Annotated Bibliography #1 – Merriam Alica
This source is the introductory chapter from this book, published by Wilfred Laurier University Press. The book is an anthology edited by Susan Gingell and Wendy Roy (also the authors of its introduction), both professors of Canadian Literature based at the University of Saskatchewan, with its purpose being to “address the politics and ethics of the utterance and text: textualizing orature and orality, simulations of the oral, the poetics of performance, and reconstructions of the oral” (“Listening Up, Writing Down, and Looking Beyond”, Wilfred Laurier University Press).
Central to the inclusion of this text are Gingell and Roy’s definitions of the following key concepts: that of “orature and orality; performance, speech, and sound; audience; text; textualized orature and orality; and storytelling” (Gingell & Roy, 5). Out of all of these, the most relevant and intriguing is that of oral+, which is used “…to signify the co-functioning of paralinguistic elements with speech and other vocalizations [with] the partialness of the term oral can be signalled by following it with a superscript plus sign: oral+” (6). Oral+ functions in response to Ong’s argument about orality/literature, by setting orature apart from, rather than analogous to, literature. They also highlight how the “textualized orality of politically and socially marginalized groups” can be read as incorrect and inadequate by those judging from a conventional (settler/colonial and privileged) position, because of the lack of understanding of textual and oral forms (12).
I choose to include this source as it functions in a similar way to MacNeil’s essay, “orality“ (2007), in that it operates as a useful reference tool to turn to when defining integral definitions key to this project, as well as offering an exploration on the debate regarding the perceptions of orality and literacy. Written by Gingell (with Wendy Roy) this text also offers an elaboration of the idea of “sound identities”, as well as an explanation as to why they (as performance) are important, especially within the context of Aboriginal culture. Gingell and Roy highlight the importance of language (sound) to First Nations’ identity.
Annotated Bibliography #2 – Merriam Alica
“writing this dissertation reinforced my thinking it reinforced my confidence
it reinforced my culture by reinforcing my writing as spoken word part of an oral tradition that has existed since time immemorial this writing style requires particular deliberation it is not random it is democratic it is not hierarchical”
(Stewart, xii)
In 2015, Patrick Stewart – a member of the Nisga’a Nation and at the time a Phd candidate at UBC’s Graduate School of Architecture – was featured in many news publications due to his unconventional dissertation style. His dissertation, Indigenous Architecture through Indigenous Knowledge : Dim sagalts’apkw Nisiḿ [Together we Will Build a Village], analyzed “how the culture of…Indigenous architect[s] informs their practice of architecture” (Stewart, ii), and was written largely in a style that, in the words of one non-Aboriginal reporter, included a “lack of punctuation…gaps and spaces and poetic license” (Hutchinson, 2015). More than that, Stewart emphasized his Nisga’a heritage through his use of the Nisga’a language and integration of traditional Nisga’a structures within his paper, following Fred Metallic’s decision to write his Phd dissertation completely in Mi’kmaq.
Stewart’s dissertation can be read as an important example of Gingell’s intervention strategy of “sound identities” (Gingell, 127), and can be linked to Gingell and Roy’s ideas of textualized orality. In outlining his decisions for the choice of style for his dissertation, he writes: “Though I cannot be considered in any way fluent in Nisga’a, I attempted to use the language in order to acknowledge my heritage and, more importantly, to strengthen the use of Nisga’a in the academy” (Stewart, vii) and that the “formatting of this dissertation purposely provides an oral / aural / visually designed context and thereby underlines an indigenist research approach” (x). Stewart is making a significant political statement by choosing to follow this format, specifically “out of [his] need to privilege Indigenous knowledge in resistance to the colonizing provincial education system that continue to traumatize indigenous peoples in this province” (xi). These explanations, notably in conventional academic English, are found in the preface, a section written mostly is conventional academic English that Stewart includes specifically in consideration of his (primarily academic) readers, in order to create a good rapport conducive to communication.
Stewart’s work here is, in my opinion, an excellent example of the intervention YAWP has chosen to profile. His choice to integrate orality and his Nisga’a identity throughout, and in the very structure of, his dissertation, and that his dissertation was approved (not without a long period of negotiation throughout the creation process) shows that the combination of orality and text has a place in the academy, with Stewart’s dissertation (and Metallic’s) an important precedent.
Annotated Bibliography #3 – Brendan Ha
Dickinson, Peter. Canadian Journal of Native Studies: ‘Orality in Literacy’: Listening to Indigenous Writing. 14 Vol. Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 01/01/1994. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.
This article is written by Peter Dickinson who is currently a professor at Simon Fraser University. Trained as a literary crtic and with a background in performance studies, he works in the Department of English and the School for the Contemporary Arts. His research focuses on relationships between audiences, performances and social structures. Naturally, his interest of the performing arts would lend toward a curiosity for the issues surrounding of orality. And in this essay, Dickinson seeks to disarm the dichotomy of the oral and the written by examining several works of Indigenous writers.
In particular, Dickinson argues that the adaptation of an oral story into a written form configures the experience of reading into that of a “literary/visual” (320) one that requires an active reader, one that listens and responds to the narrative at hand. This engagement with the texts of contemporary Indigenous writers helps to weaken the strict divide between the oral and the written according to Dickinson. Lastly, he argues that elements of orality are essential for the narrative construction of Indigenous works such as Marie Annharte Baker’s Being on the Moon. Dickinson writes that the reciprocal relationship of the text and the reader is the result of the hybridization the medium, and allows Indigenous writers to valorize their respective culture’s social conscience, their narratives and their struggles against historical imperialism.
Dickinson first outlines Ong’s view that oral traditions are a primitive ancestor to an ever developing literacy before referring to Finnegan and Street, cultural anthropologists and social linguists who argue that literacy is heavily embedded within a variety of societal processes. He connects this to the need of a closer examination of language (English, its dialects, and Indigenous languages) within specific societal contexts and subsequently, a view that orality and literacy are within each other rather than entirely separate.
According to Dickinson, the relationship of the reader and the writer for written Indigenous stories is characterized by a deeper inheritance of knowledge. Dickinson believes that this transference can be framed in terms of a performative event, and consequently requires us to examine hybrid texts within a larger sociological context.
Pertinent to the YAWP team’s research, Dickinson’s article introduces the intersection of the performing arts with Indigenous narratives. I have always wanted to discuss the performative nature of orality and by linking the area of the theatre with Indigenous literature, perhaps we can point toward other innovations of the tradition. Furthermore, I believe the importance of the reader as a listener, as an audience member even, is an important feature of Dickinson’s discourse. My blog posts have dealt with the idea of active reading—and listening! Although brief, the two concepts of literacy presented by Dickinson early in the article will also prove helpful in enlightening us of the scholarship that engages with issues of orality-literacy.
Annotated Bibliography #4 – Brendan Ha
Fee, Margery. Journal of Intercultural Studies: Writing Orality: Interpreting Literature in English by Aboriginal Writers in North America, Australia and New Zealand. 18 Vol. River Seine Publications, 04/01/1997. Web. 9 Apr. 2016.
Margery Fee is currently a professor at the University of British Columbia, and has written her PhD thesis about the issues of a English-Canadian national literature and its establishment. In her article, Fee first recalls the beginning of Thomas King’s novel Green Grass, Running Water. She examines how King has brought together Indigenous and Western cultures under the context of storytelling traditions. Quoting J.D. Robins, Fee implicitly touches upon the concept of the “white settler” as she observes English critics of the early 1900s as self-proclaimed authorities of Indigenous storytelling who are able to determine the livelihood of such. Afterwards, she indicates that North American, Australian and New Zealand/Aotearoan Indigenous writers draw upon the oral tradition in a similar manner to King, and traces how these writers respond to the notion that their narratives are on the verge of extinction. In particular, Fee observes that modern day Indigenous writers marry the oral tradition to a written medium and notes the difficulty of the language barrier in regards to issues of readership.
