Narrating Indigenous Modernities.

Beschreibung

The Maori of New Zealand, a nation that quietly prides itself on its pioneering egalitarianism, have had to assert their indigenous rights against the demogra¬phic, institutional, and cultural domi¬nance of Pakeha and other immigrant minorities – European, Asian, and Poly¬nesian – in a postcolonial society charac¬terized by neocolonial structures of barely acknowledged inequality. While Maori writing reverberates with this struggle, literary identity discourse goes beyond any fallacious dualism of white/brown, colonizer/colonized, or modern/traditional. In a rapidly altering context of globality, such essentialism fails to account for the diverse expressions of Maori identities negotiated across mul¬tiple categories of culture, ethnicity, class, and gender. Narrating Indigenous Modernities re¬cognizes the need to place Maori litera¬ture within a broader framework that explores the complex relationship be¬tween indigenous culture, globalization, and modernity. This study introduces a transcultural methodology for the ana¬lysis of contemporary Maori fiction, where articulations of indigeneity ac¬knowledge cross-cultural blending and the transgression of cultural boundaries. Thus, Narrating Indigenous Moder¬nities charts the proposition that Maori writing has acquired a fresh, transcul¬tural quality, giving voice to both new and recuperated forms of indigeneity, tribal community, and Maoritanga (Maoridom) that generate modern in¬digeneities which defy any essentialist homogenization of cultural difference. Maori literature becomes, at the same time, both witness to globalized proces¬ses of radical modernity and medium for the negotiation and articulation of such structural transformations in Maori¬tanga. Michaela Moura–Koçoğlu teaches women’s studies and English literatures at Florida International University in Miami. She gained her PhD degree in New Eng¬lish Literatures and Cultures at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. Among her primary research interests are Indigenous literatures, Indige¬nous women’s studies, literature from Oceania, postcolonial studies, and trans¬culturality as a critical methodology.
The Maori of New Zealand, a nation that quietly prides itself on its pioneering egalitarianism, have had to assert their indigenous rights against the demogra¬phic, institutional, and cultural domi¬nance of Pakeha and other immigrant minorities – European, Asian, and Poly¬nesian – in a postcolonial society charac¬terized by neocolonial structures of barely acknowledged inequality. While Maori writing reverberates with this struggle, literary identity discourse goes beyond any fallacious dualism of white/brown, colonizer/colonized, or modern/traditional. In a rapidly altering context of globality, such essentialism fails to account for the diverse expressions of Maori identities negotiated across mul¬tiple categories of culture, ethnicity, class, and gender. Narrating Indigenous Modernities re¬cognizes the need to place Maori litera¬ture within a broader framework that explores the complex relationship be¬tween indigenous culture, globalization, and modernity. This study introduces a transcultural methodology for the ana¬lysis of contemporary Maori fiction, where articulations of indigeneity ac¬knowledge cross-cultural blending and the transgression of cultural boundaries. Thus, Narrating Indigenous Moder¬nities charts the proposition that Maori writing has acquired a fresh, transcul¬tural quality, giving voice to both new and recuperated forms of indigeneity, tribal community, and Maoritanga (Maoridom) that generate modern in¬digeneities which defy any essentialist homogenization of cultural difference. Maori literature becomes, at the same time, both witness to globalized proces¬ses of radical modernity and medium for the negotiation and articulation of such structural transformations in Maori¬tanga. Michaela Moura–Koçoğlu teaches women’s studies and English literatures at Florida International University in Miami. She gained her PhD degree in New Eng¬lish Literatures and Cultures at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. Among her primary research interests are Indigenous literatures, Indige¬nous women’s studies, literature from Oceania, postcolonial studies, and trans¬culturality as a critical methodology.

Autor*in

Michaela Moura-Koçoğlu

Stimmen zu »Narrating Indigenous Modernities.«

Details

Link teilen