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“Learning to Be Indian”: Historical Narratives and the “Choice” of a Cultural Identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

Sonia Sikka
Sonia Sikka
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa
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Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , Spring 2004 , pp. 339 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2004

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References

Notes

1 Kymlicka, Will, Liberalism, Community, and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 165.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 176.

3 Margalit, Avishai and Halbertal, Moshe, “Liberalism and the Right to Culture,” Social Research, 61, 3 (1994): 503–10, esp. p. 505.Google Scholar

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid., p. 506.

6 Kymlicka, Will, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 82–84.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., p. 85.

8 Ibid., p. 89.

9 Ibid., p. 105.

10 Kymlicka, Will, Politics in the Vernacular Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 55, n.7.Google Scholar

11 Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, p. 83. Here, Kymlicka is actually describing Dworkin's analysis of this issue in Dworkin's A Matter of Principle (London: Harvard University Press, 1985), but Kymlicka presents this analysis as agreeing with his own position.Google Scholar

12 Margalit, Avishai and Raz, Joseph, “National Self-Determination,” reprinted in The Rights of Minority Cultures, edited by Kymlicka, Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 86. Cited by Kymlicka in Multicultural Citizenship, p. 89.Google Scholar

13 Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, pp. 23–24.

14 Dahl, Roy King, “Of Another World,” in Voices: Being Native in Canada, 2nd ed., edited by Jaine, Linda and Taylor, Drew (Saskatoon, SK: University Extension Press, 1995), pp. 6–19.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., p. 6.

16 Ibid., p. 18.

17 Ibid., p. 19.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid., p. 11.

20 Ibid., p. 17.

21 Jacko, Esther, “Traditional Ojibwa Storytelling,” in Voices, p. 42.Google Scholar

22 Jaine, Linda, “All My Relations,” in Voices, p. 55.Google Scholar

23 Voice of the Drum: Indigenous Education and Culture, Proceedings of the 1998 Conference, edited by Neil, Roger (Brandon, MB: Kingfisher Publications, 2000), pp. 277–81.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., pp. 279–80.

25 Ibid., p. 279.

26 Kenny, Carolyn, “A Sense of Place: Aboriginal Research as Ritual Practice,” in Voices, p. 142.Google Scholar

27 For a relatively recent statement of this distinction, see Kymlicka's, WillFinding Our Way: Rethinking Ethnocultural Relations in Canada (Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press Canada, 1998), pp. 130–32.Google Scholar

28 Modood, Tariq, Beishon, Sharon, and Virdee, Satnam, Changing Ethnic Identities (London: Policy Studies Institute, 1994), p. 42.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., pp. 43–44.

30 Ibid., p. 88.

31 Ibid., p. 99.

32 Ibid., p. 109.

33 “It Was Always There? Looking for Identity in All the (Not) So Obvious Places,” in Talking about Identity: Encounters in Race, Ethnicity, and Language, edited by James, Carl E. and Shadd, Adrienne (Toronto: Adrienne Shadd, 2001), pp. 104–14.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., pp. 106–109.

35 Ibid., p. 108.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid., pp. 110–11.

38 Hernandez-Ramdwar, Camilla, “The Elusive and Illusionary: Identifying of Me, Not by Me,” in Talking about Identity.Google Scholar

39 Ibid., p. 120.

40 Ibid., p. 116.

41 Hall, Stuart, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” in Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, edited by Rutherford, Jonathan (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990), p. 225.Google Scholar

42 Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991)Google Scholar. See especially p. 6, where Arnold cites the following statement by Gellner: “Nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness: it invents nations where they do not exist.” The statement is from Gellners's Thought and Change (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1964), p. 169.Google Scholar

43 Ibid., p. 6.

44 For instance, with respect to the nation, Anderson writes, “it is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings” (ibid., p. 7).

45 Cf. Margalit and Raz: “One should not have to identify with or feel loyalty to a group that denigrates an encompassing group to which one belongs” (“National Self-Determination,” p. 89). I am making the stronger claim that one actually cannot do so; any assimilationist policies requiring such identification, therefore, are not only unjust, but ultimately self-defeating.

