Indigenous Literature

Written oral history: Dimensions of identity of Chukotka’s indigenous people in the works of Rytkheu

by Ivan Sablin

published in AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, vol. 8, no. 1, 2012, pp. 27–41.

Through the examination of two autobiographic works of Chukchi writer, Rytkheu, this study demonstrates the research... more Through the examination of two autobiographic works of Chukchi writer, Rytkheu, this study demonstrates the research potential of indigenous literatures, offering a new perspective on the past and present of indigenous peoples. The study seeks to provide new interpretations of identity in Chukotka, the northeastern extremity of Asia, of the 1930s and 1940s and to contribute to the identity debate in indigenous studies. In the article identity is understood as a multidimensional whole, with the discussed dimensions being based on ethnicity, nationality, occupation and place of residence. The article pre-eminently addresses the identity of the coastal sea-mammal hunters of Chukotka.

Entre las islas y el mar: fragmentación y fluidez en la poesía mapuche urbana

by Erika Rodriguez Hernandez

To be presented at the Madison-Wisconsin Civil Disobedience/Acts of Resistance Graduate Student Conference in March.

Después de siglos de experimentar re-organizaciones de tierra y territorio, el pueblo mapuche actual se encuentra con... more Después de siglos de experimentar re-organizaciones de tierra y territorio, el pueblo mapuche actual se encuentra con una nueva etapa de etnogenesis debida a la migración a las ciudades chilenas. Previamente marginalizados por su indigenidad en la ciudad y por su urbanidad en el pueblo mapuche, los warriache (mapuche urbano), ahora constituyen más de 70% de la población mapuche (Boccara 296).  Esta reelaboración de varias identidades mapuches plantea la pregunta de “how to define a Mapuche identity in this new context in which the ‘people of the land’ had lost their direct tie to the land” (Boccara 296). Desde el contexto urbano nacen con el nuevo mapuche diferentes maneras de mantener su identidad mapuche a pesar de la distancia entre ellos y su tierra de origen, e incluso esta distancia contribuye a la identidad del mapuche urbano. Boccara observa que una de las maneras en cual los mapuches urbanos se pueden adaptar a la ciudad y mantener una conexión con su tierra de origen es “through the spiritual, and imaginary character of the link to the home(land)” (296). Este vínculo espiritual e imaginario representa la experiencia nostálgica para el mapuche urbano. Debido a que se sitúan en un lugar urbano los poetas David Añiñir y Graciela Huinao se acercan a una visión nostálgica del pasado que no se enfoca en los puntos fijos que definen lo mapuche y lo urbano, sino el espacio que cae entre ellos. Tanto en “Malen Ko” de Añiñir como en “Los gansos dicen adiós” de Huinao el espacio que crean los poetas entre los puntos fijos de lo mapuche y lo urbano constituye una forma de resistencia. Al enfocarse en este espacio ambos poetas se apropian de la distancia entre su punto de origen y su posición actual y usan este nexo para negociar y extender la identidad mapuche. Los poetas desarrollan el tema de la nostalgia de maneras distintas, Huinao se enfoca en la fragmentación de su experiencia y Añiñir en la fluidez. Sin embargo, al vincular el sujeto del poema al espacio de la naturaleza y discutir el habla o silencio del sujeto, ambos mantienen tradiciones mapuches mientras extienden las posibles interpretaciones de la identidad mapuche. En términos de negociar la identidad, David Añiñir cuestiona las expectativas sociales para el mapuche urbano y Graciela Huinao crea conciencia sobre los vacíos en las historias indígenas. De este modo ambos poetas valorizan el mapuche urbano, quien tiene el poder de desarrollar su propia hibridez y de entrar en dialogo con los fragmentos de su historia cultural y contribuir a ella. En este sentido su acercamiento a la nostalgia es una forma de resistencia contra la indiferencia a la historia indígena y a sus experiencias actuales.

The Deficits of History: Terms of Violence in an Arapaço Myth Complex from the Northwest Amazon

by Janet Chernela

Full Citation:  Chernela, Janet and Eric Leed.  2003.  The Deficits of History: Terms of Violence in an Arapaço Myth Complex from the Brazilian Northwest Amazon,  In Language and Social Identity, ed. Richard K. Blot. New York: Bergin & Garvey.  Pp. 39-56.

