Usually I read all the lesson information and the questions prior to tackling the readings. However, this week’s lesson convinced me to use a different approach in the future. When I read the question, I thought of my previous blog post which sparked a very interesting discussion on Facebook (Similar to Lutz, I assumed my readers belonged to a European tradition). After reading question 3, I noticed I had a few assumptions and expectations prior to reading Lutz’s “First Contact as Spiritual Performance” (I honestly questioned the credibility of the article). As I read the quoted parts from Lutz’s text in the question, I found myself agreeing with the points that were pointed out. I thought he definitely assumes that his readers are of European tradition and that it is more difficult for a European to understand Indigenous performances (Lutz, “First Contact” 32).
However, this lead me to question myself… If I had not been asked to look out for Lutz’s assumptions in the text, would I have noticed it? I’m not sure I would have noticed without multiple readings. I think this was a very good example / wake up call at how assumptions can play a large role in how we read and interpret things.
Lutz attempts to highlight the spiritual importance of first contact between the Europeans and the Indigenous in a fair and academic way. Despite his attempt to engage readers about importance of understanding the spiritual component of contact events (45), his text occasionally has an undertone of European identity. For example, in this passage we see Lutz’s assumptions about who the reader is and what they know: “But this difficulty we are at least aware of. The key and usually unremarked problem is that we have insufficient distance from our own and our ancestor’s world view” (32). The use of “we” seems to suggest that the reader identifies as European and that ALL Europeans seem to have difficulty understanding Indigenous performances. I found that Lutz’s assumptions were definitely not fair. In his defence, when his wording is scrutinized out of context, it comes off as extremely ethnocentric (I’m sure that was not his intent). According to Lesson 2.2, “both parties depended on their own already long told stories to interpret the other’s performance” (Lesson 2.2, Paterson). In a similar way, Lutz’s article had an underlying tone of the European story despite trying to portray both sides in a factual and unbiased way.
References
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. Print.
Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 2:2.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres. University of British Columbia Blogs, 2013. Web. 21 June. 2014.
Thank you – one interesting thing your answer made me think about again: I don’t know if it is the assumption that everyone reading “belongs” to a European tradition of thinking so much, but rather the assumption that everyone (Europeans and non-Europeans alike) “can” identify with the European world view, that I find most interesting. You capture your pont nicely. Thank you – hope you get some dialogue happening here 🙂
Yes, I think that’s partly the reason. I think the influence of exploration and colonialism helped spread the mindset that “everyone can identify with the European world view”. I recently came across this web image: http://i.imgur.com/SEo916C.jpg
It shows that majority of the western countries in the world have passports that allow visa-free travelling. Interestingly, majority of those are western countries. I also noticed that a few Asian cities such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia that are quite high in the rankings have been colonized by in the past. Their seems to be some correlation between the freedom of travel and how widespread the western world view has become.