To account for the written adaptations of oral narratives, Fee connects Eric Hobsbawm’s examination of the correlation between dramatic societal change and the innovation of traditions. With new societal environments, old traditions are displaced and require adaptations to “enforce the sense of longevity” (Fee 24). Fee asserts that although we may be tempted to parallel the English adaptation of the oral epic Beowulf to the maneuvers of contemporary Indigenous writers, the difference in cultural contexts leads to the impossibility for Western perspectives to fully comprehend Indigenous narratives. Fee also explores Ruby Slipperjack’s Honour the Sun, and echoes King’s character of Coyote when discussing the narrator Owl. She examines how texts like Slipperjack’s disturb the supposed dichotomy of oral and written cultures, and simultaneously combat literary colonialism. Subsequently, this necessitates a particular treatment of Indigenous literature according to Fee. She states that we must always consider the processes of language (reading, writing, speaking) and the societal ideologies that colour our readings of Indigenous works.
Fee’s article continues by discussing the privilege of written culture and how this discrepancy of respect affects Indigenous writers, languages and works, especially in regards to the educational systems of modern day North America, Australia and New Zealand. Another tension is discussed in regards to the view that Indigenous works, when presented in writing, are viewed as somehow inauthentic. Drawing from Jacques Derrida’s examination of Claude Lavi-Strauss and the destruction of the oral and written dichotomy, Fee observes how Western culture considers certain speech patterns as authentic or more respectable. These expectations feed into a respect for a certain style of writing, and this concern of respectability reflects onto speech. Speech and language are criticized in the rest of Fee’s piece, subverting expectations of a perfect, dialect-less English and examining the stigmas that result from the oral-literacy dichotomy.
By outlining and examining the tensions and issues surrounding critical perceptions of contemporary Indigenous literature, this article proves to be immensely helpful in discussing how the scholarship has dealt with issues of orality. Fee draws from a variety of scholars and a variety of Indigenous writers, presenting a chiasmus that not only enlightens us of the Western perspectives on adapted Indigenous oral narratives, but how Indigenous writers have reacted to a history of literary assimilation and English settler literature. Her thorough examination of the sociological conflicts and ideologies that affect the reception and perception of written Indigenous works prove to be thought-provoking, illuminating and allow for the potential for a variety of intersections with other conference groups.
Annotated Bibliography #5 – Andrea Davis Johnston
Cole, Peter. Coyote and Raven Go Canoeing: Coming Home to the Village. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006;2005;2014;. Web. 15 Apr. 2016.
“Coyote and Raven Go Canoeing” is a free verse narrative journey and discussion between two Native tricksters, Coyote and Raven, written by U.B.C. Assistant Professor Peter Cole. Cole, like Thomas King has First Nations and colonizer heritage and teaches and writes. He is a member of the Douglas First Nation, one of the Stl’atl’imx communities in SouthWest British Columbia, and has Celtic heritage. The canoe journey is a discussion intended to help indigenous people from around the world navigate back to their own cultural values. Cole notes in the introduction, which, like the rest of the book, is written in free verse, that he has gathered the indigenous so that they can understand their cultures before colonial devastation, share experiences of colonizer education and attempts to remove indigenous cultural practices, indigenous knowledge and “how our words came to be woven together how they came to dance and sing and drum” (Coyote xiii). As Susan Gingell says, Cole “shape-shifts a word that evokes the book’s tone and style: po/l/emic” (Coyote Review 166). Cole’s book is a call to action for Canadian First Nations and aboriginal people everywhere to take back their culture and find their way back to the values and knowledge that they had before settler invasion. He is scathing in his critique of the settler’s cultural “holocaust”.
Cole’s use of free verse, the cadence and rhythm of the narrative, and the use of sounds and song throughout the book contribute to how indigenous peoples are “rewrighting” (Coyote 76) their own destiny. Cole, by weaving aurality into written text, contributes to Susan Gingell’s concept of oral identities discussed in “Negotiating Sound Identities in Canadian Literature.” Furthermore, Cole “takes back” the definition of orality from non-Native scholars as he says that “orality is not about ‘writing down’ anything it is about discourse speaking together” (Coyote 48). He mocks the non-Native scholarly analysis of Native orality. He instead describes the Indigenous voice as “the poetic voice sings language dances and plays it/ sometimes it is embedded in other voices” (Coyote 118).
I indicated in my “About Us” profile a personal interest in different voices in the workplace and the use of orality. Cole challenges the lack of voice and jobs given to Native people in universities and research, even when it pertains to Native culture. Hiring non-Natives is justified because Native people are considered unqualified based on the settler’s western education system criteria. When a Native person is hired he is not really involved in intertextual communication as he is a “token” or one of “their Indians” (Coyote 76). Cole indicates that there is definitely more than just nuance in the exclusion of the Native voice in a globalized world.
I have included an interesting interview of Drs. Cole and O’Riley and their work on language and culture regeneration that further illustrates Peter Cole’s contribution to the discussion about indigenous orality and identity. As with Coyote and Raven Go Canoeing they are working with different indigenous cultures on language and culture regeneration including the St’at’imc in B.C. and the Kichwa-Lamista in Peru.
Annotated Bibliography #6 – Andrea Davis Johnston
Sligo, Frank, et al. Text & Talk: Young Adult Literacy Learners Describe the Text-Orality Nexus. 35 Vol. Mouton de Gruyter, 01/01/2015. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.
“Young Adult Literacy Learners Describe the Text–Orality Nexus” is a paper documenting research undertaken by Frank Sligo, Elspeth Tilley, Niki Murray and Margie Comrie, researchers from Massey University in New Zealand. In their research and this paper, they sought to explore how young adults learning literacy skills incorporate those new skills within their lives, including the workplace. While text literacy is generally viewed as a separate, measurable individual attribute used for competency assessment in the workplace, social-practice oriented research shows that text literacy, influenced by local and cultural differences, must be understood within “the whole oral-experiential context of people’s work and everyday lives” (Young 102). This team sought to fill the research gap to investigate the effects of workers’ typical “collective oral-experiential work endeavors” (Young 102). Furthermore, the research further expanded knowledge as it was done with people who, by virtue of their low levels of initial literacy, used more oral communications.
Through research into orality in the modern world our team hopes to prove its continuing value and relevancy. While there is no shortage of business texts on the importance of oral communication in the workplace this research gives an evidence based perspective on the interconnectedness of orality and literacy in all facets of subject’s lives, including the workplace, by subjects who are perhaps not biased with now traditional literacy based education. Additionally, New Zealand has a similar colonial history to Canada, including extermination of aboriginal peoples and their culture and language, and thus research there provides another lens on Gingell’s assertions about Indigenous sound identities. The research subjects identified as 28% Iwi (New Zealan Mäori tribal) affiliation. The conclusions of the research provide strong support for the enduring value and relevancy of orality in all areas of life, including business. The subjects, like prior theorists such as Chamberlin, identified how literacy is interwoven throughout their oral communication, not something that is a separate skill. In fact they saw that text could support oral communication in important ways. They supported academics’ assertions of a strong interconnectedness of orality and literacy and a continuum of communication methods.
While I feel that the research contributes to the dialogue on the intersection between orality and literacy in a modern, practical context, I was concerned by some of the implications of the researchers’ paper. One of the stated purposes of the paper was to provide input into adult literacy training needs, thereby implying a focus on literacy in the debate. Furthermore, they describe the research subjects as having “liminal or threshold” (Young 102) literacy which implies inferiority despite their purpose of using this terminology as “an alternative to the deficit-framing” orientation of much adult literacy dialogue. I felt an uncomfortable memory of Walter Ong’s orality and literacy assertions.
Annotated Bibliography #7 – Simon Sierra
Mills, Jane. “First Nation Cinema: Hollywood’s Indigenous ‘Other’.” Screening the Past (2009): n. pag. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.
Published in Screening the Past, a peer-reviewed journal of screen history, theory and criticism offered through Australia’s Latrobe University, this essay focuses on First Nation cinema to explore how minority cinemas are defined and work alongside, or against, the mainstream. Jane Mills—an Associate Professor of Film and Television at the University of New South Wales—begins by looking at the various designations applied to First Nations cinema that work to present it as a homogenous genre. Labels such as “Third, Third World, Fourth, postcolonial, subaltern, hungry, imperfect, anti-racist, ethnic, multicultural”—amongst others—fix First Nations cinemas in an one-way relationship to the dominant mainstream cinema of Hollywood, and is a forcible relocation of First nation cinema into the boundaries of a mainstream it does not want to participate in. She specifies that First Nations cinema, unlike other films of genres, carries a cultural baggage and a perception of ‘otherness.’ With this in mind, she proposes her argument that while First Nation cinema’s relationship to Hollywood and the mainstream is not one of equality, the inequality does not necessitate that First Nation cinema is “cannibalized” by the mainstream; more diversity is allowed to exist than what is imagined.
She contends that, contrary to popular belief, cultural phenomena does not yield fixed, “impermeable cinematic borders.” A film’s narrative, it’s dialogue, the mise-en-scene, the cinematography, the soundscape and even the editing can be useful tools to identify what culture it is the product of but these boundaries are growing increasingly fluid and heterogeneous. Nonetheless, in relation to Hollywood, First Nations cinema is still governed by these fixed borders, as evident in the racism that remains. According to Mills, racism raises a boundary that works in visible ways to designate the First Nation on screen as ‘other’ and also in invisible ways such as the formal properties of a film, particularly the limited scale of production, distribution, exhibition and reception First Nation cinema receives in contrast to mainstream films. There is evident of “pro-Indian” films in early years of Hollywood and indeed, these can still be found today but the institutional racism remains.
Through the close reading of several First Nations films including those made by Indigenous and non-Indigenous filmmakers, Mills concludes that the boundaries are paradoxically porous and fixed. The concept of “minor cinema” proves useful to Mills in her study to suggest that Indigenous filmmakers contribute to a cinema that focuses on issues of de-territorialisation by making use of the major language of mainstream cinema. Hollywood’s cinematic codes and conventions are applied but these First Nations films make use of these to create an opposition of ideas and images.
Ultimately, Mills asserts that First Nations cinema is project of reclamation, as the filmmakers working in this genre—regardless of their ethnic origin—attempt to salvage the narratives that belong to Indigenous people even as they work in a mainstream medium. In order to accomplish this, thematic and aesthetic border-crossing has to take place and as one Indigenous filmmaker, Sherman Alexie says, Hollywood is fundamental to the language of his filmmaking. Mills quotes Alexie: “I think a lot of Indian artists like to pretend that they’re not influenced by pop culture or Western culture, but I am, and I’m happy to admit it.” The mainstream is inescapable but, as Alexie and Mills suggest, it is necessary to cross into its forms to “bridge the cultural distance between the characters in [a First Nations film] and the non-Indian audience.”
Reading this essay in light of Gingell’s raises an interesting dialogue. In the same way that Gingell looks at the poetry of Neal McLeod and how he includes Cree words, phrases, and sentences into the text of predominantly English language poems in an attempt to decolonize Cree territory, Mills turns to the work of Indigenous filmmakers and identifies a similar process. To reclaim the “ownership” of their cinema by Hollywood—the institution that has a great influence in the production and distribution of these films, as well as the psyche of the national audience—these filmmakers apply their heritage into the conventions of the mainstream so it is recognizable as a film to non-Indian audiences but the voice is genuine. For both Gingell and Mills, Indigenous artists are active in a process of reclamation from the dominant culture and be it poetry or literature of film, common strategies are used to retain their sound identities.
While this blending of cultures is theoretically an encouraging idea, it lacks fulfillment in the contemporary film industry. The Revenant (2016), for instance, was applauded as a “game-changer” in how Indian characters and stories are presented in mainstream film. But at the same time, the argument remains that these “positive portrayals” simply veil the continuation of a colonial gaze in Hollywood that can never be overcome. “The Revenant is a Game-Changer” and “The Revenant is not an indigenous story,” both written by Aboriginal film critics and published on the same day, show the divided camps in this criticism but more or less indicate a shared notion: in spite of the best efforts in the part of Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, the very nature of mainstream mediums will make the process of reclaiming and retaining sound identities a challenging, and perhaps, an impossible one.
Annotated Bibliography #8 – Simon Sierra
Shaw, Patricia A. “Language and Identity, Language and the Land.” BC Studies.131 (2001): 39-55. ProQuest. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.
“Language and Identity, Language and the Land” is an essay by Patricia A. Shaw, a Professor of Anthropological Linguistics and the founding chair of the First Nations Languages Program at UBC. In this essay, Shaw surveys a variety of voices responding to the loss of voice in BC’s First Nations community. She explores both the factors that contribute to language death within these communities and the short-term and long-term impact this can have on an individuals identity.
Shaw begins by identifying the flaw in mainstream society’s perspective—hers included—when it comes to the significance of language; for English, utility and hegemony are its prime value while for First Nations languages, it can be one’s unique relationship to the Creator, one’s attitudes and belief, and one’s notion of who they are. With this fundamentally different ideology and value systems in mind, Shaw asks, how “is the impassioned first nations discourse on the profound impact of language loss to be understood within mainstream society” (“Language”), and this is a question that is an issue in classrooms, in courthouses and even in increasingly English-speaking First Nations households.
This passivity in regards to impending language death, Shaw states, is the consequence of systematic repression and denigration of First Nations languages that were—and continue to be—perpetuated by Canada’s political, social, and educational institutions. These are quite obvious, but what is less recognized, is the impact that this history of repression continues to have on individual, familial, and communal motivations to maintain a linguistic heritage. The message that these languages are “worthless, futile, inconsequential, and undoubtedly detrimental to one’s children’s potential for success in life” has been spread for so long it has been accepted as a reasonable truth, destructive it may be. One Musqueam parent identifies the generational legacy of these false truths: “Because [our Parents] got punished so severely for speaking the language, they didn’t want us to go through the same punishment. So my Mother said she chose not to teach us any Indian language, so that there was no way we were going to get punished at all.”
The irony of this dismal situation is that Canada, and Vancouver in particular, claims to possess a remarkable sensitivity to multilingualism but the majority of Canadians are unaware of “the exceptional linguistic legacy in our midst”—within BC alone, there was once over thirty different aboriginal languages, eleven of which belong to eight genetically unrelated families. So while this rich and unique heritage is ignored, a hypocrisy of sorts is at work. In New Westminster, Shaw encounters a car dealership that proudly boasts a “Multi-Lingual Sales Staff” and goes on to differentiate Mandarin and Cantonese as separate languages, and likewise, Hindi and Punjabi are listed apart. This level of respect and awareness seemingly runs dry when the twenty-six First Nations languages in BC are lumped into one category. A display of political correctness is at work here, but is simply veiling the very ignorance that has proved so threatening to linguistic longevity of these languages in BC.
In Merritt, Shaw encounters yet another “systematic negation of identity” as she speaks with those who experienced the Residential School system. Indigenous language in these spaces was not only ignored, as it often is in mainstream society, it was prohibited on deeply personal levels. One victim recounts the erasure of her birth name: “Sister Maura asked me what my name was. I said, my name is Seepeetza. Then she got really mad like I did something terrible. She said never to say that word again.” This is a loss Shaw emphasizes is a disruption of lineage and ancestry and requires a drastic re-evaluation of self.
To conclude this essay, Shaw likens the loss of Indigenous language in BC, and the effect of this loss, to the fragmentation of traditional lands. Languages, reasons Shaw, are like geographical landscapes that change over time. Yet as her travels have indicated, the changes in language are exacerbated but the societal and cultural pressures that Canadian society, as a whole, remains complicit to.
A recent report by the First Peoples’ Cultural Council in BC provides evidence to the warnings of language death Shaw wrote about nearly fifteen years ago. In 2014, there remains 5,085 fluent speakers of Indigenous languages, 3,002 (59%) of whom are aged 65 and over, while only 54 of them (1.06%) are 24 years or younger. It is trend that if allowed to continue spells certain death for many languages, as there will be no fluent speakers left in three generations. These harrowing figures, in conjunction with the complicity Shaw points towards in her essay provide a dismal reality for Gingell’s hopes that Aboriginal sound identity can be salvaged in contemporary society. It is encouraging, however, to see that efforts are being made in BC’s Aboriginal communities to educate, with 11,049 currently learning a language, of which 78% are under the age of 25. Hopefully the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction and these effort can save the mistakes made in the past.
Annotated Bibliography #9 – Nicholas Wilson
Harrison, Klisala. “‘Singing my Spirit of Identity’: Aboriginal Music for Well-being in a Canadian Inner City.” Musicultures: Journal of the Canadian Society for Traditional Music. Vol. 36, 2009, pp. 1-21. Web. <https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/MC/article/download/20244/23346>.
This article is written by Klisala Harrison, who is currently a research fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She grew up and completed her undergrad here in BC at the University of Victory, later completing her Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology at York University. Her area of interest is focussed around the indigenous music in Canada and Scandinavia, namely the aspects of sustainability and individual and cultural regrowth that are possible within the Indigenous aesthetics of the music and art.
Harrison sums up her article with this succinct question: “How may Aboriginal Canadian music facilitate well-being for individuals who take part in cultural healing programs?” (Harrison, 1). Indeed, the article is concerned with the role Indigenous music, tradition, and ceremony plays in the rehabilitation and regaining of cultural identity, within Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside; indeed, this article is exceedingly close to home, and simultaneously increases awareness of the importance to sound identity within the Indigenous culture, as well as spreads the word on available and culturally intertwined support for those who are struggling to move past “situations of substance misuse, crime, and violence…[and] choose [to] affirm lifestyles of wellness and dignity” (Harrison, 1).
Harrison first articulates the various agencies and support programs which offer Indigenous singing and drumming in Vancouver, including the Aboriginal Front Door, the Hey-way’noqu’ Healing Circle for Addictions Society, and The Positive Outlook branch of the Vancouver Native Health Society; these facilities and support programs all offer combinations of Plains powwow drumming, hand drumming from Northwest Coast, Eastern Woodlands, and Navajo First Nations, as well as songs and ceremonies, including sweat lodges and sun dances from the Plains. By using these facilities as starting points, Harrison seeks to identify the importance of Indigenous music and sound to the identity and well-being of the Indigenous community in the Downtown Eastside, as well as across Canada.
The way in which Harrison compiles her research is extremely pertinent to the YAWP team’s research, as she physically and intimately engaged in oral conversation with various people in Downtown Vancouver, going to the source, and listening to the voices of the people, in order to ascertain identity and cultural sound. She interviews Fred John, a St’at’imic elder from Lillooet or T’it’q’et, BC; Gerry Oleman, a singer from the St’at’imic First Nation at Chalath BC; and Brenda Wells and Frank McAllister, two Alberta Cree, in order to hear their stories, of how Indigenous music and culture allowed them to regain lost or stripped identity. She does so with the intention of creating an “indigenous ‘storywork,’ a term coined by Jo-ann Archibald to evoke how indigenous ‘stories and storytelling [a]re to be taken seriously’ (Archibald 2008:3),” and indicates the seven major points of her inspiration for this research: “respect, responsibility, reciprocity, reverence, holism, interrelatedness and synergy” (Harrison, 3).
By listening to the music and the words of those experiencing a loss of cultural identity and sound, Harrison provides a unique and in-depth look to the realities of rehabilitation on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, as well as the significance of sound identity and cultural regrowth to the process of rehabilitation.
Annotated Bibliography #10 – Nicholas Wilson
Iseke, Judy. “Negotiating Métis Culture in Michif: Disrupting Indigenous Language Shift.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society. Vol. 2, No. 2, 2013, pp. 92-116. Web. <http://decolonization.org/index.php/des/article/viewFile/19587/17017>.
Judy Iseke is currently the Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Knowledge and Research at Lakehead University, as well as a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Her main focus is on the significance of Indigenous language – namely Michif, the language of the Métis – to the identity, culture, mental-health, and vitalization of the Indigenous communities across Canada. Her work has become world renowned, gaining worldwide support in both research funding and international Indigenous networks, and her website www.ourelderstories.com provides educational materials from Elders across Canada as a means to aid the decline of Indigenous languages and speakers.
In this article, Iseke thoroughly explains the history and significance, as well as the misconceptions about the Métis people and the Michif language. She describes the combination of French and Indigenous language, Michif, as “an example of the production of a new language that is not the colonial language but rather developed by a people fluent in both the colonial language and the Indigenous language” (Iseke 107). She explores the vast level of disenfranchisement and pure racism, to an extent of separating from the First Nations designation by the Canadian government that the Métis people have experiences; by asking how and why this is happening, and what society and communities can do about it, as well as effectively answering those questions, Iseke provides a succinct and encompassing article that conveys a refreshing depth of knowledge.
Iseke’s article is thoroughly cited and her breadth of research allows for an unbiased and perfectly informed stance, and also provides an amazing research base for future scholarly work on Indigenous issues. Perhaps the most interesting and refreshing aspect to the article is Iseke’s involvement with the Elders of various Métis bands across Canada, who she brought together, held ceremonies and told stories with, to gain a better understanding of the state of the Michif language and what can be done to preserve and rejuvenate it in the Métis communities across Canada and the United States.
The Elders, Tom McCallum, George McDermott, and Albert and Alma Desjarlais, all put forward their stance and hopes for the future, and all held a similar, medicine-wheel based knowledge and belief, and all agreed of the significance of the Michif language to their identity with the Creator, and thus with the universe. Iseke explains that “both Cree and Michif peoples, when they speak their languages, use the expression Nehiyawak to refer to themselves…or the four directions people that is a reference to the medicine wheel worldview in which the four directions – east, south, west, north – are integrated into a way of life” (Iseke 102).
The most interesting aspects of this article to YAWP’s research and intervention strategy are the storytelling contexts, based in the oral and original Michif language traditions of the Métis, which Iseke was able to document and truly become a part of because of her relationships with the Métis elders across Canada. Another very important aspect to Iseke’s research is her involvement in strategies for growth and change, bringing to light the various web-based and internationally available resources that can help retain the Michif language, and thus the culture, beliefs, and identities of the Métis. These websites include: http://www.learnmichif.com/, http://www.metisresourcecentre.mb.ca/, as well as the YouTube channels Learnmichif and Michifspeaker. These tools allow young people, linguists, and those who have lost their language to regain, learn, and pass the knowledge and sound identities of the Métis people forward.
Some References for Orality and Literacy from Our Course:
Chamberlain, J. Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories?: Finding Common Ground. Toronto: A.A. Knopf Canada, 2003.
Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories : A Journey of Landscape and Memory. Talonbooks, 2005. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
Some References for the Concept of Sound Identities:
Chamberlin, J. Edward. “A New History of Reading: Hunting, Tracking, and Reading.” For the Geography of a Soul: Emerging Perspectives on Kamau Braithwaite. Ed. Timothy J. Reiss., 145-164. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2001. 145-164.
Courtney MacNeil, “Orality.” The Chicago School of Media Theory. Uchicagoedublogs. 2007. Web. 19 Feb. 2013. http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/orality/http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/orality/
First Peoples’ Cultural Council. Report on the Status of B.C. First Nations Languages 2014. Brentwood Bay: First Peoples’ Cultural Council, 2014. PDF file.
Gingell, Susan A. Coyote and Raven Go Canoeing: Coming Home to the Village. 77 Vol. North York: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Web. 17 Apr. 2016. http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/article/238357/pdf
Gingell, Susan. “Negotiating Sound Identities in Canadian Literature.” Canadian Literature/Littérature canadienne, 204 (2010): 127-130. Web.
Hawkins, Margaret R., and Ebooks Corporation. Framing Languages and Literacies: Socially Situated Views and Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2013. Web. 17 April 2016. http://reader.eblib.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/(S(smhp5glcszgzpzbmx41itx04))/Reader.aspxp=1170292&o=1267&u=Hh1ba7GtuQP3hP5hYbAafg%3d%3d&t=1460912643&h=AACF88695469FD0132E0DAB69F9E24BBC59495A9&s=44232116&ut=4226&pg=1&r=img&c=-1&pat=n&cms=-1&sd=2
Interview – Drs. Cole and O’Riley. Faculty of Education – Research at Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy – Interview Series. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.
Lyiscott, Jamilia. “3 ways to speak English”. TED. Lecture. February 2014. Web. 16 April 2016.
Matas, Robert. “Building a career on native roots” The Globe and Mail. 17 March 2009. Web.
Nisga’a Lisims Government. Nisga’a Lisims Government. Website. n.d. Web. 16 April 2016.
* Note: A very excellent website for anyone interested in the culture, traditions, activities and mandate of the Nisga’a Nation
Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy : 30th Anniversary Edition. London: Taylor and Francis, 2013. Ebook Library. Web. 17 Apr. 2016. http://www.ubc.eblib.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=1092747
Quan, Douglas. “‘Assault’ on residential school students’ identities began the moment they stepped inside.” The National Post. Postmedia Network. 2 Jun. 2015. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
Taonui, Rāwiri. ‘Tribal organisation’, Te Ara. The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 9-Nov-12. Web. 17 Apr. 2016. URL: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/tribal-organisation
Thursfield, Denise, and Roger Henderson. “Participation in Lifelong Learning: Reality Or Myth? Issues Arising from a United Kingdom Coalfield Closure.” Journal of Vocational Education & Training 56.1 (2004): 117-36. Web. 17 Apr. 2016. http://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/doi/pdf/10.1080/13636820400200249
Tilley, Elspeth. “The Uses of Fear: Spatial Politics in the Australian Whiter-vanishing Trope”. Antipodes23.1 (2009): 33–41. Web. 17 Apr. 2016. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/stable/pdf/41957754.pdf?_=1460910382747
Killsback, Leo. “The Revenant is a Game-Changer.” Indian Country. Today Media Network. 14 Jan. 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
Wente, Jesse. “Opinion: The Revenant is not an indigenous story.” CBC News. CBC Radio-Canada. 14 Jan. 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
Hi Team! Thank you for your posts – everything looks great! This comment is in response to Brendan and his choice of sources, specifically Dickinson’s article:
Brendan – I feel the research articles that you have chosen are complements to those that I have chosen. Dickinson’s focus on the performative and the textualization of the oral is in agreement with what Gingell and Roy elaborate on in their “Introduction”. I’m wondering if you have any thoughts on their idea of oral+? It’s an idea that I have little grasp of, so I’ll turn to McKegney to elaborate on it: ”
“…the sign “oral+”…remind[s] the reader of the dynamic interplay involved in what cognitive scientists call multimodal integration: the interactions among different sensory modalities that alter and inform each other’s processing” (McKegney, 16)
Moving on from the idea of oral+, my reading of your annotations of Dickinson’s article allowed me to reconsider Patrick Stewart’s dissertation (one of my annotated sources) as a performative event. Really, any dissertation is [at least part of] a performative event, as they must be defended orally. But Stewart’s dissertation goes beyond the convention dissertation. He has chosen to eschew traditional academic style and structure in favour of a structure that runs along Nisga’a influences, in a ” oral / aural / visually designed context” (x). Significantly, Stewart notes that “One Indigenous reader said he could hear his grandfather speaking at feasts in my writing” (C. Menzies, as quoted by Stewart, x).
Having read part of Stewart’s dissertation, I feel that his work is a performative event, and as Dickinson posits, “is characterized by a deeper inheritance of knowledge” (Ha, “Annotated Bibliography”). The whole process Stewart had to undertake with the BREB in order to get his dissertation approved, his use of visuaal/textual, as well his efforts to ease readers into his style and to create a good relationship between reader/author are, to me, all components of an active reading/listening experience and of a performative event.
Thanks,
Merriam
McKegney, S. “Review of: Susan Gingell and Wendy Roy, eds. Listening Up, Writing Down, and Looking Beyond: Interfaces of the Oral, Written, and Visual” in Chimo, 64: 16-19 (2012). Print.
Stewart, Patrick Robert Reid. Indigenous Architecture through Indigenous Knowledge : Dim sagalts’apkw Nisiḿ [Together we Will Build a Village]. Dissertation. University of British Columbia, 2015. Web.
Thanks, Merriam!
I’ve found your discussion of Roy and Gingell’s oral+ very interesting, and incredibly pertinent to what we’ve discussed about orality. Orality isn’t merely spoken word, but a complex network of listening, speech, text, audience, performance and story as Gingell and Roy suggest. I believe oral+ is a response to the mainstream thought that literacy is a descendant of orality, and thus is inherently more intricate. By adding the plus symbol, perhaps Roy and Gingell are declaring that orality is more than just speech, but a force that is equally multiplicitous.
Stewart’s dissertation appears to be very interesting, and considering the connection you’ve made between his work and Dickinson’s, I can see how performance can even extend to the realm of academia. Absolutely, his dissertion embodies oral+ as well and the performative elements of Dickinson’s dialogue. Ultimately, an audience is needed and for Stewart, that audience must not only read his text, but engage with it in a manner that goes far beyond the dominant norms of an standard academic English.
By framing his dissertation as a performative event, we can see that Stewart is placing the Nisga’a language as equal or capable of performing what standard English can in the academic sphere. He challenges our expectation of what a thesis should be, should look like, and how a thesis should be read or presented, and strives to accomplish this by utilizing his cultural traditions in a setting that claims English as the apex of communication. Incredible.
Thank you for the connection you’ve made. It was wonderfully enlightening.
