Sorry everyone for being late with my post-discussion response! I’ll admit I think I needed a bit more time to collect my thoughts, and for the last 24 hours I’ve been stuck on a broke down bus in Montana and thus haven’t had internet access to upload this:
Most of my thoughts have been regarding why the conversation took the turns it did—I now realize that maybe some felt unprepared for the discussion I wanted to have due to a perceived ignorance re: “Native life,” or perhaps some apprehension related to uncomfortable confrontations of privilege. While to some degree I understand these sentiments, they make critical discussions of texts like Deloria’s all the more necessary. I urge anyone who may have felt this way to revisit the text, and to use this discomfort as a learning opportunity.
Outside of those comments, I’m not sure that I have much to say that I haven’t said already, since I did most of the talking! Like I said earlier, I really value the text for its interventions re: troubling the modern-traditional dichotomy—in that vein, I’m still very much preoccupied with this notion of indigenous modernities, and what “modern-tradish” could signify. I have been thinking of it in relation to my project proposal at great length, since in many ways my work engages similar themes as raised by Deloria, and I feel the text can, in part, provide a strong theoretical foundation for my project. In particular I have been thinking on what the unexpected looks like within the context of indigenous modernities, especially as it relates to graffiti (something that very well fits within the parameters of the unexpected, yet, like so many of the examples discussed in class, is also tied to larger cultural traditions both in practice and theory). I’m not sure if I’ll ever get around to writing on this, but I think it also very closely ties into some of the larger Native conversations on indigenous fashion currently, which I am also very invested in. Is the beaded Nicki Minaj medallion below any less traditional than a beading pattern created 200 years ago? Is the style modeled by the designers behind the brand Indigenous Princess (also shown below) any less Tlingit than sealskin mukluks?
Most of my thoughts have been regarding why the conversation took the turns it did—I now realize that maybe some felt unprepared for the discussion I wanted to have due to a perceived ignorance re: “Native life,” or perhaps some apprehension related to uncomfortable confrontations of privilege. While to some degree I understand these sentiments, they make critical discussions of texts like Deloria’s all the more necessary. I urge anyone who may have felt this way to revisit the text, and to use this discomfort as a learning opportunity.
Outside of those comments, I’m not sure that I have much to say that I haven’t said already, since I did most of the talking! Like I said earlier, I really value the text for its interventions re: troubling the modern-traditional dichotomy—in that vein, I’m still very much preoccupied with this notion of indigenous modernities, and what “modern-tradish” could signify. I have been thinking of it in relation to my project proposal at great length, since in many ways my work engages similar themes as raised by Deloria, and I feel the text can, in part, provide a strong theoretical foundation for my project. In particular I have been thinking on what the unexpected looks like within the context of indigenous modernities, especially as it relates to graffiti (something that very well fits within the parameters of the unexpected, yet, like so many of the examples discussed in class, is also tied to larger cultural traditions both in practice and theory). I’m not sure if I’ll ever get around to writing on this, but I think it also very closely ties into some of the larger Native conversations on indigenous fashion currently, which I am also very invested in. Is the beaded Nicki Minaj medallion below any less traditional than a beading pattern created 200 years ago? Is the style modeled by the designers behind the brand Indigenous Princess (also shown below) any less Tlingit than sealskin mukluks?
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