Indigenous Translocality: Emergent Cosmogonies in the New World Order

Introduction

Ideally, this article would be written in Maliseet, published in Maliseet, and enjoyed by both Maliseet and non-Maliseet readers in the Maliseet language. Instead, in its present form—the English language, using Western idioms, written in (mostly) academic form—it reinforces the ironic aspect of Indigenous translocalization of cosmogonies in colonial states. The 500-year unfolding tragedy of colonization of the Americas is an unprecedented human upheaval resulting—to varying degrees—in the eradication, transformation, and suppression of every Native American population in the Americas. Contemporary Indigenous Peoples who survived colonial processes have done so through survival strategies that draw from their respective cosmogonies.

The many Indigenous Nations represent diverse cosmogonical imaginings and configurations but they all have one thing in common: they've all been forced to translocalize their Indigenous cosmogonies. This article identifies key foundational settler-colonial imaginaries that compel Indigenous Peoples to re-imagine and re-configure their cosmogonies. The article also presents those survival strategies as both timely and timeless embodiments of world-making that offer insights into survival in uncertain worlds. Finally, the article explores the implications of a global assemblage of translocalizing Indigenous cosmogonies as vibrant and hopeful strategies for grappling with the uncertainties of global security and sustainability.

The following is an ethnographic reflection that may be considered by some to be auto-ethnography¹ or native-anthropology by others.² I prefer to describe this article as critical Indigeneity.³ As a member of the Maliseet Nation I practice critical Indigeneity by

using every creative skill I have to live Maliseet traditions, and I will use them every day to affirm and advocate Maliseet worlds and experience against colonial pressures of alienation and disempowerment…It is a commitment to living an Indigenous Maliseet life dependent upon mutually affirming social relationships between Maliseet community members. This collective Maliseet experience and empowerment will permit the Maliseet community to practice their living traditions on their terms, in their traditional homelands, in the belief systems, in everyday practices.⁴

I take this stance to highlight the necessity of living Indigenous traditions in spite of colonial hegemonies of erasure; to think beyond disciplinary boundaries that are cartographies of colonial control; and to actuate translocalizing praxis. I use the descriptor "translocal" and its derivatives to invoke multiple cartographic conceptualizations and the various boundaries they...