Abstract
The emergent discipline of Indigenous Studies faces many challenges. As this collection makes evident, the international, intercultural and interdisciplinary project known as Indigenous Studies must simultaneously be diverse yet coherent, enabling Indigenous scholars across the world to communicate with one another across cultural difference to find what is shared in their common (yet distinct) experiences of colonialism. There is no Indigenous Studies canon to guide this work. Rather, there are local, national and transnational efforts to find common ground in the study of transcultural indigeneity.
This impressive collection is emblematic of such efforts. Papers in this book were drawn from the presentations at two international colloquia focused on transcultural understandings of Indigenous Studies. The colloquia, one hosted by Te Tumu School of Māori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies at the University of Otago (New Zealand) in 2006 and the second by the Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta (Canada) in 2007, brought together Indigenous Studies scholars from Canada, New Zealand and the Pacific in a space of dialogue concerning the ambiguities, fluidity and situatedness of any intellectual project labeled as Indigenous Studies.
The structure of the book reflects its origins in the two colloquia. The first section, drawn from the papers presented at the Te Tumu colloquium, is focused on the concept of ‘Identity’, with the sub-themes of land, language and lore. Indigenous identity is explored here as a construction and representation as much as a fact. The concept is problematized in order to become the focus of research, and in the process perhaps radically reconceived and even reconstructed. In this section Chris Andersen considers the constructions of Métis identity, Alice Te Punga Somerville analyses the relationships between identity and place in the poetry of Robert Sullivan and Vernice Wineera, and Poia Rewi considers cultural construction and maintenance through the lens of the Māori oratory practice of whaikōrero. Naomi McIlwraith and Hana O’Regan both underscore the importance of language to Indigenous identity; McIlwraith focuses on the threatened loss of Cree language, and O’Regan discusses a Māori language revitalization programme. The final two chapters in this section focus on re/interpreting Indigenous knowledge and historical material: Jim Williams argues for the need for both ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ views in the interpretation of traditional materials, and Michael Reilly contrasts a Mangaian story from the Cook Islands with the colonial perspective revealed in its translation by an English missionary.
The second section of the book, drawn from the Canadian colloquium, switches focus to the concept and practice of ‘Resistance’ in Indigenous Studies, although the overlapping terrain between ‘Identity’ and ‘Resistance’ is clearly foregrounded. In this section Janine Hayward analyses Indigenous political representation in Canada and New Zealand, and Shalene Jobin Vandervelde considers the challenges and successes of urban Indigenous governance in Edmonton, Canada. Counter-hegemonic storytelling through art and fiction are situated as forms of Indigenous resistance in both Nathalie Kermoal’s chapter, analysing the work of Mi’kmaq artist Teresa Marshall, and Sina Vaai’s discussion of Pacific fiction through the work of playwright Sudesh Mishra and poet Sia Figiel. Drawing the book to a close are two powerful chapters, the first by Isabel Altamirano-Jiménez, who argues that the effects of neoliberalism and human rights discourse have combined to construct violence and gendered discrimination against Indigenous women as ‘cultural problems’, and the final chapter by Brendan Hokowhitu, which links identity and resistance together in an analysis of the common discourses underpinning Indigenous, and specifically Māori, resistance.
Together the chapters in this collection communicate the vibrancy and sophistication of a mercurial field of study. Not all the contributors are Indigenous, but the emphasis remains firmly on Indigenous scholarship and ‘the right of Indigenous peoples to theorise and to think with reference to the facticity of colonisation, but grounded in the will to be culturally self-reflective’ (p. 19). Through a constant iteration of the local with the transnational, the collection challenges any universalizing tendencies that may be assumed in a project such as Indigenous Studies, and in this way presents an important intervention into the whiteness of the academy.
Although Australian readers will be disappointed to find that no Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander scholarship is included in the collection, they will certainly find that many of the chapters resonate strongly with issues that animate Indigenous Studies in Australia. The chapter by Altamirano-Jiménez is perhaps the most immediately politically relevant to current Australian debates, which have seen a spate of recent books debating the relative roles of culture, history and economy in explaining persistent poverty and marginalization in some Aboriginal communities (see for example Altman and Hinkson, 2010; Austin-Broos, 2011; Sutton, 2009). Extending on these publications, produced primarily by non-Indigenous Australian anthropologists, through a collection such as this that foregrounds the work of Indigenous scholars in this country, would do much to imprint the ‘Indigenous moral space’ (p. 19) advanced in this collection on issues of deep concerns to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia.