Blog Question
Identify and discuss two of King’s “acts of narrative decolonization.”Please read the following quote to assist you with your answer.
The lives of King’s characters are entangled in and informed by both the colonial legacy in the Americas and the narratives that enact and enable colonial domination. King begins to extricate his characters’ lives from the domination of the invader’s discourses by weaving their stories into both Native American oral traditions and into revisions of some of the most damaging narratives of domination and conquest: European American origin stories and national myths, canonical literary texts, and popular culture texts such as John Wayne films. These revisions are acts of narrative decolonization. James Cox. “All This Water Imagery Must Mean Something.” Canadian Literature 161-162 (1999). Web April 04/2013.
Today we live in a world where cultural appropriation is being called out on the online world left, right, front and center. Whether it be ignorant Halloween costumes, inauthentic use of sacred items, to racially stigmatized hairstyles, there’s always someone watching. The appropriation of culture may be more visually present today through social media, but it is not a new phenomenon. In Philip J Deloria’s Book, Playing Indian, we are presented with a very vivid history of both American and Canadian settler populations romanticization and appropriation of Indigenous culture over time.
Thomas King’s Novel Green Grass Running Water, works to do the opposite. Through reading this novel, I noticed two ways that King worked to decolonize and re-appropriate settler culture. One way that King does this is in how he writes his characters. Rather than homogenize and oversimplify Indigenous stories, culture, and practices, King creates dynamic Indigenous characters, who hold their own agency. King’s character Alberta, is a woman involved in a love affair with two men who are cousins. She actively chooses the relationships she involves herself in, and the position she takes. King combats the readers’ perspectives on Indigeneity, gender, love, age and settler norms, through detailed and complex writing of characters. King gives his characters agency without disregarding the hegemonic system of National and patriarchal power that exists. There is an active interplay between his diverse and contextual characters and narratives of domination and hegemony imposed by colonialism.
In the areas of intersection between Indigenous Characters and colonial narratives, we observe a new form of appropriation. King imposes stories from the Bible alongside creation stories, evoking both a humor and confrontation that might be new to many Canadian readers. Spinning off of reality, King makes a parody of Colonial narratives. As the reader encounters a spectrum of both strongly Indigenous characters with traditional colonial narratives, they are taken into a rarely visited space. Is this a space of appropriation? It seems as though it could be, but I’d like to consider it “appropriate appropriation. His writing is unapologetic and refreshing, making space for new interpretations of old hegemonic tales.
Through weaving colonial stories into a cyclical, multi-dimensional and contextual storytelling pattern administered by King, we observe the power of Indigenous narrative. The actual framework of the story is framed in a way that speaks from an Indigenous perspective, knowledge, and tradition, which enables the reader to reconsider their own narratives. King’s capacity to appropriate Colonial story and character into Indigenous storytelling is instrumental in decolonization. We enter a world where everyone exists, but in more nuanced positionality. He offers space for all, as long as those who wish to indulge in the story are willing to listen and reconsider “reality”.
I’ve included two links below. The first is a very informative definition of what cultural appropriation of Indigenous culture looks like in Canada. This is written by Jennifer Brant who is a Mohawk writer herself and co-editor of Forever Loved: Exposing the Hidden Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada.
The second link is to a website about the film: Reel Injun, which explores how white cinema has reflected indigeneity over time. There are multiple clips included on this page that reflects how settler colonialism fabricated a perspective of “Indianness” in attempts to find a deeper connection to self.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/reel-injun/
References Cited:
Brant , Jennifer. “Cultural Appropriation of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/cultural-appropriation-of-indigenous-peoples-in-canada.
Deloria, Philip J., Inc E. C. NetLibrary, and Aboriginal Ebook Collection. Playing Indian. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1998.
Diamond , Neil. “Reel Injun.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/reel-injun/.
King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.