stimulantes en classe. Les expériences pédagogiques précipitées par les littératures autochtones peuvent s’avérer difficiles pour les enseignants et les élèves, et une dynamique perturbante peut en découler, mais leur rôle dans la décolonisation est important. Mots clés: littératures autochtones; éducation autochtone; décolonisation; résurgence; métissage

Maneuvering Indigenous Literature in English Language Teaching Classes

Maneuvering Indigenous Literature in English Language Teaching Classes

Decolonizing higher education in Africa: Implications and possibilities for university libraries

Decolonizing higher education in Africa, a process inclusive of indigenous literacy, is an emancipatory transformative concept that is largely grounded on critical theory, critical theory of education, dependency theory, and Afrikology epistemology. The four theoretical perspectives espouse emancipation, transformation, liberation, empowerment, inclusivity, equality, co-existence and social justice, and, to some degree, are rooted in neo-Marxist radical paradigms and can be used as the theoretical lens for analyzing decolonization and indigenization.

Deena Rymhs. 2019. Roads, Mobility, and Violence in Indigenous Literature and Art from North America. Routledge Studies in World Literatures and the Environment. New York: Routledge, 165 pp., £ 120.00.

Deena Rymhs. 2019. Roads, Mobility, and Violence in Indigenous Literature and Art from North America. Routledge Studies in World Literatures and the Environment. New York: Routledge, 165 pp., £ 120.00.

Responsive Topographies: Reading the Ontopoetics in Mullumbimby and The Swan Book

The ways in which European settlers have disrupted Australian lands, and disrupted the relationship that First Nations people have to Indigenous Country, are massive and manifold. This despoliation has deep and lasting implications because Country relies on a dialogue between people and place, and this dialogue is based on millennia of accumulated knowledges. Mitigating the despoliation requires the acknowledgement of this dialogue’s importance, and one mode of making it legible, particularly to European settlers, is through works of Indigenous literature.

Disrupting Literature: Facilitating Indigenous Book Clubs

Book clubs are typically spaces in which individuals can discuss their favourite young adult novel or interrogate controversial topics from best-selling non-fiction. At the same time, book clubs, and the literature read within, can also be used as tools of assimilation used to push political and social agendas. But what if the same book clubs that promote assimilation and conformity, privileging some literatures and forms above others, could be used as spaces to create new communities that celebrate other literatures? Book clubs can be a potential space for the discussion of lesser-known and suppressed Indigenous literatures while creating communities. However, facilitating Indigenous book clubs requires conscious planning and preparation to ensure that the book clubs engage with Indigenous literatures in an appropriate way. Additionally, facilitators, depending on the mandate, need to be in partnership with Indigenous communities to ensure that book clubs are the right program to incorporate. As such, this presentation will provide best practices for facilitating Indigenous book clubs, including topics such as determining book club mandates, selecting literatures, interpreting Indigenous texts, and creating respectful environments.

Malawi in Verse: Authenticity, African Literature, and Indigenous Aesthetic Forms

The ideophone is a distinct linguistic and literary feature that is prevalent in many African languages. It not only plays a significant role in language acquisition, but is also prized by many native speakers as the highest form of imaginative literary expression. The value and utility of oral traditions, however, have not been adequately explored within the existing western-oriented literary framework. The authentication of African literature was the subject of an intense debate at the inaugural gathering of African writers and critics at Makerere in 1962, which examined the question of what constitutes African literature. This study is a continuation of that debate. I propose that African oral forms should be centred as a critical platform for an authentic literary theory that takes indigenous African languages and literatures seriously. Three sample texts, all set in northern Malawi, two composed in chiTumbuka and one in English, are examined in order to illustrate the need to develop a more participatory aesthetics based on African experiences and sensibilities.

Disciplinarity and Decolonization in Indigenous Literary Studies

Disciplinarity and Decolonization in Indigenous Literary Studies

Indigenous land rights: where are we today and where should the research go in the future?

ABSTRACTThe indigenous struggle to secure land rights remains a highly contentious issue. This article offers a qualitative discussion of key concepts and a quantitative description of the state-of-the-art indigenous land rights literature based on bibliometric methods. It argues that a Polanyian conception of reciprocity is vital to understanding the relationship between some indigenous peoples and their land. Conceptually, reciprocity is based on the notion of interdependence. The qualitative exercise shows the difference between land rights and territorial rights. Indigenous peoples are fighting for territorial rights as they are linked to self-determination and foster cultural reproduction. The findings indicate that issues related to indigenous land rights in Latin America have generated much scholarly interest in recent times. Arguably, this trend is linked to several factors, including neoliberal multiculturalism, the pink tide, and the territorial turn. The paper highlights the need for research that focuses on social dispossession and social differentiation in indigenous communities. Specifically, it calls for research on how social differentiation plays out in the context of indigenous land rights, including how social dispossession supports the expansion of capitalism in indigenous communities.