Native American Language Ideologies: Beliefs, Practices, and Struggles in Indian Country

12. Contingencies of Emergence: Planning Maliseet Language Ideologies

chapter 12 Contingencies of Emergence Planning Maliseet Language Ideologies bernard c. perley In this chapter I explore some contingencies that determine trajectories for Maliseet language ideologies, which I define in a very broad sense, following Williams as ‘‘representations, whether explicit or implicit , that construe the intersection of language and human beings in a social world’’ (cited in Woolard 1998:3). There are many possible contingencies , but I focus on agency, opportunity, and site. I argue that the emergence of language ideologies is contingent upon an agent and/or agents taking advantage of opportunities to initiate ideological changes from sites of opportunity. I will re-present the changes in the development of one Maliseet language project as it reflects reorientations in ideological intent. However, before I state the language ideology parameters of my analysis I must confess that I am fully implicated in the planning of emergent Maliseet language ideologies as both a Native and an anthropologist . Hence, in addition to analyzing the process of ideological transformation I must also include a reflexive consideration of my dual role as Native and anthropologist. I begin by stating that the term ‘‘Maliseet’’ is the term that has been used to describe the Aboriginal peoples who live in the St. John River Valley in New Brunswick, Canada. I prefer the ethnonym Welastekwıyek, People of the Goodly (or Beautiful) River, but I am compelled by the precedence of historical and literary representation to use ‘‘Maliseet.’’ Now I follow with an anecdote to situate my involvement in planning Maliseet language ideologies. Situating Partial Perspectives My only memory of my first day of school was of me sitting in the front seat of the school bus with tears running down both of my cheeks. The 256 bernard c. perley bus driver was sitting in the driver’s seat. He was turned in my direction, and I vaguely remember the expression on his face as one of benign frustration. His mouth was moving and words were coming out, but I only remember them as a jumble of sounds. My first language was Maliseet, and I found myself in an alien world where my native language failed me. I share my recollection of that critical moment when my taken-forgranted lived experience was rendered irrelevant and meaningless to indicate how, as a six year old, I learned the hard lessons of an English language ethnocidal symbolic domination and its associated language ideological erasures (Irvine and Gal 2000) of Native American languages and their attendant ideologies.∞ Since that first day of school I have been grappling with the consequences of that domination and those erasures. Today, as a Native anthropologist, I find myself entangled in ideological tugs-of-war between my ‘‘professional socialization and the selective attention to language and communication that it entailed’’ (Kroskrity 2000a:342) and my ‘‘Native’’ socialization and the selective attention to language and communication that it entailed. Kroskrity’s critical analysis of the Santa Clara Tewa anthropologist Edward P. Dozier’s degree of ‘‘insider’’ status in Arizona Tewa is a cautionary tale for Native anthropologists . How do we as anthropologists and Native anthropologists evaluate the analytical benefits of ‘‘insider’’ status a self-described Native anthropologist purportedly enjoys?≤ As Kroskrity points out in his analysis, Dozier did not enjoy the reflexive options available to Native anthropologists in today’s experimental moment but was compelled to work within ‘‘linguistic standards of anthropological authentication’’ (2000a:355). Furthermore , he did not have the range of situated perspectives from ‘‘halfie,’’ that is, mixed-blood, anthropologists (Abu-Lughod 1991) to Native anthropologists (Limón 1991) from which to work. In our current age of ethnographic experimentality I wonder, as a Native anthropologist, what kinds of ‘‘deafening’’ (Kroskrity 2000a:357) I am subject to as I work within the constraints of my profession. I recognize the limitations of both sides of my ideological tugs-of-war and find some comfort in the idea that ‘‘perhaps all cultural members can be usefully construed as partial members’’ (Kroskrity 2000a:343). I construe ‘‘partial members,’’ in both senses of ‘‘incomplete’’ and/or ‘‘biased,’’ as a useful strategy for anthropologists and Natives alike. If we conceive of cultural members as ‘‘partial members,’’ then we too can be partial participants in our self-assigned target culture, planning maliseet language ideologies 257 be it anthropology ‘‘culture’’ or ‘‘Native’’ culture. I accept partiality as a presupposition for analysis from both...