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Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations
Dominant history would have us believe that colonialism belongs to a previous era that has long come to an end. But as Native people become mobile, reservation lands become overcrowded and the state seeks to enforce means of containment, closing its borders to incoming, often indigenous, immigrants.
In Mark My Words, Mishuana Goeman traces settler colonialism as an enduring form of gendered spatial violence, demonstrating how it persists in the contemporary context of neoliberal globalization. The book argues that it is vital to refocus the efforts of Native nations beyond replicating settler models of territory, jurisdiction, and race. Through an examination of twentieth-century Native women’s poetry and prose, Goeman illuminates how these works can serve to remap settler geographies and center Native knowledges. She positions Native women as pivotal to how our nations, both tribal and nontribal, have been imagined and mapped, and how these women play an ongoing role in decolonization.
In a strong and lucid voice, Goeman provides close readings of literary texts, including those of E. Pauline Johnson, Esther Belin, Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Heid Erdrich. In addition, she places these works in the framework of U.S. and Canadian Indian law and policy. Her charting of women’s struggles to define themselves and their communities reveals the significant power in all of our stories.
In Mark My Words, Mishuana Goeman traces settler colonialism as an enduring form of gendered spatial violence, demonstrating how it persists in the contemporary context of neoliberal globalization. The book argues that it is vital to refocus the efforts of Native nations beyond replicating settler models of territory, jurisdiction, and race. Through an examination of twentieth-century Native women’s poetry and prose, Goeman illuminates how these works can serve to remap settler geographies and center Native knowledges. She positions Native women as pivotal to how our nations, both tribal and nontribal, have been imagined and mapped, and how these women play an ongoing role in decolonization.
In a strong and lucid voice, Goeman provides close readings of literary texts, including those of E. Pauline Johnson, Esther Belin, Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Heid Erdrich. In addition, she places these works in the framework of U.S. and Canadian Indian law and policy. Her charting of women’s struggles to define themselves and their communities reveals the significant power in all of our stories.
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 14, 2013
one of my favorite theory books this past academic year, and highly recommended for those working with critical geography, indigeneity in the u.s., settler colonialism, neoliberalism, and the relationship among these. not only is goeman's text clearly written and elegantly structured, but she makes a moving case for the discursive and political work that literature can do on behalf of both empire and decolonization. I appreciated too her consistent emphasis on spatial violence as gendered violence, and on [the dream of] decolonization as relying on the recognition that colonization is ongoing, and that the rhetoric and practices of nation are complicit in this process: "The geographic language employed in our work toward spatial justice has the potential potency of unpacking neoliberal accumulations of private wealth, but recognition of colonial restructuring of land and bodies must be recognized." (204)
March 21, 2019
Definitely a solid look at the works of some indigenous women and their writing! I was really interested in the chapter about Silko (maybe largely in part because it's the only work I have specifically looked at) but also was the most explicit maybe in using Goeman's framework, as the connections between literal maps and narrative and almanac all came together. The chapter about movement between the spaces of the city and the reservation was also really solid and I think could be useful in teaching.
June 10, 2018
I think this book has a lot of good information. I definitely learned a lot and I was introduced to many things I had never heard of before.
I do think if I personally was going to learn more, I would need to read the writings the author is discussing in the book. This book is different from what I expected as it mainly explained others writings and how those point to different points in Native history. While the author definitely took the time to explain their point, I personally did not get a full picture of what was being discussed since I never read the original work.
Based off that, I do want to give this book another read after I am able to read through the pieces that are being discussed in this book.
Lastly, I think a book like this is best learned from when read as and discussed as a group. I hate group work so it’s weird for me to say this but I believe this discusses such heavy topics and in depth ideas that discussing it with others along the way would improve the learning experience.
I do think if I personally was going to learn more, I would need to read the writings the author is discussing in the book. This book is different from what I expected as it mainly explained others writings and how those point to different points in Native history. While the author definitely took the time to explain their point, I personally did not get a full picture of what was being discussed since I never read the original work.