How is a collective identity generated and preserved in the vicissitudes of population dispersal and decimation? The... more How is a collective identity generated and preserved in the vicissitudes of population dispersal and decimation? The myth cycle of Unurato answers this question, and places the figure of the whiteman in a native context of related identities. It provides some evidence about the way in which categories of personhood are defined by the Eastern Tukanoan Arapaço of Brazil. The myth is posed against an historical treatment of the Arapaço in order to reveal some of the ways that native systems of meaning render coherent the experience of a people who both lived, (and in Hugh-Jones' words, suffered) that history and constructed it.

Indigenous Knowledges in Latin America and Australia: Locating Epistemologies, Difference and Dissent | December 8-10, 2011

by Victoria Grieves

This two day symposium and one day film festival will bring together Indigenous educators and intellectuals from Latin... more This two day symposium and one day film festival will bring together Indigenous educators and intellectuals from Latin America to Sydney to meet with interested Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educators, scholars and activists, as well as non-Indigenous practitioners and allies, to discuss different models and approaches of Indigenous KnowledgeS and Education in the tertiary sector and beyond.

This project aims at helping educators and researchers in the Higher Education sector of Australia and Latin America to identify opportunities for integrating in their research and teaching and learning relevant aspects of Indigenous Knowledges in the areas of culture, education and sustainability.

Apart from the symposium itself, academic publications, public lectures by distinguished visitors and the creation of a website, the project will stimulate debate on Indigenous Knowledge and film production in Latin America and Australia by hosting a documentary screening on the topic. The selection of documentaries will be done in collaboration with the Sydney Latin American Film Festival, and this event will be targeted to the student population and the wider community.

Print Culture and the Collective Maori Consciousness

by Lachy Paterson

Journal of New Zealand Literature, 18:2 (2010), pp. 105-129.

Although literacy and print were essential tools of the New Zealand colonial project ultimately designed to... more Although literacy and print were essential tools of the New Zealand colonial project ultimately designed to ‘amalgamate’ Māori into the modern Pākehā-dominated world, ironically they also helped in the evolution of a collective Māori consciousness. This collective sense of being manifested itself in such pan-Māori movements as the Kīngitanga, Kotahitanga and Te Aute College Students Association. Māori were not passive recipients of print culture, and each of these movements utilized newspapers as a means of disseminating their discourses. Utilizing aspects of Benedict Anderson’s theory on the role of print in the formation of national consciousness, this essay looks at how Pākehā-run newspapers assisted in the development of a collective Māori consciousness, and how each of these movements projected this identity in their own publications.

Whose Story is It, Anyway? Or… Power and Difference in The Book of Jessica: Implications for Theories of Collaboration

by David Jefferess

English Studies in Canada. 29.3-4 (September/December 2003): 220-241.

Que história é essa? A escrita indígena no Brasil1

by Lynn Mario Menezes de Souza

“Exploring Indigenous Identity in Suburbia: Melissa Lucashenko’s Steam Pigs.”

by Nathanael O'Reilly

JASAL 10 (2010): 1-13. Web.

No soy indio: Las literaturas y lenguas indígenas contemporáneas en América Latina

by Joseph Pierce

Special Dossier edited for Pterodáctilo No. 9, Revista de arte, literatura, lingüística y cultura, Fall 2010.

Education and Patria: The Intersection Between Dominant and Dominated Languages

by Rebecca Thompson

Language and education are central to the development of an ideology of “patria”, specifically when language is... more Language and education are central to the development of an ideology of “patria”, specifically when language is recognized not as an all-encompassing factor of identification within a community, but as heterogeneous within a society. Racial, social, historical and cultural factors create structures of dominant and dominated languages. There exists a clear connection between the dominant language, possession of writing and the ability to use it, and education which leads to the creation and development of an ethics of “patria”.
In this essay, I will begin by analyzing two autobiographical texts written within four years of each other in which the narrator relates to Spanish either as a dominant or dominated language, in the context of education. The first is the autobiography of Gregorio Condori Mamani, a monolingual Quechua speaker in the Peruvian Andes who encounters the politics of language in his education in the Peruvian military, and the second is Hunger of Memory, by Richard Rodriguez, a Californian Chicano who struggles with the pain of belonging and the nostalgia of his loss of Spanish, which he compares to the loss of his family. Through the process of their education, both narrators create a sense of belonging, or “patria”. I continue my investigation by applying these ideas to bilingual education policy in the Andes that utilize the idea of “patria”, specifically PROEIB and the Foro Educativo in Peru, concluding that the intersection of dominant and dominated languages can also be strengthened through education. The project of nation needs to be reinvented so that it is reflected in an education policy that seeks the heterogeneity of a nation of individuals.

This Bridge of Two Backs: Making the Two-Spirit Erotics of Community

by Sophie Mayer