Brendan Hokowhitu - Indigenous Identity and Resistance: Researching the Diversity of Knowledge

T his collection of essays stems from papers presented at two international colloquia devoted to transcultural understandings of Indigenous Studies, with a particular emphasis on Indigenous identity and resistance. The first was held in New Zealand in 2006, hosted by Te Tumu School of Mori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies at the University of Otago, Dunedin. The second, held in Canada in 2007, was hosted by the Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton. Both colloquia concentrated on bringing together Indigenous Studies academics working in Canada, New Zealand and the broader Pacific, in the hope of sharing, comparing and creating research conversations that transcended the imperial boundaries of the colonial nations in which we are located. The colloquia aimed at facilitating a consciousness and space that would foster and enable discussion on what a transcultural Indigenous Studies discipline might resemble.

In this edited collection we hope to draw the readers attention to the multifaceted nature of Indigenous Studies by specifically questioning in what ways local Indigenous contexts relate to each other. First and foremost, however, it is important to recognise that as a canonical field Indigenous Studies does not exist. Its genesis has been ad hoc (yet organic) in the sense that the amorphous concept of Indigenous Studies has arisen out of pre-established local departments, such as Mori Studies in New Zealand and Native or First Nations Studies in Canada. Such departments remain the strongholds in the various local contexts, while Indigenous Studies per se is a very recent auxiliary to localised core curricula. Typically, local departments have developed as subdivisions of larger faculties that have their own established canons, such as Anthropology. Indigenous Studies thus lacks any semblance of a coherent genealogy from which it can build, in large part because it has borrowed multilaterally from various disciplines, while trying to account for a diverse range of Indigenous contexts. This is not to say that local departments necessarily lack a coherent genealogy within their own distinct context. However the broader genealogical incongruence and orphan-like history suggests that the genesis of a universal Indigenous Studies is at best embryonic.

Although the timing of this collection reflects a growing interest in the conceptualisation of Indigenous Studies as a discipline, the will to move beyond local Mori, Aboriginal or Native Studies departments to develop the canons of Indigenous Studies remains ambiguous. A handful of Indigenous scholars have attempted to conceive the underpinning tenets of a universal Indigenous Studies, while others have conducted comparative work across colonial contexts, theorised at a global level and/or examined the impact of world events upon Indigenous people. Indeed, the inevitable impulse to produce internationally recognised scholarship within Western academia has compelled many Indigenous writers to theorise their local context via dialogues understandable across colonial contexts. As pointed out by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, the movement has developed a shared international language or discourse which enables Indigenous activists to talk to each other across their cultural differences. Yet such discourses are often epistemologically limited because of the ontological importance of local contexts, languages and cultures. Moreover, as an unfortunate consequence of the need to share through international languages, often Indigenous Studies scholars find themselves in the unenviable position of unearthing common-ground (i.e., Indigenous Studies) within the ontological violence of colonialism and, indeed, in the languages of the coloniser. In this catch-22 dilemma, inevitably loss occurs. As Naomi McIlwraith outlines in this volume, A common struggle is to translate a concept from one language to another: some essential quality in the original language escapes the colonial languages ability to express it.