Based off that, I do want to give this book another read after I am able to read through the pieces that are being discussed in this book.
Lastly, I think a book like this is best learned from when read as and discussed as a group. I hate group work so it’s weird for me to say this but I believe this discusses such heavy topics and in depth ideas that discussing it with others along the way would improve the learning experience.
September 15, 2015
I believe this book is a revision of Goeman's dissertation, and it reads as such in covering a wide swath of scholarship and in repeating those central quotes and formulations throughout. Just the same, Goeman does an amazing job at thinking about the ways in which space and place have been used to further settler colonial ideologies and the ways in which Native women writers (E. Pauline Johnson, Esther Belin, Joy Harjo, and Leslie Marmon Silko, specifically) push back against the reification of these same ideologies.
June 21, 2017
in principle, this book is interesting: Goeman's "(re)mapping" — by which she means the ways land, territory, nation, and maps are represented and (re)imagined in literary works — is absolutely something worth attending to, as are the processes of colonial mapping (literary and otherwise) that the authors she discusses are reacting to. there are definitely good ideas here, especially in the introduction (where the theoretical elements of Goeman's argument stand mostly on their own), and the chapter on Silko's Almanac of the Dead, in particular, has a really interesting overview of the (not necessarily immediately apparent) relationship between almanacs, cartography, and colonialism in North America.
in practice, though, I mostly just found this book very difficult to read? the writing is kind of stilted and often redundant, with the end result that good ideas are stretched to the breaking point and end up feeling repetitive and slightly empty — the 40-page introduction, for example, could probably have said its piece more effectively if it were about half as long and had been heavily edited for style, grammar, and word choice. the strongest sections imo are definitely the first part of the introduction and the chapter on Almanac of the Dead, but the highly variable writing quality is an issue throughout the book.
I really wanted to like this book, and I had fond memories of it from the sections we read in undergrad — perhaps because the sections we read were the introduction and the Silko chapter. instead it was a struggle to get myself to finish it. I feel like this is a testament to (some of) the ways academic publishing (and the institutional imperative to publish) are failing us as scholars: the nature of the industry precludes giving each book and its author the editorial attention and support that they deserve.
in practice, though, I mostly just found this book very difficult to read? the writing is kind of stilted and often redundant, with the end result that good ideas are stretched to the breaking point and end up feeling repetitive and slightly empty — the 40-page introduction, for example, could probably have said its piece more effectively if it were about half as long and had been heavily edited for style, grammar, and word choice. the strongest sections imo are definitely the first part of the introduction and the chapter on Almanac of the Dead, but the highly variable writing quality is an issue throughout the book.
I really wanted to like this book, and I had fond memories of it from the sections we read in undergrad — perhaps because the sections we read were the introduction and the Silko chapter. instead it was a struggle to get myself to finish it. I feel like this is a testament to (some of) the ways academic publishing (and the institutional imperative to publish) are failing us as scholars: the nature of the industry precludes giving each book and its author the editorial attention and support that they deserve.
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August 16, 2023I DNF’d this book a whole back actually…no offense it s probably on me but I had no clue it would be so ~academic~… def thought it would be more anecdotal and historical rather than an analysis of literature. Maybe at another point this would be my jam but especially bc I started it right after graduation I kinda needed a TW/jump scare warning for academic content…I’ll try again eventually
November 22, 2025
Another great book to think with -- many provocative points. I especially enjoyed the chapter on Silko's _Almanac of the Dead_.
July 23, 2022
Goeman examines the geographical imaginations of Native women writers Belin, Harjo, and Silko. Her analysis is keen and brings up a lot of fresh insight on how Native worlds are constructed in literature and how these defy colonial views of space. She does a great job weaving the narratives into her own theory, although a few times the writing was difficult to read. Critical book for Native studies and feminist studies.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews