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Reviewed by:
  • Trans-Indigenous: Methodologies for Global Native Literary Studies by Chadwick Allen
  • Shannon Toll (bio)
Trans-Indigenous: Methodologies for Global Native Literary Studies. By Chadwick Allen. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. 336pp. Paper $25.00.

In this review for Comparative Literature Studies, I have the interesting task of addressing Chadwick Allen’s articulation of how he has moved beyond the limitations of comparative literature (what he identifies as the shortcomings of “ands,” which commonly connote “sameness” rather [End Page e-8] than difference) in favor of his “trans-Indigenous methodologies.” However, Allen clearly appreciates the comparative framework, which serves as the nexus for his development of this trans-Indigenous paradigm. He opens Trans-Indigenous with his appropriately titled introductory chapter “Ands Turn Comparative Turn Trans-,” signaling his desire to move discussions of Indigenous works beyond the rhetorical paths of “ands” and “comparatives” into what he perceives to be the richer territory of “trans.” His articulation of the potential of “trans” imbues the prefix with movement and multiplicity, and the ability to more fully communicate the “complex, contingent asymmetry and the potential risks of unequal encounters” that complicate current methodologies in native studies (xiv). Through his “radical comparisons” and juxtapositions, Allen builds a powerful case for a new paradigm of “together (yet) distinct,” exploring the potential to expand the efforts toward concomitantly decolonizing the academy and affecting material living conditions for native people, by focusing on the particularity of tribal experience within an Indigenous global context (xiii).

The use of “trans” to indicate movement within a methodological movement is not a new concept—with trans-Indigenous coming quickly on the heels of transnationalism—but it is Allen’s hope that trans-Indigenous methodologies will “move differently” than their predecessors (181). His conception of “moving differently” includes a call for academics to join with the producers of all forms of Indigenous texts (whether literary or artistic) in order to foster discussions that “recognize, acknowledge, confront, and critically engage the effects of differential experiences and performances of Indigenous identities” (xxxii). Like his deconstruction of “trans,” Allen’s use of “differential” is multifaceted and attempts to encapsulate the complexities inherent within the global sphere of Indigenous experience. Allen’s “differential” acknowledges the “diversity and complexity” of Indigenous identities, yet he is quick to note that it also includes the “paradoxes of simultaneity, contradiction, [and] coexistence” within this vast expanse of Indigenous experience and selfhood (xxxii). Perhaps what is most compelling in Allen’s work is his own ostensibly paradoxical prerogative to emphasize and celebrate the “Indigenous local” while at the same time contextualizing it within the “complexity of the relevant Indigenous global” (xix). Allen’s methodology is not limited to written works; instead, his study is wholly trans-Indigenous and transdisciplinary, including analyses of special issues of journals, poems, artistic productions, novels, and films in order to demonstrate the “productive tension” that is created when diverse works are placed in conversation with one another. [End Page e-9]

Allen’s proposed methodology continues the dual traditions of “recovery” and “interpretation” in native studies. He eschews recognition based in nationhood in favor of “together (yet) distinct,” seeking to unite the geographically and culturally diverse Indigenous groups who experienced the “historical accident” of being lumped together under the language of colonialism, while at the same time refusing to accept the erasure of difference to accomplish this unification. Allen is invested in fostering “multiple understandings of aesthetics,” rather than the “single aesthetic system applicable to all Indigenous cultures in all historical periods” that characterized pan-Indianism (106). To accomplish this, Allen splits his text into two parts: the first, titled “Recovery/Interpretation,” centers on the juxtaposition of texts in an effort toward reclamation and reorientation, while the second part, “Interpretation/Recovery,” demonstrates Allen’s interpretive methodology at work, simultaneously “radically comparative” and cognizant of specific Indigenous aesthetics (xxix). Allen concedes that the text is primarily interested in proposing methods to successfully “recover” and “interpret,” rather than establishing a set of finite and monolithic standards of reading (xxxiii). In this sense, Allen’s methodology itself accurately represents its approach to the subject matter, acknowledging that the diversity of communities, their worldviews, and aesthetic systems would reject...

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