Abstract
The relationship of Indigenous peoples to the Canadian nation-state is a complex and contradictory one, and Indigenous literatures tend to deconstruct rather than affirm affiliations with the settler nation-state. Okanagan writer Jeannette Armstrong’s novels Slash (1985) and Whispering in Shadows (2000) are important cases in point for literary negotiations of Indigenous citizenship pertaining to ‘AlterNative’ frameworks: Slash focuses on Indigenous rights’ struggles in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly on the debates regarding the patriation of the Canadian constitution and its implications for Aboriginal communities, whereas Whispering responds to the globalization of Indigenous concerns, environmental issues in particular. Both novels—by very different narrative means—explore the possibilities of Indigenous agency and co-authorship as community directed instead of state directed and conceptualize forms of Aboriginal citizenship as membership and belonging in non-statist political entities.
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Notes
- 1.
The term ‘AlterNative’ is borrowed from Drew Hayden Taylor’s play entitled AlterNatives (2000).
- 2.
For an excellent detailed reading of Slash in the context of both the patriation debate and the ensuing court cases regarding tribal rights, see Authers (2016), Chapter 5.
- 3.
Bevis has—controversially—identified the pattern of ‘homing-in’ in novels of the so-called Native American Renaissance, thus referring centrally to novels by James Welch, Scott Momaday, or Leslie Marmon Silko. However, the pattern he describes, that is, the crucial role that the Indigenous protagonist’s return plays for (usually) his subject constitution and identity formation, can also be identified in modified form in Indigenous novels in Canada, such as Armstrong’s Slash or Richard Wagamese’s Keeper’n Me (1994).
- 4.
- 5.
Assessing patriation, Kiera Ladner argues that while ‘it is true that the dreams of Indigenous constitutional activists were not fully realized, and Aboriginal organizations were unsuccessful in their efforts to insert a shield to protect Indigenous rights from the state and settler society,’ nevertheless ‘given the political, conceptual, and attitudinal obstacles, those who waged this battle for constitutional recognition achieved something many believed impossible’ (2015, pp. 270–71). The opposition against the process as presented in the novel, however, is more fundamental, seeing the very involvement in the process as a ‘domestication’ of Indigenous sovereignty (Burrow quoted in Ladner 2015, p. 270).
- 6.
In his conversations on Indigenous creativity with Jeannette Armstrong, Douglas Cardinal here speaks first and foremost about architecture. However, as the overall conversation suggests, both Cardinal and Armstrong regard dreaming and creativity as an integral part of all aspects of human life, including politics understood as a way to improve society and coexistence.
- 7.
In Indigenous Diplomacy, James (Sa’ke’j) Youngblood Henderson sketches the international diplomatic efforts by Indigenous peoples to achieve UN recognition, a struggle that plays a role in Armstrong’s novel, even if the protagonist reflects critically on the potential impact of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 1996. The UN Working Group of Indigenous Populations behind the declaration established four criteria for the concept of Indigenous peoples: prior land occupation; voluntary perpetuation of cultural distinctiveness; self-identification and recognition as distinct groups; and the experience of subjugation and marginalization (Henderson 2008, p. 45). While critical of the actual impact, the novel nevertheless stresses the importance of an internationalized struggle and of global Indigenous solidarity. It clearly shares the assumption behind these endeavors that settler nation-states failed to live up to their obligations and that international pressure was necessary.
- 8.
Barry offers the term ‘sustainability citizenship’ instead of environmental citizenship, a concept ‘which focuses on the underlying structural causes of environmental degradation and other infringements of sustainable development such as human rights abuses or social injustice’ (2006, p. 24). Despite the term’s problematic history—‘environmental citizenship’ was allegedly coined by Canada’s federal ministry of the environment (Szerszynski 2006, p. 75)—I argue that ‘environment’ captures precisely the broad understanding of intertwined ecological, social, political, economic, and cultural factors seen as so integral to Aboriginal concerns in the novel.
- 9.
There is one letter addressed to a man, Gard—a letter never sent. Overall, though, I agree with Emberley’s emphasis on the importance of a maternal genealogy.
- 10.
It is significant that Armstrong has chosen to depict a situation in which the loggers, even by Canadian law, are acting illegally (just like the border official harassing Penny). On the one hand, this may point to an uneasy accommodation of the Aboriginal characters with a double structure of law and citizenship, and make the violations seem to be the actions of individuals. However (and this is more likely), it may also critically indicate that the violations of Indigenous rights are seen as systemic: In each and every case, they are committed or at least tolerated by representatives of Anglo-Canadian law.
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Sarkowsky, K. (2018). ‘Dismissing Canada’? AlterNative Citizenship and Indigenous Literatures. In: Narrating Citizenship and Belonging in Anglophone Canadian Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96935-0_3
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