My favourite movie is Avatar. It can be summarized as what John Lutz writes, “enter[ing] a world that is distant in time and alien in culture, attempting to perceive indigenous performance through their eyes as well as those of the [Earth]” (32).
And if you have watched the movie, it is quite literally as Lutz described; a white man, Jake Sully, seeing through the eyes of a genetically engineered body called the Avatar that is fused with the DNA of the Earth host and the DNA of the “natives”. Confusing? I know.
Although Jake sees through the eyes of his Avatar, his mind is still far and distant and attached to his body that travelled from Earth. He attempts to see and live like the Na’vi and is eventually accepted as an Omaticaya. But he is always attached to that human body. The Avatar is but a vessel for his human-made mind.
This is how I view Lutz’s assumptions. He is speaking from his own European-made experiences. From his experiences, those who would normally read his writings would be from a European background – not an Indigenous one. To him, the world has advanced towards European beliefs, values, technologies, and culture. To Lutz, Indigenous culture is “distant in time and alien in culture”.
He then calls for readers to engage in this challenge and “step outside and see one’s own culture as alien” and that both European and Indigenous stories must be put under “the same ethnohistorical lens” (Lutz 32).
Lutz’s assumptions are clear. The world looks through the lens of the European. The European must then look at themselves through the lens of another culture’s in order to understand. It is clear in his writing that it was influenced by the Europeanized English-speaking and writing world.
And exactly what is European? Often times, European becomes lumped with American and then extrapolated as white. Normally, when someone in North America says “white”, I assume they mean all people who had an ancestry from Europe – particularly British or French. Similarly, in his writings, Michael Ignatieff imagines Canada through myth. He compares the American myth, or the American Dream to that of Canada’s, which is not a single myth, he says, but “three competing ones, English Canadian, French Canadian and Aboriginal” (13). This is interesting in that Ignatieff, white himself in race, is able to differentiate between two different European cultural groups – but not Aboriginal.
It seems the world has been dichotomized as either European/white or not. Hari Kondabolu talks about a “white minority” in 2042. He says race is is just a way to divide, to generalize, and to socially construct the world we live in. It seems white people are homogenized into one, as well as all minority groups.
This goes back to J. Edward Chamerlin’s notion of “Us and Them”. At least in North America and parts of Europe, “Us” is often equated with white. So in that when Lutz writes for “us” to challenge ourselves to think outside of European constructs, he is talking to the white version of “Us”. (Note that version is not pluralized.)
So the way I view Lutz’s assumptions is with understanding – the understanding that he writes from a background that is dominated by European/North American/white mentality. It’s the understanding that unless the character in a fictional novel is described otherwise, the character is most likely white. And even if the character is described with features that may indicate non-whiteness, the character can be still mistaken to be white unless explicitly informed.
In the same way, the first contact stories told by Indigenous people (described by Lutz) is oralized within the background of a variety of Indigenous cultures. Some scholars may decide to analyze stories and texts only linguistically – not taking into the account the contexts of which when the story was formed, where it came into being, or even by who imagined it into existence. However, I believe contextual background is important along with linguistic analysis. Without this acknowledgement, erasure of differences tends to happen. And so then groups becomes homogenized and with it, individuals become lost.
References
Chamberlin, Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories?: Finding Common Ground. A. A. Knopf: Toronto, 2003.
Ignatieff, Michael. “True Patriot Love.” True Patriot Love: Four Generations in Search of Canada. Toronto: Penguin, 2009. 1-30. Print.
Kondabolu, Hari. “Hari Kondabolu- 2042 & the White Minority.” YouTube, 05 Feb. 2014. Web. 06 Feb. 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85fr6nbiMT4>.
Lutz, John. “First Contact as a Spiritual Performance: Aboriginal — Non-Aboriginal Encounters on the North American West Coast.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indigenous-European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 30-45.
Hi Crista!
Great post!
I was intrigued by your discussion of identity when you asked, “exactly what is European?” When Lutz challenges us to “step outside and see [your] own culture as alien” (32), I wonder if the “European” in contact stories is the same as present day Europeans? If what it means to be “European” has evolved, we run the risk of misinterpreting Indigenous and European performances by looking through the wrong lens. Perhaps, we can expand your question to ask, “exactly what [does it mean to be] European?” Is that an ethical question to ask? Can you be European but not “white”? Can you be “European” if you were not born in Europe? Is “European” a mythical identity not solidly rooted in history?
I agree with you when you say, “it seems the world has been dichotomized as either European/white or not”. But how can we move forward into a more progressive form of thought? Every time we redefine “Us”, we end up redefining “Them” and this leads to the retention and often deepening of the cultural divide.
Perhaps the first step to bridging the gap – that is the cultural divide – is, as you say, to consider the contextual and linguistic background of first contact stories. However, I would like to suggest that we must also be cautious of extrapolating modern stereotypes to historical data.
Thanks for an awesome read!
Lutz, John. “First Contact as a Spiritual Performance: Aboriginal — Non-Aboriginal Encounters on the North American West Coast.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indigenous-European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 30-45.
Oh hello, I have returned to your blog again!
I liked your point about Ignatieff envisioning Canadian identities as not one, but many, the three that he listed. Adding onto @zarad‘s point, it is very interesting to view the idea of a “European” through this lens as well.
The point about a “white” minority in 2042 really questions what identity will be based on in decades down the road. Who will we picture when someone says “Canadian”? Within our class’ context of the digital world, I think it’s impossible to find any sort of pattern when we ask the question: who do you picture when someone asks you to imagine a citizen of the internet? Is this what our world is heading towards? A national-less globe where all have claim?
Hi Crista,
I enjoyed your post! I had the same thought as Chris – what does the rest of the world think about Canadians? What is their image of us? Lutz talks about difficulties understanding other cultures and indigenous perspectives, and that to step back and view our own culture as “alien” gives us a brief insight into how others perceive us (32).
Below is a link to a very unscholarly video of a Canadian’s response to the stereotypes American’s and European’s have of us. It is meant for humour more than anything else, but it does show how outsiders of ANY kind make assumptions on topics (or places) they have little knowledge about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv1-ARkXfE8
Cheers,
Deanna
Lutz, John. “First Contact as a Spiritual Performance: Aboriginal — Non-Aboriginal Encounters on the North American West Coast.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indigenous-European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 30-45.