Panel 4: The Changing Face of Indigeneity
Event Title
Run Aground: Indigenous Identity and the Significance of Patterns of Mobility and Settlement in Maritime and Terrestrial Environments
Location
Campus Center, Room 2540, University of Massachusetts Boston
Start Date
29-3-2014 10:45 AM
End Date
29-3-2014 12:00 PM
Description
In the long history of European colonization, whether in the United States, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, land inevitably becomes a point of contestation between colonizers and the Indigenous population. Non-Indigenous notions of land not only emphasize its stability, but also the ability to convert land to fit specific social, political, and economic needs. In short, land provides space that can be occupied, altered, and commodified. Certainly features of the land change naturally. Organisms, resources, contours and colors of the land evolve over time, but the space remains.
Water, however, is complicated. Water is unwieldy, constantly shifting and changing. Perhaps most frustratingly, water cannot be occupied and possessed in the same way as land. However, maritime space, as opposed to terrestrial space, is just as much of a resource, and produces just as many resources, as land. Why then is it not as hotly contested? Or is it hotly contested? Why has so little research been conducted on Indigenous relations with and understandings of maritime space? If such an essential space as maritime environments has been overlooked, what elements of terrestrial space have been neglected as well?
Based on these questions and the resulting analysis, it is clear that there is more room for analyzing how Indigenous people throughout the world conceptualize, interact with, and move through space. The transformative power of the environment inextricably links the dynamics of global Indigenous identities to extensive patterns of mobility and settlement that not only cover vast terrestrial, but also maritime areas. Whereas land occupies the central focus of non-Indigenous notions of space, this paper explores why maritime spaces are crucial to Indigenous methods of place-making, as well as why a greater consideration for maritime environments is essential to comprehending Indigenous culture and identity formation.
Run Aground: Indigenous Identity and the Significance of Patterns of Mobility and Settlement in Maritime and Terrestrial Environments
Campus Center, Room 2540, University of Massachusetts Boston
In the long history of European colonization, whether in the United States, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, land inevitably becomes a point of contestation between colonizers and the Indigenous population. Non-Indigenous notions of land not only emphasize its stability, but also the ability to convert land to fit specific social, political, and economic needs. In short, land provides space that can be occupied, altered, and commodified. Certainly features of the land change naturally. Organisms, resources, contours and colors of the land evolve over time, but the space remains.
Water, however, is complicated. Water is unwieldy, constantly shifting and changing. Perhaps most frustratingly, water cannot be occupied and possessed in the same way as land. However, maritime space, as opposed to terrestrial space, is just as much of a resource, and produces just as many resources, as land. Why then is it not as hotly contested? Or is it hotly contested? Why has so little research been conducted on Indigenous relations with and understandings of maritime space? If such an essential space as maritime environments has been overlooked, what elements of terrestrial space have been neglected as well?
Based on these questions and the resulting analysis, it is clear that there is more room for analyzing how Indigenous people throughout the world conceptualize, interact with, and move through space. The transformative power of the environment inextricably links the dynamics of global Indigenous identities to extensive patterns of mobility and settlement that not only cover vast terrestrial, but also maritime areas. Whereas land occupies the central focus of non-Indigenous notions of space, this paper explores why maritime spaces are crucial to Indigenous methods of place-making, as well as why a greater consideration for maritime environments is essential to comprehending Indigenous culture and identity formation.
Comments
PANEL 4 of the 2013 Graduate History Conference features presentations and papers under the topic of "The Changing Face of Indigeneity."