Survivance: Narratives of Native Presence

by Gerald Vizenor (Editor)

The concept and idea of survivance has revolutionized our understanding of the lives, creative impulses, literary practices, and histories of the Native peoples of North America. Engendered and articulated by the Anishinaabe critic and writer Gerald Vizenor, survivance throws into relief the dynamic, inventive, and enduring heart of Native cultures well beyond the colonialist trappings of absence, tragedy, and powerlessness. Vizenor argues that many people in the world are enamored with and obsessed by the concocted images of the Indian—the simulations of indigenous character and cultures as essential victims. Native survivance, on the other hand, is an active sense of presence over historical absence, deracination, and oblivion. The nature of survivance is unmistakable in Native stories, natural reason, active traditions, customs, and narrative resistance and is clearly observable in personal attributes such as humor, spirit, cast of mind, and moral courage in literature. In this anthology, eighteen scholars discuss the themes and practices of survivance in literature, examining the legacy of Vizenor’s original insights and exploring the manifestations of survivance in a variety of contexts. Contributors interpret and compare the original writings of William Apess, Eric Gansworth, Louis Owens, Carter Revard, Gerald Vizenor, and Velma Wallis, among others.

Genres: Indigenous, Theory

396 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2008

About the author

Gerald Robert Vizenor is an Anishinaabe writer and scholar, and an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Reservation. Vizenor also taught for many years at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was Director of Native American Studies. With more than 30 books published, Vizenor is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico.

Reviews

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I only read some of the essays here, the ones that seemed most relevant to the research I'm doing.

The essays in this collection build on Vizenor's theory of "survivance," which goes beyond merely physical or cultural survival to involve the active preservation/(re)construction of cultures. Vizenor understands this primarily in the context of Indigenous North Americans, and many of the essays here follow that lead. Crucial to survivance is story-telling, which signals Indigenous presence and allows Indigenous people to command their own narratives, rather than being constrained by the two dominant narrative trends in Anglo-American discourse about Indigenous peoples/histories: either the white supremacist "bloodthirsty primitive" narrative or the liberal apologist "noble savage/victim of genocide" narrative. Neither of these narratives allows for or reflects the real complexities of Indigenous lives and experiences, and both deploy Indigenous people as a tool to say more about Anglo-American history than about Indigenous history. Survivance involves Indigenous people going beyond these limited narratives to express their own cultures and ways of knowing/being in the world.

[Roger Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a strong collection of essays illustrating performance of Gerald Vizenor's concept of Survivance in Native American Literature.

[KleineAphraBehn · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are quite a few essays in this collection that really impressed me, especially the one by Deborah L. Madsen: “On Subjectivity and Survivance: Rereading Trauma through The Heirs of Columbus and The Crown of Columbus.” In her text, Madsen takes a closer look at Western trauma theories and therapy methods that are currently dominating psychological discourses. One of her main aims is to point out the flaws and inadequacy of those theories and to explain why they do not work in a Native American context.

According to Madsen, the first central issue with most studies and theories on trauma is that they simply do not serve the members of oppressed groups who experience all kinds of traumas on a daily basis – oppressed groups such as, for instance, women or a number of marginalized ethnic groups such as Native Americans. In fact, trauma theories instead serve the interests of those powerful and patriarchal structures usually responsible for the oppression of traumatized groups; they help to hide the traumatizing experiences that characterize the everyday life of oppressed people. They also require the traumatized individual to assimilate or adapt to those oppressive structures, as cultural and social functioning and productivity are supposed to be results of the healing process. Acknowledging that trauma treatment as well as its definition and exertion are ruled by oppressors would mean admitting that there is an essential problem with certain social constructions. Such confession would then challenge those constructions and their causers.

Madsen also tries to emphasize the immense importance of everyday trauma as well as of historical trauma and its inherited nature. Current interpretations and understandings of trauma view it and its experience as a sudden, single, and unexpected event or confrontation that triggers a reaction of horror, pain, fear, and/ or helplessness in a person. However, as stated by Madsen, this notion of trauma fails to exemplify that trauma can be something that it passed on and long-lasting, that can be based on centuries of historical exclusion and marginalization, as in the case of Native Americans. It, furthermore, fails to clarify how trauma can be a part of people’s everyday life – people who move within realms lacking safety, security, and stability.

Another issue with trauma studies is that the white, European – and in most cases male-dominated – perspective is still regarded as universal, although it barely is able to represent most traumatized groups and even ensures that racist organizations responsible for the trauma of populations such as Native Americans are maintained. Madson argues that this focus on white, Eurocentric trauma proves a clear refusal to look closer at traumas experienced by, for example, African Americans or Native Americans.

Madson’s last problem with trauma theories originates from the idea of mourning. Mourning is not meant to be a passive process of forgetting, but rather an active process of accepting the loss of something or someone. For Native Americans, though, simply forgetting and moving on cannot be the only option; that would mean forgetting about the unspeakable, horrible actions of European settlers and the US government. Forgetting might free the victim of the burden of the past – but it would also free the perpetrators from stepping up and acknowledging their responsibility.

Throughout her text, Madson has several excellent arguments that perfectly illustrate why current trauma theories do not work in a Native American context – serve the oppressor instead of the oppressed; ignore daily and historical trauma; focus solely on white, European perspectives. Her last point, however, I think deserves special attention; we are constantly stressing how we should never forget the Second World War and the Holocaust (and that is absolutely right!). But then … why should Native Americans be expected to “forget” that throughout history, they were subjects of suppression, genocide, exclusion, and, exploitation? I think that is a very good question.