PAB Entry #4: “A Relational Model for Native American Literary Criticism”

Hove, Thomas, and John M. McKinn.  “A Relational Model for Native American Literary Criticism.” Studies in American Indian Literatures 19.4 (2007): 197-208. Project MUSE.  Web. 27 September 2016.

Click the above picture to learn more about the diversity and history of Native American literature.
Click the above picture to learn more about the diversity and history of Native American literature.

As the field of Native American criticism grows, new conflicts continue to arise between ethnic identification and literary judgment.  As with any specific English study, it can be conceived as a discipline unto itself, offering an exclusive scope and distinctive methods of analysis (McComiskey 29).  Therefore, in their article, Hove and McKinn attempt to promulgate a method that will contribute to a rethinking of critical treatments of Native American identity and authenticity.  Their main objective is to examine the concept of ethnic authenticity in terms of how social relations influence the field of Native American literary production.  This is primarily done by looking at how members of the field put decisions of authenticity to social use and how others perceive these decisions as legitimate or illegitimate (197). Hove and McKinn wish to avoid assessing authenticity from an epistemological standpoint, for they assert that the rhetorical and sociological dimensions are of greater importance; therefore, they desire to identify the institutional, cultural, and social nuances apparent in the field of Native study (197).  In order to achieve this end, the authors reference Bourdieu’s sociological studies regarding the struggles for domination.

Since Native criticism is a relatively autonomous social space, possessing its own rules and power dynamics, critics have a lot of leeway when offering political, cultural, and aesthetic judgments about authors or other critics (198).  According to Hove and McKinn, this creates major conflicts due to the “social positions from which critics or authors make authenticity judgments” (199). This needs to be taken into consideration when mapping the Native critical field’s social undercurrents, for social elements play an enormous role when critics take various positions for various reasons.  Since Native American literary criticism is a field of social struggle, Hove and McKinn note that there are three basic forms of capital that come into play when critics determine one another’s status in the field: institutional, cultural, and ethnic capital (201).  INSTITUTIONAL capital refers to rank status of the critic, CULTURAL capital refers to the styles and insights offered by critics, and ETHNIC capital refers to whether a critic is legitimately or illegitimately Native (202).  Out of these three forms of capital, the ethnic status may be deemed as most predominant and most complex.  The authors denote three ideal-typical practices that define critics’ positions in relation to ethnic conflicts: non-Indian critics should not write about Indian literature (solidaristic), Indians claim that Indian critics should write only about Indian literature (nationalistic), and both Indians and non-Indians should write about Indian literature (cosmopolitan) (203).

These practices create rifts among critics who are adamant about what should be written and by whom it should be written.  For example, some Indians are fixedly against non-Indians writing about the Native American culture because there is a concern that the published material will not preserve their beliefs; instead, the writing might promote European or colonial perceptions or deviate from the truth.  While there are certainly some non-Indian critics who might purposely or inadvertently write with a colonial agenda, others, like Dr. Drew Lopenzina at ODU, thoroughly attempt to follow critics such as Robert Warrior.  According to Lopenzina, Warrior was the first to champion the cause that if we want to understand and evaluate context of Native culture, it has to be done through Native space instead of colonial space (Lopenzina).  Nevertheless, as Hove and McKinn articulate, “The question of capital always returns us to the constantly shifting relations among institutional rank, cultural expertise, and ethnic identification.  These shifting relations are precisely what define the symbolic struggles in which critics compete for different kinds of dominance” (204).

Additional Sources:

Lopenzina, Drew, Dr. Personal Telephone Interview. 13 September 2016.

McComiskey, Bruce, ed. English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s).  Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2006. Print.

*To view the full text version of Hove and McKinn’s essay, click the link below (ODU login will be necessary):

https://muse-jhu-edu.proxy.lib.odu.edu/article/235982/pdf