Native Authenticity

A survey of current critical perspectives on how North American indigenous peoples are viewed and represented transnationally.An indispensable resource for readers, students, and scholars of Native literatures in North America, Native Authenticity offers a clear, comprehensive, and systematic look at the diversity of critical approaches to the idea of Indian-ness. Some of the foremost transatlantic scholars of Native Studies in North America and Europe share their insights on this highly-charged aspect of the contemporary theoretical field of Native Studies. The issue of authenticity or Indian-ness generates a controversial debate in studies of indigenous American literatures. The articulation of Native identity through the prism of Euro-American attempts to confine Indian groups to essentialized spaces is resisted by some Native writers, while others recognize a need for essentialist categories as a key strategy in the struggle for social justice and a perpetually renewed sense of Native sovereignty. Pressure from neo-colonial essentializing practices is in conflict with a politics of cultural sovereignty, which demands a notion of Indian essence or authenticity as a foundation for community values, heritage, and social justice.>Deborah L. Madsen is Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Her many books include Understanding Gerald Vizenor; American Exceptionalism; and Allegory in America.