Stories Contestation and

ModernityFNAT 101- Arts One

Lecture

November, 2009

Uniting a Mixed Collection of Readings that question that master narrative

The role of aboriginal people in the fur trade (Ray)

The role of aboriginal women in trade (White)

The Real Riel (Bourgeault or Flanagan)

What was agreed to in Treaty (Saskatchewan Treaty Commission)

Who are our ancestors (McNab)

Modern Indians (Newhouse)

Where are your Stories? Home is a border country, a place

that separates and connects us [Stories] tell us where we come

from, why we are here, how to live and die

A way to believe & ceremonies to sustain

We commemorate to remember Give communities a sense both of

obligation and entitlement Changing stories has powerful implications

Complimentary stories always develop in ways that ensure their contradiction & thus their hold on us

The Importance of Stories Connerton (1989)

Collective Memories of a people Experience of the present depends of the

knowledge of the past Stories legitimate a social order

Said (1994) “nations are stories” The power to narrate is central to a culture

McNab (2005) “Sometimes fear is stronger than truth” The long term effects of denial The first ‘white’ person

King (2003) “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are”

Multiple Stories/ Contested Terrain Stories locate the boundaries of our

identities/ which we believe and locate ourselves amidst

These boundaries can overlap and lead to conflict

Examples: Gitksan and British Columbia Nisga’a and Gitanyow Afrikaners and Zulus Irish and the British Pound/Wente and Charles Mann

The history of all cultures and thus their stories is a history of cultural borrowing

Contested Minds

Often stories are the first place attacked in a campaign to control land and a people

Target story holders and transmittal Potlatch ban Residential schools

Not unique to aboriginal peoples 1618 Czech takeover by Austria Nazi Germany

Control of stories and memories = power

Stories and Resistance “One of the first tasks of a

culture of resistance was to reclaim, rename and re-inhabit the land” (Said,1994)

A search for authenticity…a more congenial origin than that provided by the colonial story

Authenticity crucial as we search for/construct identity in stories of our people & families (my paper at CINSA, 2000)

McLeod’s (2004) “discursive authority” as the subjects & creators of our own narratives

Legitimacy of voice

Tribal to Modern

Seeks to challenge the story that we are unable to modernize

Newhouse’s thesis (2003) that post-1969 We have increased sense of

power Assertive & desirous of a new

world Distinctive parallel developments

in the Arts, Education, Health Increasing influence of mainstream

thoughts and institutions Modern = blended

Modern or Post-Modern?

Modern“ The ability to construct an

identity for the self, either as an individual or as a collective, lies at the heart of modernity” Newhouse (2003)

“ a syncretic, dynamic, adaptive identity in contemporary [Canada]” Weaver (1997)

“ a social convergence in which all societies resemble one another” Max Weber

Post-Modern Hybridity and marginality “ a new experience of orientation

and disorientation, with senses of placed and displaced identity, new relations in space and place, fixity and mobility, centre and periphery, real and virtual space, frontier and territory” Gough (2000)

“Natives define their identity in terms of community and relate to ultimate reality through that community” Weaver (1997)

‘Self in society’ rather than ‘Self and society’ Fixico (2000)

Factors influencing Change (Newhouse, 2003, p. 402)

1. Urbanization• Growth even with declining in-migration

2. Institutionalization• Increased reliance rather than on kin

3. Cultural Identity re-enforcement• Deliberate/culturally specific

4. Retraditionalization• Return of values, customs & worldview

5. Textual transformation• Written English predominant/common

language6. Self-governance

• Asserted control over everyday life

How do we nurture this modern aboriginal identity?

Recognize that ties to community are often weakened

Recognize that diversity of cultures is an issue, with accompanying divisions

Utilize those urban institutions that do bind us e.g. friendship centres; neighbourhoods

Define citizenship in confederacies rather than 600 first ‘nations’ (Lawrence, 2004)

Create more ‘space’ where we self-govern