The following is a comment in response to Andrea, and one of her chosen sources: Peter Cole’s Coyote and Raven Go Canoeing: Coming Home to the Village :
Hello Andrea! Thank you for your additions to the team’s annotated bibliography. I enjoyed reading both of your annotations. I’d like to talk specifically about Cole’s Coyote and Raven Go Canoeing: Coming Home to the Village in this comment.
Thank you for highlighting the following: “Cole challenges the lack of voice and jobs given to Native people in universities and research, even when it pertains to Native culture. Hiring non-Natives is justified because Native people are considered unqualified based on the settler’s western education system criteria” (Davis Johnston, “Annotated Bibliography”).
This is an important observation, and in addition brings up the difficult, but necessary, questions of why there is the issue of First Nations’ people being unqualified according to the academy (aftershocks of the Residential School System, lack of FN support in today’s high schools, as well as the mandates and research paradigms privileged within the academy).
First Nations scholars like Patrick Stewart, whose dissertation I have chosen as my contribution to this Annotated Bibliography, have often had less than ideal experiences in the Canadian secondary educational system (Stewart goes further into his experiences here). That both Cole and Stewart (and Chamberlin and King) choose to incorporate orality and privilege Indigenous ways of knowing in their works to bring attention to, and make commentary on, the issues of First Nations’ people and the education system is significant, and speaks to the power of the integration of the text, visual, and oral in establishing the specific voice/identity integral to this conversation.
I’m wondering where you think the connections are between Gingell’s sound identities and Cole’s observations of the exclusion of Native scholars within the field of First Nations Studies?
Matas, Robert. “Building a career on native roots” The Globe and Mail. 17 March 2009. Web.
Wane, Njoki Nathani. “[Re]Claiming Indigenous Knowledge: Challenges, Resistance, and Opportunities.” Decolonization : Indigeneity 2.1 (2013). Web.
Hi Merriam,
Thank-you very much for taking the time to read my blog and for your comments and observations.
Your question of how the connections of Gingell’s sound identities relates to Cole’s observations of the exclusion of Native academics is a great one that Gingell addresses in her review of “Coyote and Raven Go Canoeing”. Gingell’s review is delightful in that it is in the same free verse form as Cole’s book. In a section where she imitates the back and forth “orality” between Coyote and Raven in a fictional dialogue between herself as reviewer and “Wes” a Westerner she says, “Sag(ging reviewer): this book implicitly questions whether current forms of academic discourse don’t prevent some kinds of things from getting said” (Coyote). To the extent that Native people are excluded from participation in the dialogue about their own culture, excluded from telling their own stories by rules set in a different language and culture, their sound identities are denied. Their very identities are undermined.
Thank you for asking this question and helping me more clearly (hopefully) draw out the connection between Gingell’s work and Cole’s work!
Andrea
Gingell, Susan A. “Coyote and Raven Go Canoeing: Coming Home to the Village”. 77 Vol. North York: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Web. 17 Apr. 2016. http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/article/238357/pdf
This post is directed toward Simon’s discussion of Jane Mills’ article, “First Nation Cinema: Hollywood’s Indigenous ‘Other’.”
I was really interested in the Jane Mills’ article when you discussed it during one of our brainstorming sessions. Considering the team’s interest in how orality and literacy can operate within modern day mediums, your discussion of cinema in regards to the portrayal of Indigenous cultures is quite enlightening.
Naturally, I can connect Dickinson’s discussion of performance with Mills’ article. However, the tension between Indigenous filmmakers versus the mainstream filmmakers illuminates the difficulty of operating within an industry—and even a society—that is structured with the appropriation and oppression of Indigenous cultures. Referring to Dickinson and my other annotated article written by Margery Fee, I can see that contemporary Indigenous artists strive to use these new mediums of art in order to reclaim their appropriated culture. Fee’s discussion of how societal change influences the innovation of traditions resonates within your observation of contemporary Indigenous filmmakers.
The Indigenous (and some non-Indigenous artists as you’ve mentioned!) filmmakers seem to partially evade sounding “inauthentic,” meaning their filmed narratives seem to be regarded as genuine despite Western settler perspectives that presuppose that Indigenous narratives must be told in a certain way, in a certain place. However, the fact that they are produced in the indie scene may indicate the contrary. Likewise, your mention of The Revenant (2016) seems to support that unfortunate view. The “colonial gaze” is ever present in the mainstream, but perhaps with the continual transformation of tradition, Indigenous cultures will be communicated genuinely in broader and more far-reaching ways.
Thanks for your hard work, Simon!
Hi Brendan,
Thanks for the great, well-thought out comment! There definitely does seem to be some progress in the reclamation of the Indigenous identity—both in the words that are spoken and the ways those words are spoken—in film but the problem of a mainstream “colonial gaze” remains.
I like the connections you made to the Dickinson article you worked on as it certainly takes this discussion of orality into another medium, that of performance—which is not exclusive to theatre but I feel is more pertinent to the unfiltered performances offered on stage than the edited types we find in movies. But I think something that Shaw raised that is really essential to address in these discussions about producing/creating art that either honours or robs the agency of Indigenous voice is to consider the audience. The mainstream audience in Canada is largely non-native. That is not to say that all art needs to cater to the masses but the influence that the racial makeup of the mainstream has on producing outlets is something that, without a doubt, effects the film/theatre industry. With theatre, there is more leeway, I think, with the types of materials that can be staged, the companies that will stage them, and the audiences you can attract. But with film, an industry in which money definitely talks, it is hard to gain a platform for independent views to reclaim Indigenous identity without escaping the trap that is the “independent film.” Sure, some have great success and eventually reach a diverse audience but unfortunately, Hollywood greatly controls the films and content we can see at the local Cineplex down the road.
That being said, I think its really great that your article and annotated bibliography posting highlight the value of Indigenous performances on stage. On the topic of orality, language and stage, one thing that caught my attention was recent news that the National Arts Centre in Ottawa is planning to open an Indigenous Theatre —”a department devoted to indigenous performing arts that is intended to be an equal to the arts centre’s long-established English and French Theatre companies.” News like this shows that, just as you said, “continual transformation of tradition” so that Indigenous voices can reach broader audiences. We are not all the way there yet, and I wonder if we can ever remove the “colonial gaze” from Indigenous artistic outlets but this is certainly a positive step in the right direction.
Works Cited
Nestruck, J. Kelly. “National Arts Centre to launch indigenous theatre in 2019.” The Globe and Mail. 24 Mar. 2016. Web. 20 Apr. 2016. <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance/national-arts-centre-to-launch-indigenous-theatre-in-2019/article29361412/>
Nicholas,
Thank-you for your annotated bibliography (#9) on Harrison’s work. Indeed the cultural healing programs that she outlines demonstrate the role that oral traditions, written or sung, play a major role in indigenous identity – and recovering identity. The concept reminds me of Thomas King’s narrative (non-linear of course) flow in “Green Grass, Running Water” how King has the elders and the Sun Dance and the waters bring Natives back to their culture and find their direction in life. To the place where Lionel and Eli dance and participate in the rhythms of their ancestors. Watching the video and listening to the stories of some of the residents of the DTES and their journeys helps us to understand the magnitude of the journey that they must undertake for healing.
I noted Harrison’s reference and your link to the article regarding the “Poorest Postal Code”. Unfortunately, there are many Native reserves in Canada that are even poorer, as referenced in the following article from Chad Skelton: http://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/is-vancouvers-downtown-eastside-really-canadas-poorest-postal-code. Skelton comments that the DTES is Canada’s poorest urban post code, but as we have seen in the many news reports this week, the poverty can be even greater in many other parts of Canada for First Nations. Hopefully cultural healing with music and rhythm and Native orality will be deployed there as well.
