Considering the Present in Writing about the Indigenous Past

IF 1.1 2区 历史学 Q1 HISTORY
Elizabeth N. Ellis
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The Great Power of Small Nations builds on this turn, and I am deeply grateful to the WMQ and my colleagues for the opportunity to discuss my book within the larger Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) and early American historiographies, particularly because NAIS methods are far from broadly accepted by historians. In part, this is because NAIS demands that scholars engage with the communities that we study and consider the consequences of our work for modern tribal nations. So, as Emilie Connolly highlights in her opening comments, the field as a whole continues to wrestle with questions about whether and how to integrate NAIS approaches and theory into historical scholarship.2 When I finished writing The Great Power of Small Nations, I could not have foreseen that the book's publication would coincide with the [End Page 761] revival of long-standing, contentious debates over the perils of presentism in historical scholarship. In August 2022, the then-president of the American Historical Association, James H. Sweet, published a piece in Perspectives on History lamenting the prevalence of presentism and the infusion of \"identity politics\" into historical work. \"This new history often ignores the values and mores of people in their own times, as well as change over time, neutralizing the expertise that separates historians from those in other disciplines,\" he wrote. Many scholars have echoed that perspective to express their concerns about the rise of scholarship written by historians who foreground their own experiences or engage explicitly with the present. Other historians have pushed back forcefully against these criticisms of intersectional work.3 As Jessica Marie Johnson powerfully notes, we live in a moment of striking \"ideological warfare\" during which some seek to erase many of the histories of Black and Indigenous peoples, while others write about the Black or Indigenous past without acknowledging the ways that those communities continue to wrestle with the legacies of colonization.4 A year later, the issue remains a live topic in the field. Is it wrong to engage the present in early American historical studies? Such a query presumes that it is possible for historians to generate research questions and interpretations outside of the present. As Alejandra Dubcovsky highlights, modern heteropatriarchal concepts of citizenship and governance have warped our ability to see Native women as vital political players in the early modern era.5 The question also imagines that scholars ought to produce fully disinterested or even objective histories of the past. One only need look at the history of American Indian studies to see the pernicious effects of such aims for historical research. [End Page 762] In the mid-twentieth century, popular assumptions about the allegedly inevitable decline of American Indian peoples led historians and anthropologists to ask questions primarily about how Native nations succumbed to European civilization or why we had lost our cultures. Entering communities and archives with expectations of finding decline, researchers found evidence of cultural erosion and political destruction, leading them to develop study after study of Native American demise. When Julia Lewandoski makes reference to \"the popularity of the rise-and-fall trope,\" she reminds us that this has been the predominant lens for understanding Indigenous nations—as entities ultimately broken by their contact with colonization. Settler logics and languages shaped the scholarship and field reports, and these studies informed policies that did material harm to Native communities. Much has changed since this era, and pathbreaking ethnohistorical and community-engaged scholarship has transformed the field. 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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Considering the Present in Writing about the Indigenous Past Elizabeth N. Ellis (bio) IN the spring of 2018 the William and Mary Quarterly published a Forum titled "Materials and Methods in Native American and Indigenous Studies." One year later, the journal published another Forum addressing the rise of the term settler colonialism in early American history.1 These essays marked a watershed moment in the field and are indicative of some of the theoretical and methodological shifts required for exploring Vast Early America. Taken together, these publications signal a growing acceptance of Indigenous studies approaches in early American studies scholarship. The Great Power of Small Nations builds on this turn, and I am deeply grateful to the WMQ and my colleagues for the opportunity to discuss my book within the larger Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) and early American historiographies, particularly because NAIS methods are far from broadly accepted by historians. In part, this is because NAIS demands that scholars engage with the communities that we study and consider the consequences of our work for modern tribal nations. So, as Emilie Connolly highlights in her opening comments, the field as a whole continues to wrestle with questions about whether and how to integrate NAIS approaches and theory into historical scholarship.2 When I finished writing The Great Power of Small Nations, I could not have foreseen that the book's publication would coincide with the [End Page 761] revival of long-standing, contentious debates over the perils of presentism in historical scholarship. In August 2022, the then-president of the American Historical Association, James H. Sweet, published a piece in Perspectives on History lamenting the prevalence of presentism and the infusion of "identity politics" into historical work. "This new history often ignores the values and mores of people in their own times, as well as change over time, neutralizing the expertise that separates historians from those in other disciplines," he wrote. Many scholars have echoed that perspective to express their concerns about the rise of scholarship written by historians who foreground their own experiences or engage explicitly with the present. Other historians have pushed back forcefully against these criticisms of intersectional work.3 As Jessica Marie Johnson powerfully notes, we live in a moment of striking "ideological warfare" during which some seek to erase many of the histories of Black and Indigenous peoples, while others write about the Black or Indigenous past without acknowledging the ways that those communities continue to wrestle with the legacies of colonization.4 A year later, the issue remains a live topic in the field. Is it wrong to engage the present in early American historical studies? Such a query presumes that it is possible for historians to generate research questions and interpretations outside of the present. As Alejandra Dubcovsky highlights, modern heteropatriarchal concepts of citizenship and governance have warped our ability to see Native women as vital political players in the early modern era.5 The question also imagines that scholars ought to produce fully disinterested or even objective histories of the past. One only need look at the history of American Indian studies to see the pernicious effects of such aims for historical research. [End Page 762] In the mid-twentieth century, popular assumptions about the allegedly inevitable decline of American Indian peoples led historians and anthropologists to ask questions primarily about how Native nations succumbed to European civilization or why we had lost our cultures. Entering communities and archives with expectations of finding decline, researchers found evidence of cultural erosion and political destruction, leading them to develop study after study of Native American demise. When Julia Lewandoski makes reference to "the popularity of the rise-and-fall trope," she reminds us that this has been the predominant lens for understanding Indigenous nations—as entities ultimately broken by their contact with colonization. Settler logics and languages shaped the scholarship and field reports, and these studies informed policies that did material harm to Native communities. Much has changed since this era, and pathbreaking ethnohistorical and community-engaged scholarship has transformed the field. But the field of Native American history has never been free from modern ideologies or research imperatives, nor is it separate...
