Holy Land in Transit (Middle East Studies Beyond Dominant Paradigms) by Steven Salaita

Author:Steven Salaita [Salaita, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Published: 2006-11-02T21:00:00+00:00

In Conclusion: Colonial and Indigenous Interplay

The lament of every traditional literary critic is the lack of space with which to work. As a result, important poetic and political features are inevitably omitted in the explication of literature. This limitation is evident here. One is able to approach Last Standing Woman from any number of perspectives. I have focused mainly on the interplay between Natives and whites at the expense of other textual elements. The main reason for this methodology is because cultural and political interaction is featured prominently in the novel. Moreover, it is crucial for critics of Indigenous literatures to continue unearthing relevant colonial patterns as they are articulated in creative forums. Such methodologies not only help us better understand the literature in question, but also provide important sociopolitical knowledge and offer the possibility of international dialogue among Indigenous groups.

As the above analysis indicates to some degree, in a communitist novel like Last Standing Woman the act of creating fiction conditions the history incorporated into that fiction, while the history allows the fiction to be located in a particular space and time. LaDuke's approach, then, complicates distinctions between myth, legend, and history. Every theme, no matter its primary intent, serves to dissolve the social categories so prevalent in Euro-America. The result is a rich depiction of Anishinaabe life that incorporates individual components of existence into the communal whole. Furthermore, we can see in Last Standing Woman that conflicting political, social, and cultural narratives foreground much of the action, a realistic strategy often employed in Native fiction. LaDuke, however, avoids using negotiation as the catalyst for resolution. Rather, she creates ethical boundaries that also act as the groundwork of respective national imaginations. The conflict between Natives and whites, in other words, is presented as a struggle between two nations, and LaDuke is interested in assisting the Anishinaabeg in the full restoration of their self-determination. She constructs persuasive ethical markers throughout the novel to assist in this task. These are not, it should be mentioned, ethnoethical markers; when Native characters collaborate either physically or philosophically with colonizers, LaDuke applies the same type of condemnation to them. Surprisingly, Native literary critics have given little attention to protagonists engaged in neocolonialism despite the fact that Indian collaborators fill the pages of Native fiction. Other aspects of cultural and political interplay also remain attenuated in certain areas. Ultimately, applying focused criticism to interchange rooted in conflict can greatly assist the desire among critics worldwide to fully demarcate and understand the scope and effects of imperialism and garrison occupation.

Although Last Standing Woman, like all novels, is unique, the motivations underpinning much of the narrative are not. Much literature produced by writers of color explores and questions the conventional dichotomy between fiction and history. I have situated some of my criticism in a postcolonial framework, but a more appropriate site of analysis remains what is usually dubbed ethnic studies, that is, disciplines that explore the history, politics, and literature of particular ethnic groups with emphasis on internally constructed critical paradigms.

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