Blood Narrative: Indigenous Identity in American Indian and Maori Literary and Activist TextsBlood Narrative is a comparative literary and cultural study of post-World War II literary and activist texts by New Zealand Maori and American Indians—groups who share much in their responses to European settler colonialism. Chadwick Allen reveals the complex narrative tactics employed by writers and activists in these societies that enabled them to realize unprecedented practical power in making both their voices and their own sense of indigeneity heard. Allen shows how both Maori and Native Americans resisted the assimilationist tide rising out of World War II and how, in the 1960s and 1970s, they each experienced a renaissance of political and cultural activism and literary production that culminated in the formation of the first general assembly of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. He focuses his comparison on two fronts: first, the blood/land/memory complex that refers to these groups' struggles to define indigeneity and to be freed from the definitions of authenticity imposed by dominant settler cultures. Allen's second focus is on the discourse of treaties between American Indians and the U.S. government and between Maori and Great Britain, which he contends offers strong legal and moral bases from which these indigenous minorities can argue land and resource rights as well as cultural and identity politics. With its implicit critique of multiculturalism and of postcolonial studies that have tended to neglect the colonized status of indigenous First World minorities, Blood Narrative will appeal to students and scholars of literature, American and European history, multiculturalism, postcolonialism, and comparative cultural studies. |
Contents
A Directed SelfDetermination | 25 |
A Marae on Paper Writing a New Maori World in Te Ao Hou | 43 |
Indian Truth Debating Indigenous Identity after Indians in the War | 73 |
AN INDIGENOUS RENAISSANCE | 107 |
Rebuilding the Ancestor Constructing Self and Community in the Maori Renaissance | 127 |
BloodLandMemory Narrating Indigenous Identity in the American Indian Renaissance | 160 |
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Common terms and phrases
activists and writers Akwesasne Alcatraz American Indian American Indian Literature ancestors Aotearoa/New Zealand argues assert Auckland blood memory blood/land/memory complex Bronson carved Chief Eagle colonial contemporary indigenous contemporary Maori context D'Arcy McNickle Department of Maori developed dominant elder English federal Fourth World Gerald Vizenor Hone Tuwhare Ihimaera Indian activists Indian Affairs indige indigenous identity indigenous minority Kerewin Kiowa literary living Maori Affairs Maori and American Maori and Pakeha Maori community Maori culture Maori identity Maori language Maoritanga marae McNickle's Momaday Momaday's narrative tactics narrator Native American Navajo NCAI nonfiction novel Osage Pakeha patu poem poetry political population postcolonial theory potential Press Publication published Ranginui Walker rebuilding renaissance Schwimmer Scott Momaday Sioux specific spiritual stories taonga texts tion traditional treaty discourse Treaty of Waitangi tribal Tribes U.S. Congress United University Vizenor voice Waitangi Tribunal WCIP WCIP's whare tipuna winter count Witi Ihimaera Wounded Knee
Popular passages
Page 10 - I use this term to refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today.