在书写土著的过去时考虑现在
在2018年春天,《威廉与玛丽季刊》(William and Mary Quarterly)发表了一个题为“美洲原住民和土著研究中的材料和方法”的论坛。一年后,该杂志发表了另一篇论坛文章,讨论早期美国历史上定居者殖民主义一词的兴起这些论文标志着该领域的一个分水岭时刻,并表明了探索广阔的早期美洲所需的一些理论和方法的转变。综上所述,这些出版物标志着早期美国研究学术对土著研究方法的接受程度越来越高。《小国的大国》建立在这一转变的基础上,我非常感谢WMQ和我的同事们有机会在更大的美国原住民和土著研究(NAIS)和早期美国史学中讨论我的书,特别是因为NAIS的方法远未被历史学家广泛接受。在某种程度上,这是因为NAIS要求学者与我们研究的社区接触,并考虑我们的工作对现代部落国家的影响。因此,正如艾米丽·康诺利在她的开场白中所强调的那样,这个领域作为一个整体继续与是否以及如何将NAIS的方法和理论融入历史学术的问题作斗争当我完成《小国的大国》这本书时,我无法预见到这本书的出版将与历史学术中存在主义危险的长期争论的复兴相吻合。2022年8月,时任美国历史协会(American Historical Association)主席的詹姆斯·h·斯威特(James H. Sweet)在《历史展望》(Perspectives on History)上发表了一篇文章,哀叹现在主义的盛行和“身份政治”在历史工作中的渗透。他写道:“这种新的历史往往忽略了当时人们的价值观和习俗,以及随着时间的推移而发生的变化,抵消了历史学家与其他学科区分开来的专业知识。”许多学者都赞同这一观点,表达了他们对由历史学家撰写的学术兴起的担忧,这些历史学家将自己的经历放在前台,或明确地关注当下。其他历史学家对这些对交叉研究的批评进行了有力的反驳正如杰西卡·玛丽·约翰逊强有力地指出的那样,我们生活在一个引人注目的“意识形态战争”的时代,在这个时代,一些人试图抹去黑人和土著人民的许多历史,而另一些人则在写黑人或土著人民的过去,却不承认这些社区继续与殖民遗产作斗争的方式一年后,这个问题仍然是该领域的热门话题。把现在纳入早期美国历史研究中是错误的吗?这样的质疑假定历史学家有可能在现在之外提出研究问题和解释。正如亚历杭德拉·杜布科夫斯基所强调的,现代的异族父权制的公民权和治理观念扭曲了我们将土著妇女视为现代早期重要的政治参与者的能力这个问题还设想,学者们应该写出完全公正甚至客观的历史。人们只需要看看美国印第安人研究的历史,就能看到这种历史研究目标的有害影响。在二十世纪中叶,关于美洲印第安人不可避免的衰落的流行假设导致历史学家和人类学家提出了一些问题,主要是关于土著民族是如何屈服于欧洲文明的,或者为什么我们失去了我们的文化。怀着寻找衰落的期望,研究人员进入社区和档案馆,发现了文化侵蚀和政治破坏的证据,这促使他们开展了一项又一项关于美洲原住民灭亡的研究。当茱莉亚·莱万多斯基提到“盛衰比喻的流行”时,她提醒我们,这一直是理解土著民族的主要视角——作为最终因与殖民接触而破裂的实体。定居者的逻辑和语言塑造了学术和实地报告,这些研究为对土著社区造成实质性伤害的政策提供了信息。自那个时代以来,很多事情都发生了变化,开创性的民族历史和社区参与的学术已经改变了这个领域。但是,印第安人历史领域从来没有摆脱过现代意识形态或研究要求,也不是独立的……
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CiteScore
1.40
自引率
12.50%
发文量
52
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