Source: Atalay, S. (2006). No sense of the struggle: Creating a context for survivance at the NMAI. The American India Quarterly, 30 (3,4), 597-618. What is Sacred: NMAI is the National Museum of the American Indian, one of our nation's free Smithsonian museums and my favorite place to grab lunch when in DC. It is a beautiful building at the end of the mall but I just flit in and out and don't read too closely. It feels like I am walking on graves sometimes. This article is a loving critique of the NMAI from an Indigenous archeologist and focuses on the gaps in the story, specifically around survivance, versus just colonization and survival. Survivance is defined by Gerald Vizenor as "more than survival, more than endurance or mere response; the stories of survivance are an active presence. . .The native stories of survivance are successive and natural estates; survivance is an active repudiation of dominance, tragedy, and victimry" (15). Read his stor...
Connecting Random Readings to the Courses I Teach