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Description
Academia's increasing number of ethnic studies programs and students of diverse backgrounds necessitates a shift from purely theoretical discussions of race, ethnicity, identity, and authenticity to new pedagogical considerations. Those of us who teach "ethnic" curricula have not only read the theories about identity politics, we now see these conflicts play out in our classrooms. Moreover, identity is no longer a subtext of the class dynamic or class materials; it is the text. A decolonization paradigm can accommodate tensions regarding identity so that identity-as-text can be constructive and beneficial rather than destructive for students.
In this paper we discuss student reactions during a class we co-taught titled "American Indian Assimilation and Resistance on the Great Plains"; after spending a week on campus, we traveled with 25 students to sites in Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Montana. We describe the unexpected resistance we encountered in the class, which became a microcosm of Indian identity concerns. We saw a potentially destructive dynamic surrounding Indian identity playing out among our students with questions of authenticity and authority emerging as our students for the first time dealt with these issues in "real life" academic surroundings rather than in the "neutral" setting of a classroom. We conclude by describing our decision to decolonize our pedagogy and thus the culture of the class.
Within the first 36 hours of the travel portion of the course, students were being pushed into one of three racial categories by a small clique: the "real" or "authentic" Indians, who created this system of categorization, the "inauthentic" Indians, and the non-Indians. (1) The differences between "authentic" and "inauthentic" Indian students had more to do with claimed or actual knowledge or experience than with blood quantum or tribal enrollment. The "authentic" Indians questioned the loyalty of "inauthentic" students, especially if they were seen associating with non-Indian students or worse, if they appeared to be studying the Indian communities we were visiting. Non-Indian students were defined by the "authentic" Indians as exploitative, insensitive, and unable to understand the experience and viewpoint of Indians. In other words, our carefully planned class quickly deteriorated into a battleground, complete with racist comments and hurt feelings on all sides.
We teach at the University of Minnesota, Morris, a school that began as an Indian boarding school under the Sisters of Mercy and was briefly under the auspices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. As a result of this history, UMM offers a tuition waiver to American and Canadian Indian students. Eight percent of our student population is Native American, compared to a national average of one percent, and we have strong retention and graduation rates. The university also has an active student organization, the Circle of Nations Indian Association, with both Indian and non-Indian members. We have taught in the field of American Indian Studies at UMM for several years and more than half of the student scholars on this trip had taken classes with us before. Our previous experience with these individuals in no small part explains our surprise at their conduct as our course progressed.
The anthropologist, Julie, is perhaps more accustomed to encountering negative responses and resistance to her work, both in and out of the classroom. Anthropology has been demonized, often rightly so, by many American Indians. Anthropologists have been described as grave robbers, desecrators, mis-representers, agents of colonization, and, by Gerald Vizenor, as "shit mounds at the end of the trail in social science" (204). They can be takers who are uninvited and unwelcome, outsiders looking in and misunderstanding, with careers made and supported through the exploitation of Indian peoples.
Several scholars are working to shift this view of cultural studies. Developments in the area of decolonization, led recently by Maori professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith, call for the empowerment of indigenous communities through the control of research. Influenced by developments in anthropological and feminist ethical standards, Smith describes a research and educational paradigm embedded in community values, involvement, and control. In recent years, North American tribes and Native scholars have controlled access to and/or conducted research in their own communities while Native artists have produced work that reflects their community. (2) Clearly, re-examination and redefinition of research ethics have led to a more reflexive practice as has the growing diversity of researchers and writers in terms of race, ethnicity, national origin, social class, religion, and sexual orientation. This re-examination and redefinition operate hand in hand as more Indians, and other subjects of study, move from the category of "principal informant," in anthropological jargon, to the category of researcher.
Daniel Heath Justice argues that "when Native and other students of color enter a decolonizing classroom, they encounter, perhaps for the first time ... an environment that privileges their stories, their perspectives, their presence in both the classroom and in the world" (italics in original 111). While accepting and, indeed, embracing the decolonized classroom as practice, we are concerned with an assertion of Indian privilege uncomplicated by contemporary identity issues and politics. This stance risks essentializing Indian peoples and experiences. (3) As Indian scholars, we support and participate in the self-determination and sovereignty of Indian (and other indigenous) peoples and nations. Thus we agree with Duane Champagne's notion that while indigenous researchers may have better access to Native communities, "The mere presence of Indian blood within a scholar, however, does not ensure better or more sensitive historical or cultural understandings of Indian peoples" (183). (4)
In our classrooms, we work to add cultural relativism and historical contextualization to the intellectual toolkits of all of our students, especially before traveling into Indian and other indigenous communities. A critical tool or method is the exposure to a multiplicity of paradigms--what we think of as "different ways of knowing." We have followed a decolonization model by presenting an indigenous perspective through Native-authored texts, by using materials outlining and detailing the complexities of Indian/U.S. relations, and by bringing in or providing access to a range of indigenous scholars, activists, and artists. Our Resistance and Assimilation course included a novel, a film, poetry, government documents, cultural artifacts, and guest speakers.
In introducing the concept of multiple paradigms and learning styles, we challenge the over-privileging of experience and perspective. Our student scholars, Indian and non-Indian, are not called upon to have a privileged voice, nor are they called upon to speak for "the other," to represent the perspective and lived experience of their particular racial, ethnic, and/or tribal group. Drawing upon their own assumptions of privileged perspective and voice... |
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