A wonderful collection of poetics and writing that have come out of the creative writing collective in the DTES were published in “V6A”. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to “hear” more of these voices (the link is below).
Works Cited:
Asfour, John, and Elee Kraljii Gardiner. V6A: Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2012. Web. 19 April 2016. http://deslibris.ca.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/ID/443755
King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. [New] HarperPerennial ed. Toronto, Ont: Harper Perennial, 2007. Web.
Skelton, Chad. “Is Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside really “Canada’s poorest postal code”? ” The Vancouver Sun. Vancouver. 10 February 2010.
Andrea,
Thank you for your interest in my research, it is amazing that despite us living in a country that boasts multicultural equality and understanding, injustices to the land’s own Indigenous communities still experience injustice and inequality. I believe sound identity, and an affirmation of an individual’s spiritual and cultural sense of self is vital to to the wellbeing and mental health of all communities in Canada; however, I believe with the horrible and Inhumane situations that Indigenous communities across Canada and the United States are currently (still) experiencing, more than a rentention and regained significance for sound identity is required. This is because of the Canadian government’s stance on the sound identity, and thus the validity of the Indigenous culture, spirituality, and language within the established Western context; in other words, I believe a shift in context is needed as well: Canadians must listen and learn, accept and embrace the cultures around us, especially if we are to still be held as a multicultural country. We must heed the words of the Elders, the stories, songs, dances, and literature that are held so highly within Indigenous communities, and hear with as equally significant and valid as the Western belief system. If we cannot shake our inherent and superiority-based ideologies, the equality of humanity and of identity will not be able to be achieved. I hope that moving forward, Canada will strive not only for equality, but for acceptance and respect for the identities of the Indigenous communities across Canada that stems from the land, spirituality, culture, and languages of the Indigenous people.
Thank you for your thoughts, I am very much enjoying our discussion, and feel our intervention strategy and research has allowed for an unbiased, highly interdisciplinary, and ultimately empathetic conversation on the ways sound identity can strengthen, rehabilitate, and help spur change within Indigenous communities across Canada.
Nick
Hi Brendan,
Thank-you very much for your blog post on Margery Fee’s paper. As you point out, it is a foundation paper for understanding the challenges of Aboriginal writing and literature within former British colonies Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. From good description of non-Aboriginal people’s inability to hear the stories being told because of the biases in our education systems to the very real challenge of writing Aboriginal stories in non-Aboriginal languages.
I really appreciated your link to the Rabble article. I thought it did a great job of explaining why preservation of Indigenous language is critical to preservation of culture. Apihtawikosisan explains, “Indigenous law is the body of law that defines the reciprocal obligations between human beings, animal and plant beings, spirit beings and the land. Language is central to the reclamation of Indigenous law because translation fails us — not only because so much is lost in translation, but also because so much is added”. She says that the Indigenous law provides a different world view that is not translatable. Without that law, people get lost, as their cultural compass is gone. With this perspective, I understood even more Patrick Stewart’s and Fred Metallic’s decisions (see Merriam’s post) to incorporate their own language into their dissertations. The act of challenging the colonizer’s subjective biased process of acceptable communication is “narrative decolonization” as James Cox would say, and it is an important part of cultural preservation.
Works Cited:
Cox, James H. “All This Water Imagery Must Mean Something”: Thomas King’s Revisions of Narratives of Domination and Conquest in “Green Grass, Running Water”. American Indian Quarterly 24.2 (2000): 219–246. Web 2 April 2016.
Hi guys!
It was really nice reading your annotated bibliography, it made me realize how similar our research topics are. Since our group topic is about Indigenous Literature, and my very own research topic is focused around the Haudenosaunee, I felt like I could relate to many of your bibliographies.
One of the bibliographies that really interest me and felt beneficial to my topic is Brendan’s second bibliography “Journal of Intercultural Studies: Writing Orality: Interpreting Literature in English by Aboriginal Writers in North America”. I like how this article also focuses on the privilege of written culture and how the affect of Indigenous writers, language and works. As the literatures that Indigenous writers write are very different than what we are used to, I find it very important to focus on it. From my bibliographies, I found out that Native scholars like to input their own historical, theological and cultural perspective into their scholarly works. This way, it makes their work more unique and distinctive. It also relates to how in Brendan’s article it states that Indigenous works are “inauthentic” because of this aspect. Similar to how in the past, the Europeans tried to assimilate the Aboriginals into their culture, the same thing is occurring in their literature. As the Western culture are not used to the Native way of speech and writing, it is criticized and examined.
I find this article very relatable to my research topic and very interesting as well! I am looking foward to discussing more about this with you guys as our topics are very similar. Thank you for the great post!
Althea
Hey Simon,
I really enjoyed your research into Shaw’s article, it perfectly describes the situation and difficulties of the Indigenous sound identity facing communities in and around Vancouver, and offers possibilities for a reemergence of significance of language, culture, and ultimately the Indigenous self within modern society. Reading your annotation brought to mind my own upbringing, attending school in Hope BC. While our education did by encompass Indigenous spirituality, language, or culture, I am thankful to have had the opportunity to experience aspects of the language and culture, and to gain an idea of the significance of Indigenous education. For instance, the mother of my good friend was (and continues to be) an expert in Indigenous medicines and natural remedies, and would take our classes on nature walks, describing the inherent significance between the land, spirituality, and language of her community. We also had the amazing opportunity to visit long houses and other archeological sites, be taught about the lives and cultural beliefs within her community, which provided an amazing visible and oral/aural connection between her ancestors in the past and her family and community in the present. By having access to this type of education and knowledge, I am thankful to have a much more empathetic and informed understanding of the Indigenous communities around me and around the world; I wonder if more education like this, along with further significance put on the sound identity within the Indigenous context, can benefit both the wellbeing and situation of Indigenous communities, and the understanding and empathy within modern, Western society? Can the two education systems, and inherent spiritual and cultural beliefs reach a level of equilibrium, where one is not more significant, or ‘credible’ to society as a whole?
Thanks again for your research, I look forward to more discussion on this matter!
Nick
Hi Nick,
Thanks for the great question and post to the annotated bibliography. I’m really glad you included your personal experiences into this discussion, especially as the subject of Indigenous education has been something I’ve taken an interest to throughout this semester.
To answer your first question, yes, I do strongly feel that the inclusion of more Indigenous related conversations, topics, lessons and field trips—especially amongst the younger grades—is essential for BC’s curriculum and I feel that it would be a mutually beneficial decision. I went to an elementary school in Richmond and attended a high school in Vancouver and I have nothing but nice things to say about my teachers, and my school. But looking back at it now, I would have really appreciated an experience similar to yours. In my classrooms, we always celebrated the multi-diversity of Canada, studying immigration laws, different religions, cultures, neighbourhoods, etc. and I value that. It was definitely something that needed to be recognized because, and I can say this with confidence, well over half of my elementary school class was made up of first-generation immigrants. The others were second-generation, myself included, so it was an experience and a learning that needed to happen and I am grateful for that.
That being said, it wasn’t until I took this course and began looking up information on my own that I realized how rich, and distinct, our cultural heritage is in BC. You should be, and you seem, very appreciative of those experiences that enabled you insight into Indigenous peoples and their history. When I read something like that stat Shaw mentioned in her article, that BC was once composed of 30 different Indigenous languages—8 of which were distinct—it becomes hard to fathom just how little of this history and culture I know, even within my own province.
