We have a full plate before us for our final class meeting. The texts by Coulthard and Pasternak intersect in significant ways and should provide for a rich conversation.
Please also remember to bring a food item to share, as well as a plate or bowl to eat from.
And meanwhile, enjoy what is left of this long weekend. It’s a time of liberation after all for Jews, Christians, Easter bunnies, and April fools alike.
With regard to your own paper:
With regard to the paper(s) of your colleague(s):
Lawrence’s first book, “Real” Indians and Others, was widely read when it was released in 2004. She has always worked at the boundaries of place, peoplehood, and recognition, and this book is no different.
Hi all,
Apologies for the delayed posting.
Here are questions from those of you who emailed yours to me.
from Nick:
For this week’s reading, I want to ask whether folks think The Clay We Are Made Of might be a viable example of how a non-Indigenous scholar might be able to consider viable ethical research frameworks based upon the fundamentals of what Susan Hill lays out. I find it pretty interesting that Roy and other Indigenous historians we have looked at this term offer extensive introductions that lay out the strengths and limits of their methods, sources, and cultural knowledge but some of the non-Indigenous scholars we have read, stop short of discussing the limits of their decolonizing lens, if they mention it all.
I wonder how we might consider Hill’s point that for the Haudenosaunee, “the belief that creation is a constantly occurring and reoccurring process rather than something that happened once in the long-ago past,” (Hill 17) might be a viable framework to look for elsewhere. That is not to say we try to find some totalizing notion of Indigenous time and past but rather if we can learn from scholars such as Hill to read between the lines and look for different frameworks and ways of knowing that might guide non-Indigenous scholars to ask better questions of sources. Coming back to my question around ethics, Hill’s conclusion lays out the groundwork for what considerations must be made if we are to move forward with any sort of effective reconciliation project, outlining the importance of land claims, education, and environmental responsibility. I wonder if we might use this as a framework for approaching non-Indigenous ethical scholarship?
from Vicki:
A theme that Hill revisits throughout The Clay We are Made of is that of continuity. She discusses the importance of continuity in showing Haudenosaunee connection to land, to understanding and working towards reconciliation, and also in bringing a more inclusive understanding to Haudenosaunee history overall. I feel as though she addresses continuity in two specific ways (1) by interweaving published sources, oral histories and origin stories together to create a coherent (and continuous) dialogue and history and (2) by highlighting the ways that this method of inquiry and discussion illustrates a Haudenosaunee history that is continuous and adaptive, instead of fragmented and disconnected.
We’ve touched on this concept of continuity before in several class discussions, but I feel like Hill wants to bring the discussion to another level. So, on the theme of continuity: What are the wider implications of Hill’s approach, both disciplinarily and for Haudenosaunee and Indigenous history in Canada overall? In what ways might it be subversive, and what might it subvert? How does the fact that Hill is framing these arguments in wider discussions about land occupation and rights relate to her claims about continuity? How might it also relate to ongoing discussions in Canada about land rights and claims?
PERMITTED USE: This image may be downloaded or is otherwise provided at no charge for one-time use for coverage or promotion of National Geographic magazine dated January 2014 and exclusively in conjunction thereof. ©Martin Schoeller/National Geographic
(credit: National Geographic)
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/01/kayapo/schoeller-photography; January issue of National Geographic magazine.”
Kayapo who live near border towns supplement their subsistence diet with trips to the supermarket, like this one in Tucumã.
We hear from Phil Deloria again this week in the form of his monograph that has become classic in the field in its own right. His arguments about expectation and time and history relate to the chapter by Mark Rifkin that accompanies the book.
This is a biggie – easily the most influential work in American Indian history (term chosen deliberately) of the last quarter-century. As Paige said, we’d like to you read it, and the articles responding to it, as much for analysis of the particularities of historical events as for the broader conceptual and ethical questions we often speak about.
Here’s what we’d like you to read:
Everyone: Chapters 1-4, 7, and Epilogue.
Dane, Jakub, Elspeth, Nicole, and Henry: Chapters 5, 6, and 8.
Nick, Rosie, Vicki, and Michael: Chapters 9, 10, and 11.
We realize that’s a lot, especially in combination with the additional readings. Do your best.
These four pieces each take on the prehistory-history divide and illustrate the necessarily interdisciplinary approaches required for this kind of work. What lessons might we bring from earlier weeks to our assessment of these works? How is doing more “distant” history different, if at all, from the kinds of research and writing we’ve already seen? Are the stakes at all different? Lastly, what sorts of interventions are these particular works trying to make?
In this widely acclaimed book from Yale University Press’s Henry Roe Cloud series on American Indians and Modernity, Reid, of Snohomish Coast Salish ancestry, offers a rich history of the maritime world of the Makah people. The Sea Is My Country illustrates the ways in which the Makah shaped the economy of the Northwest Coast while also maintaining their ancient relationships to both sea and land. So far this term, we’ve seen collaborations with a clan and an individual; now we will be reading a work created in close relationship with a nation.
I’m looking forward to discussing this project
with all of you. It adds to the diversity of examples of collaborative history we have had over these past few weeks. And look who else is reading it!
Leslie Robertson was approached by members of the Kwagu’l Gix̱sa̱m Clan to write a book about their ancestor, Jane Cook. This book offers a different configuration than Roy’s of the relationship between archival materials, disciplinary history, and community/family engagement.
As this book is lengthy, you can skip parts VIII and IX. I realize this still leaves a lot to read. I propose the following strategy. Please get a sense through careful reading in the early chapters of what her methodology does and why she includes so many documents in their entirety. Then, for the remainder of the book, you can skim more quickly through the documents and focus on the relationship between the various voices (Robertson’s, her collaborators’, and the documents.)
**Remember that we will meet on 23 January at 11am and finish early at 12:30.