American Indian Literature, Environmental Justice, and Ecocriticism: The Middle Place by Joni Adamson (review)

Reviews and remain contaminated by ideological and cultural biases. In the end, however, Canfield's ideology and cultural bias comes through. His last sentence in the book is telling: "Ifwe cannot ... restore original rights, we can at least respect human rights at the crossroads" (212). For Canfield, to respect human rights is to simply recognize cultural stories, but not to theorize structures and systems ofracism and inequality in order to challenge, combat, and change those structures and systems ofdomination, oppression, and exploitation. %£ Joni Adamson. American Indian Literature, EnvironmentalJustice, and Ecocriticism: TheMiddle Place. Tucson: University ofArizona Press, 2001. 213p. Ryan Simmons Utah Valley State College Pitythe moderate. Ifyou aspire to membership in the cultural elite, the smart path is to position yourselfas a purist, eschewing the messy and contentious middle ground. The problem, as Joni Adamson demonstrates, is that it's in the middle where things get done—it's the habitat oípolitics in a more meaningful sense of the world dian many politically-oriented literary critics are able to muster. It is a place ofnegotiation, ambiguity, and a dearth ofeasy answers. While not exacdy a moderate (she is fervently committed to a cleaner, safer, and more just world), Adamson bravely takes on the desire for "purity" among ecologically-minded authors and ecocritics, arguingthat resolvingenvironmental problems requires something more than holding a more-immaculate-than-thou stance—and that, although somewriters and critics have indulged in an unproductive purist position, the crafting ofnarrative can also provide an excellent model ofdie self-conscious negotiation that environmental problems demand. Adamson's diesis is diat "the study of multicultural literatures offers us rich ground in which to root a better, more culturally inclusive, politically effective environmentalism and a more satisfying, theoreticallycoherent ecocriticism" (50). Specifically, American Indian writers such as Simon Ortiz, Louise Erdrich, Joy Harjo, and Leslie Marmon Silko tend not to imagine a retreat into the wilderness in their fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and drama, for the simple reason that such a retreat would be untrue to the lives and contingencies ofthose who people their narratives. Whereas Edward Abbey envisions for his readers glorious forays into an untouched—and unattainable—world, inAdamson's view such escapism, ultimately cynical, merely enshrines the current environmental degradation as unavoidable, just part ofcontemporary life. For Abbey's readers, it may be "posFALL 2002 * ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * 113 sible to have the comforts ofcivilization anda pure, pristine wilderness in which to escape the comfort ofcivilization" (38), but only in the limited context ofreading Abbey's books, or possiblywhile visiting a protected wilderness area. Dealing with environmental waste and toxicity in places where people actuallyhave to live comes to seem beside the point, making a purist and ahistorical perspective like that ofAbbey and his readers potentially worse than useless: Backpackers, rock climbers, and river runners—who carefully follow the "leave no trace" backcountry ethic, packing out every Zip-lock bag and Ramen Noodle package—often live less carefully when they return to the city, forgetting that their houses were built from wood from the forest and that their electricity is produced by dams or coal-burning generating stations. They feel somehow less responsible for the forest that has already been clear-cut, for the land at the edge ofan urban minority neighborhood that is being used to dispose oftoxic industrial waste, and for the reservation in the corner of the state where a multinational coal-mining corporation is contaminating an aquifer with toxic levels of arsenic and copper. (44-45) In contrast, Adamson notes, a writer like Simon Ortiz seems far more willing to imagine the manipulation ofnature as something worthwhile, even necessary, though of course not without its pitfalls. In place of the Garden of Eden, Ortiz offers a "garden ethic," in which careful stewardship of the land—and not the abandonment ofit—is possible (67). Repeatedly, through the discussion ofliterary writers, Adamson makes the point that ecocritics must risk environmental impurity in order to enact survival—of both the environment and the marginalized peoples who craft tenuous lives from it. Thus, Adamson advocates positions that may seem compromised to some. For example, a Dine (Navajo) student ofAdamson's plans to graduate from college and go...