University of Alberta

University of Alberta Visions of Sovereignty: Indigenous Narratives of Resistance in a Neoliberal Age by Brendan Smyth A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Department of English and Film Studies ©Brendan Smyth Fall 2013 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission. Abstract This dissertation examines four Indigenous novels published in Canada and the United States between 1990 and 2000. Building upon Indigenous and non-Indigenous theories of literary nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and globalization, this project focuses on narrative articulations of Indigenous cultural and political sovereignty that foreground and are cognizant of global political, economic, cultural, and environmental entanglements. One of the key intentions of this study is to underscore the importance of examining how modes of Indigenous being-in-common are articulated in fiction written within a context of neoliberalism. Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead is foundational in terms of its critique of the practices and ideologies of neoliberal globalization, its representation of Indigenous modes of being-in-relation and resistance, its association of Indigenous sovereignty with transnational, inter-tribal, and alliance- based movements. Linda Hogan’s Solar Storms offers an Indigenous critique of neoliberalism from an environmental standpoint, foregrounding the importance of Indigenous ecologies, knowledges, and relations in the face of neoliberal globalization. Sherman Alexie’s Indian Killer articulates urban Indigenous community practices in resistance to urban neoliberal governmentality, ongoing colonial policies of erasure, and material and intellectual dispossession. Jeannette Armstrong’s Whispering in Shadows explores the context of Indigenous liberation struggles in the Americas, as well as global Indigenous activism at the international level. I argue that these novels represent a broad spectrum of Indigenous responses in 1990s North America to the economic, environmental, cultural, and political consequences of neoliberal globalization for Indigenous practices of community, nationalism, and sovereignty. Ultimately, they imagine and problematize possibilities for resistance, for conceptualizing justice, and for understanding our complex interrelationships with others. Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the support of my family, friends, and colleagues. It has been a humbling and rewarding journey, and I am grateful to all of those who have contributed to making this a stronger project. Thanks to my supervisor, Albert Braz, and my committee members, Daphne Read, Chris Andersen, and Rob Appleford for your patience, generosity, and rigour. Your feedback on early drafts has helped to shape my work for the better. Thanks to the members of my defense committee, Chadwick Allen, Lisa Philips, and Onookome Okome. Your thoughtful engagement and challenging questions have helped me to refine my ideas and provided me with new avenues of inquiry to pursue. I would also like to thank my friends and colleagues: Donna Chief, Laurel McIvor, Leigh Dyrda, Dana Wight, Tessa Jordan, Kristine Smitka, Matt Rea, Mary Chan, Melissa Stephens, and Theo Finigan. I am lucky to have shared classes, conversations, meals, and soccer with such wonderful and talented people. Thanks also to my students, who continue to push me in unexpected directions. Thanks to my family: Bernard and Colleen Smyth, Emily and Jon Fitzsimon, Deirdre and Anthony Harrow, Dermot Smyth, and Aidan Smyth. Your support, love, and understanding have sustained me in many ways, and it has been a joy to welcome my nieces and nephews into the world. Finally, thanks to Stephanie Ainslie, for your patience, laughter, and love. I am also grateful for the financial support of the University of Alberta, and the Department of English and Film Studies, whose funding made this research possible. Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1: Indigenous Literary Criticism in a Time of Neoliberal Globalization 17 Chapter 2: Opposing the Gunadeeyah: Almanac of the Dead and Neoliberalism 71 Chapter 3: Swamp Roots Resistance: Solar Storms, Ecology, and Neoliberalism ............................................................................................................................. 137 Chapter 4: Narrating Resistance to Neoliberal Governmentality in Indian Killer ............................................................................................................................. 185 Chapter 5: “Pointing inward, but facing outward”: Narratives of Solidarity in Whispering in Shadows ....................................................................................... 235 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 272 Works Cited ........................................................................................................ 293 1 Introduction During a conversation with Osage scholar Robert Warrior at a panel at Stanford University in 1996, Muscogee Creek poet Joy Harjo asserted that the central questions animating the work of Indigenous artists and scholars at the turn of the twenty-first century remain those that have been asked since the arrival of Europeans in the Americas: “Who are we? Who are our children? And what are we all becoming together?’” (qtd. in Weaver, That the People 164). These queries speak to a hunger for explorations of identity, relationships, continuance, change, and community that narrate, critique, and celebrate the contemporary lived experiences of the First Peoples of the Americas. It is Harjo’s last question that drives this project, which investigates how Indigenous literary works have conceptualized collective becoming in an age of neoliberal globalization, and how they have imagined (expansively or restrictively) the “we” that engages in that becoming. Building upon growing research into the liberatory potential of international solidarities and relationships, my dissertation analyzes the ways that First Nations texts delineate issues of cultural, aesthetic, political, and intellectual sovereignty in a context where the destructive consequences of neoliberal capital penetrate into the various life-worlds of Indigenous peoples. Thus far, relatively little scholarly attention has been given to the ways in which Indigenous writers and texts at the turn of the twenty-first century have engaged with the social, cultural, political, and economic challenges of globalized free-market forces. This project is meant as a tentative step in that direction. It is 2 not my intention to claim that this mode of analysis is to be privileged above any other. It is instead, to borrow a phrase from literary critic Craig Womack (Muscogee Creek), “merely a point on [a] critical spectrum” (Red 2), one that I believe retains a commitment to the dignity, sovereignty, agency, and continuity of Indigenous communities. One of the key intentions of this study is to underscore the importance of examining how practices of Indigenous being in common are articulated in fiction written within a context of neoliberal globalization. Whereas literary nationalists foreground the indispensable work of recovering Indigenous intellectual traditions and articulating tribally specific modes of literary analysis, this project intentionally focuses on narrative articulations of cultural and political sovereignty that foreground and are cognizant of global political, economic, cultural, and environmental entanglements. In this project I explore four Indigenous novels published during the last decade of the twentieth century: Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo), Solar Storms by Linda Hogan (Chickasaw), Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie (Spokane/Coeur d’Alene), and Whispering in Shadows by Jeannette Armstrong (Okanagan). These texts were conceived during the 1980s and 1990s, a period that saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Oka crisis, the Gulf War, the quincentennial of Columbus’s arrival and the Zapatista uprising, the work of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Peoples towards the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the rise of the alter-globalization movement, and the ascendance of neoliberalism 3 as an hegemonic form of governmentality. I argue that these novels represent a broad spectrum of Indigenous responses in 1990s North America to the consequences of neoliberal globalization in terms of Indigenous nationalism and sovereignty. Although this particular historical moment has passed, contemporary social movements like Occupy Wall Street and

Load more