46 The need for historical continuity has been thematized from the perspective of those who wish to pass on their culture to their descendants. Charles Taylor, for instance, draws attention to the desire for cultural survival “through indefinite future generations,” noting that Kymlicka's argument in Liberalism, Community and Culture cannot justify measures designed to ensure such survival (Taylor, Charles, “The Politics of Recognition,” in Multiculturalism, edited by Gutman, Amy [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994], pp. 40–41)Google Scholar. Chaim Gans points out that “people whose lives are shaped within a certain culture have an interest not only in living their own life within it, but also in the culture's continued existence throughout historical time” (“Nationalism and Immigration,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 1/2 [1998]: 159–80, esp. p. 166). One should also pay attention, however, to the desire for historical continuity on the part of descendants themselves, particularly those who wish to reinvigorate and reconnect with an original culture. I have been suggesting both that the current terms of analysis are insufficient for understanding this phenomenon and that a proper analysis of it can help one to isolate features of cultural identity that may otherwise not be readily visible.

47 Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” p. 225.

48 By this I mean without being charged with inauthenticity, for instance, or facing pressure from assimilationist policies and practices, or encountering a lack of recognition. My argument, therefore, supports Taylor's fundamental claims about the importance of social recognition for people's distinct cultural and ethnic identities in his “The Politics of Recognition” (pp. 25–76).

49 It could be argued, though, within a Rawlsian framework, that individuals in the original position would choose to have their cultural identities acknowledged and accommodated in any society of which they are members to avoid placing themselves in social conditions that would undermine their self-respect. Kymlicka makes this point in Liberalism, Community and Culture (p. 166). But while Kymlicka appeals, at this juncture, to the importance of culture as a context of choice, my point would be that individuals cannot help but locate themselves within historical communities on the basis of their descent, combined with factors like race and identification by others, and that such self-location within a particular ethnocultural identity would, on its own, lead people to choose social recognition and accommodation for that identity. This argument does not depend upon individuals requiring a particular culture to provide “meaningful options” for them in their judgements about the value of their lifeplans (ibid.).

50 Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular, p. 162.

51 Nickel, James W., “The Value of Cultural Belonging: Expanding Kymlicka's Theory,” Dialogue, 33 (1994): 635–42, esp. p. 639.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52 Buchanan, Allen, “The Morality of Secession,” in The Rights of Minority Cultures, p. 357.Google Scholar

53 Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community, and Culture, p. 167.

54 Tomasi, John, “Kymlicka, Liberalism, and Respect for Cultural Minorities,” Ethics, 105 (1995): 580–603, esp. p. 588.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55 I have not, in this article, addressed the issue of differences in the situations of various cultural groups, nor is it my purpose to do so. As suggested earlier, I have only wanted to present some neglected points that I believe are important in understanding people's sense of their own cultural identity. Developing the precise implications of these points with respect to different ethnic and cultural groups would require considering a host of other relevant factors: forced versus voluntary incorporation, territorial and treaty claims, injustices requiring remediation, and so forth.

56 Norman, Wayne, “The Ideology of Shared Values: A Myopic Vision of Unity in the Multi-Nation State,” in Is Quebec Nationalism Just? Perspectives from Anglophone Canada, edited by Carens, Joseph H. (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1995), p. 138.Google Scholar

57 Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular, p. 262.

58 Kymlicka points out the difficulty many people have in learning a second language, adding that “even when people understand a second language, they rarely acquire the same facility as in their mother-tongue” (Politics in the Vernacular, p. 217).

59 Charles Taylor names this the “constitutive-expressive” theory of language, and locates it in a line of thought that includes Hamann, Herder, and Humboldt. See his “Language and Human Nature” and 4“Theories of Meaning,” in Human Agency and Language (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1985)Google Scholar; also “The Importance of Herder,” in Philosophical Arguments (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).Google Scholar

60 Barry, Brian, Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), p. 33.Google Scholar

61 Ibid.

62 Ibid., p. 22.