The Idle No More Movement and Language: Speaking our languages as foundational acts of everyday renewal and community resurgence....

[Heather Souter]

*Pondering the Idle No More Movement and Language: Speaking our languages
as foundational acts of everyday renewal and community resurgence....
*
Lately I have been reading the work of Cherokee scholar Jeff Corntassel and
Mohawk scholar Taiaiake Alfred.  I found the following two excellent quotes
in Jeff Corntassel's recent writing, Re-envisioning resurgence: Indigenous
pathways to decolonization and sustainable self-determination....

"A peoplehood model provides a useful way of thinking about the nature of
everyday resurgence practices both personally and collectively. If one
thinks of peoplehood as the interlocking features of language, homeland,
ceremonial cycles, and sacred living histories, a disruption to any one of
these practices threatens all aspects of everyday life. The complex
spiritual, political and social relationships that hold peoplehood together
are continuously renewed. These daily acts of renewal, whether through
prayer, speaking your language, honoring your ancestors, etc., are the
foundations of resurgence." p. 89,

"...[E]veryday acts of resurgence aren’t glamorous or expedient. It might
involve a personal vow to only eat food that has been hunted, fished or
grown by Indigenous peoples, and/or speaking one’s language to family
members or in social media groups, or even growing traditional foods in
your own backyard." p. 98, ibid.

The full article can be accessed online.  The citation and link follow.

Jeff Corntassel, Re-envisioning resurgence: Indigenous pathways to
decolonization and sustainable self-determination
Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society Vol. 1, No. 1, 2012, pp.
86-­‐101, 2012, J. Corntassel
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0), permitting all
non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.

http://decolonization.org/index.php/des/article/view/18627
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