Abstract

In these three short essays, Sophie McCall, Deanna Reder, and Eric Gary Anderson discuss possibilities and limitations for building comparative platforms between their respective areas of research in Indigenous Studies in Canada and American Indian Studies in the US South. McCall, noting Canada’s recent political history of emphasizing “reconciliation” with Indigenous communities and apologizing for its 150-year legacy of forced Indian Residential Schools, asks what gets silenced, lost, and/or gained in comparative frameworks that attempt to identify new potential affiliations by rhetorically or intellectually remapping historic differences. Reder continues by describing the often fraught debates surrounding the application of postcolonial theory to Indigenous Studies in Canada, examining both the reticence many scholars feel against using approaches that “overdetermine[] the role of the nation and state” as well as a preference for models that privilege Indigenous cultural production and forms. Anderson, a US Native American Studies scholar, returns to the question of comparative frameworks with an analysis of regionalist and deep historical approaches as well as global comparative models, concluding that the kinds of Indigenous-centered approaches that are most needed are also the most difficult to employ due to limitations in resources and pedagogical training.

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