3. We began this unit by discussing assumptions and differences that we carry into our class. In “First Contact as Spiritual Performance,” Lutz makes an assumption about his readers (Lutz, “First Contact” 32). He asks us to begin with the assumption that comprehending the performances of the Indigenous participants is “one of the most obvious difficulties.” He explains that this is so because “one must of necessity enter 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 Europeans.” Here, Lutz is assuming either that his readers belong to the European tradition, or he is assuming that it is more difficult for a European to understand Indigenous performances – than the other way around. What do you make of this reading? Am I being fair when I point to this assumption? If so, is Lutz being fair when he makes this assumption?

I feel as though it is fair to point out this assumption, though perhaps it is required to add this assumption in. After all, academia constantly feels the shadow of the European tradition and, coming from European tradition myself, I did not see this shadow until several Gender and Women’s Studies courses pointed this out to me.

Looking at this question, I was reminded of a novel I once read in a course on narratives. The book that I read was Half-breed by Maria Campbell. The novel is a memoir of her life living as a Metis woman in Canada. Maria Campbell details her life as caught between two different cultures, with those around her assuming she can never fit into either of these two cultures because of her liminal identity. The memoir is her attempt to bring an understanding to the difficulty she had to deal with in her life, though there was always something about the novel that bothered me.

Though I have not read the novel in a long time, I still remember the tone that created a divide between me and the author. It was as though Maria Campbell assumed that the reader came from the European tradition and, because of this, the reader would never fully be able to understand her story. I also remember how alienated I felt reading the novel as she creates a clear divide, separating herself and her people from other cultures in the narrative.

For this post, I read “The Two Way Flow: Connecting Cultures, Understanding Others” by Sanjukta Dasgupta from Landscape, Place and Culture : Linkages between Australia and India. The UBC Library has an eBook version of this article, which is what I have hyperlinked to. Hopefully this will give you a quick route to the book. If I need to edit that, or make it easier to link to the book, please let me know. The article goes over how connection between cultures allows for an understanding that can remove the assumptions that I am questioning. Dasgupta says that, “desires for exceptionalism instead of cultural pluralism ushers in the risk of discrimination and the resultant disinterest in the society and culture of the re-located space” (6). Now, this made me think of Half-breed because, while Campbell does not attempt to exceptionalism her culture, there is a measure of disconnect between cultures throughout the novel. It is the disconnect and disinterest that gave me pause.

Again, I had this feeling as I read the Lutz article for this lesson. Lutz makes the assumption that his reader is European and that they will either need to drastically alter their perceptions, or will be unable to understand first contact stories outside of the European tradition. When I first felt this feeling with Half-breed, I wrote a very long essay about how this alienation created a divide between myself and Campbell, turning my anger into ammunition. As Audre Lorde says in her speech, “The Uses of Anger,” while anger and frustration can often be seen as disruptive and negative, they are also active emotions that can inspire change.

But anger expressed and translated into action in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification, for it is in the painful process of this translation that we identify who are our allies with whom we have grave differences, and who are our genuine enemies. (Lorde 280)

However, I also detailed that perhaps this was not a bad thing because it inspired me to write about Half-breed, which generates conversation on the topic.

Now that it has been a few years since I wrote that paper, I would like to add something to this thought process. While, normally, I believe that assumptions, such as claiming that someone from European culture can never understand another culture, can be extremely dangerous and create further divide between cultures, I feel as thought it may have been necessary in this case. By pointing this out, Lutz and Campbell draw attention to the fact that the assumed reader will never have to experience being told that they will never understand because, as part of the dominant culture.

This brings attention to the fact that Indigenous cultures often have to deal with this kind of critique. As seen in The Truth About Stories, Thomas King discusses European and Indigenous stories of creation. King notes that European creation myths are often viewed with a grain of truth in them, while Indigenous creation myths are immediately dismissed. I feel as though, by pointing out a similar thought process in “First Contact as Spiritual Performance,” Lutz is challenging any potential readers that belong to European tradition to think outside of the assumptions that are taught to them.

Assumptions can be very dangerous constructs. They can often be damaging and create an isolation between cultures by alienating cultures from each other. However, this can be repaired. As we go through this course, I believe that we are making steps to repair and dispel these assumptions. In “First Contact as Spiritual Performance,” Lutz makes assumptions about his readers in order to continue his dialogue. In this instance, his assumptions are able to help in his argument because he puts the assumed reader in a space where they can begin to question their own assumptions.

Works Cited

Campbell, Maria. Half-breed. Goodread Biographies, 1983.

Dasgupta, Sanjukta. “The Two Way Flow: Connecting Cultures, Understanding Others.” Landscape, Place and Culture : Linkages between Australia and India, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2001, pp. 2-13.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. House of Anansi Press Inc., 2003.

Lorde, Audre. “The Uses of Anger.”Women’s Studies Quarterly 25.1/2 (1997): 278-85. Web.

Lutz, John. “Contact Over and Over Again.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indignenous- European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 1-15. Print.