I have lived in the Lower Mainland my whole and I think any effort to implement more immersive curriculum that deals with this important part of our province’s fabric is essential. It is something that would not only promote non-native students to enjoy and take part in these traditions, it would enable BC’s various Indigenous communities the opportunity to preserve their heritage. And I wonder, in response to your second question, if that equilibrium is something that should be a regional decision or something that is applied province wide. There are certainly some communities in which this education about Indigenous peoples has more relevance to their day-to-day life but at the same time, I feel that if the purpose of an elementary and high school curriculum is to best prepare students for life as Canadian citizens, it should be taught regardless if it is a school deep in the suburbs of Richmond or in a small town like Hope.
Hello again!
I was reading Brendan’s other article by Peter Dickinson. It also targets Indigenous Literature and I thought that would be interesting for me to know about! In Brendan’s annotation it talks about the oral and and written differences between Indigenous Literature. As my research topic focuses on written literature, I find it intriguing to see that there is a divide between oral and written literature. Similar to Brendan’s opinion, I think that it is important to have both oral and written literature, and not pick one over another as they tie into each other and compliment one another. As oral literature is a more convenient way of passing on stories, written literature allows a writer to actually set his works into stone. Before reading this article I never thought there was even a divide between these two different kind of works. I also believe this article is a great link between your group’s research topic and ours.
Althea
Hello again,
To add on, I was wondering if there was only one form of literature that could exist which one would you pick? As oral and written literature are both very important in this world and you also stated that these two forms intersects each other. It’s a very trivial question, but allows us to think about the pro and cons of each form of literature. As in my citations I realized that written literature helped the Haudenosaunee people put their historical, theological and cultural facts into their scholarly work. This way it allowed them to speak about their experiences and allow the readers to understand how their community works. However what I learned from this course is that oral literature is also very important, as many Aboriginal families rely on oral literature to pass on their traditions, stories and beliefs. Brendan also solidified this by clarifying that “orality are essential for the narrative construction of Indigenous works” and “Indigenous writers to valorize their respective culture’s social science, their narrative and their struggles against historical imperialism.” It is very clear that both written and oral literature are equally as important but if we were to choose, that would be a very hard decision.
Thank you for the great read! I’m really glad you picked out this article as it really helped me understand more about oral and written literature. I can’t wait to read more about your research.
Althea
Thanks for the comment, Althea!
I don’t know if I could pick one over the other because I feel as if oral and written literature are inseparable. Even at its extremes, even in a continuum as Peter Dickinson suggests, I believe that orality and literacy are forever intertwined. There’s a reason why we still read aloud to students, and there’s a reason why epics such as Beowulf are orated and written into prose.
I believe that they are a package deal—and a what a deal it is!—and to pick one over the other would considerably lessen the value and wonderful insights orality and literacy together can show us.
Hi Althea,
Thank-you for posing a thought-provoking question! You would think that as a senior English Literature student I would naturally choose the written word. Additionally, I agree very much with Brendan’s comment about the continuum that Dickinson discusses. But if I had to pick as you suggest…..Back in January when we read Courtney MacNeil’s words in “Orality” where she says that the use of orality is a broad human way of “accessing collective memory or innate human truth” (Orality) I started to think a lot more about how important orality really is in my non-Native culture! Also, in Frank Sligo’s article that I annotated above (Davis Johnston #6) it was really interesting reading about how young adults learning literacy skills viewed literacy versus orality. They saw that literacy had a role such as documenting procedures in the workplace, but it was typically always a supporting role. Oral communication is much fuller and conveys much more than words on a page.
Finally, as a parent, some of my best memories are from storytelling sessions with my daughters. Although these sessions typically involved me reading a written text as opposed to my own stories, they often led to an impromptu storytelling session where we would each contribute. If I had to pick.. it was those oral stories which really did impart “collective memory and innate human truth” (Orality) that I treasure today.
Thanks again for the great question and your huge contribution to the dialogue!
Andrea
Works Cited:
Courtney MacNeil, “Orality.” The Chicago School of Media Theory. Uchicagoedublogs. 2007. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/orality/
Hi group,
I’d like to comment on Marriam Alica’s bibliography entry “Introduction: Opening the Door to Transdiciplinary, Multimodal Communication”. The idea presented in this article regarding oral+ and setting orature apart from literature is of particular interest to me and intersects quite nicely with my study of Cree Acimowina.
I posted a bibliography entry by Cora Weber-Pillwax entitled “Orality in Northern Cree Indigenous Worlds”. This article explores the issues surrounding the act of writing down Cree languages and highlights the fact that Cree language is not a ‘literate’ language. Here, your research supports the notion of setting orature apart from literature instead of analogous to it. Additionally, both of our research has led us to the notion that a primarily oral culture is often misunderstood and characterized as ‘unenlightened’ or ‘uncivilized’, but these types of oral cultures are being measured by a system which does not value them and places the written word as an idealized goal.
I would also like to comment on Simon Sierra’s entry “Language and Identity, Language and the Land”. The research I conducted also highlighted the importance of language in regards to identity and discusses Cree-English translations. Our research underscores the primacy of language for these oral cultures and the systemic erasure of their language only serves to further wipe their culture from Canada’s cultural mosaic. Indigenous language is such an integral part of their identity, and their way of understanding the world is coloured by their orality. Even if a Cree word, for example, were to be accurately translated into the English language, most English-speakers would not be able to make the transition from a literate way of understanding the word to understanding the context of the word from a consciousness of orality.
Hi Brendan!
I think your summary of Dickinson’s article on the “Orality in Literacy” relates to my research into the representations of Indigenous peoples in news media. Though the researches focused on the written aspect of news media, there were a few radio broadcasts that were examined and explored (Nelson’s Pain medication article). The conclusions that Nelson and her team found is similar to Dickinson’s in that they also feel that the representation of Indigenous peoples should require us to consider and understand their positions within larger sociological contexts.
Many of the news reports found by both Nelson and Roosvall in my two annotated bibliographies contain interviews from Indigenous peoples, but are framed by victimization or hopelessness by the news outlets. Their experiences and knowledge is overshadowed by the narrative bias of the reports, and because the First Nations are not the ones who write the articles, that aspect of a “hybridization” in the medium of text and reader is warped by stereotypes and presumptuous language.
I think in addition to Indigenous literature, there needs to be a reform of the biases and stereotypes of portraying the First Nations in news media. News media plays a large part in framing and forming the public’s opinion on certain things, and if there is a change in the attitude of addressing the Indigenous people and their problems as real sociopolitically caused issues, the presentation of Indigenous literature will also gain credibility.
Thank you for your summary of a great article!
Hi Merriam!
I am really intrigued by the ideas that were brought up in the oral+ article, about how paralinguistic elements can also be a part of expressions related to speech and vocalizations. The idea that orality and literature are different from orature highlights the intricacies behind Indigenous culture and traditions associated with storytelling and oral culture.
I think my bibliographies ties into your research because the voices of Indigenous peoples found within the interviews and news articles have been taken and put into a different context than their own. The meaning and the oral+ is lost and the only expression allowed to transpire is that of the intentions of the news media. The quotation you had about the “textualized orality of politically and socially marginalized groups” being incorrect and inadequate is completely applicable to the news reports research, where only one version (the news version) of the story is being told as the truth and widely perpetuated as fact through the media.
The lack of an understanding of Indigenous textual and oral forms can be brought to the presentation of Indigenous people in the media, where their forms of communication are reimagined and represented in a different way. News media portrays every story as fact, with authority and persuasion; a presentation style that strips away oral culture and Indigenous traditions while also giving room for their interpretation and stereotypes.
Thank you for an insightful article and interesting idea!