WALKING A TIGHTROPE: ABORIGINAL PEOPLE AND THEIR REPRESENTATIONS **ABORIGINAL STUDIES SERIES**

LISCHKE, UTE & DAVID T. McNAB (Editors)

ISBN 10: 0889204608 / ISBN 13: 9780889204607

Published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo, ON, 2005

About this Item

pp: 377. The editors have collected pieces of poetry, critical studies, and literary reviews in order to ".hear and examine the multiplicity and distinctiveness of Aboriginal voices." (Preface). They include such wide ranging pieces as; a study of Rudy Wiebe's 'The Temptation of Big Bear', the representation of Aboriginal People in East German films, evolving perceptions of Indigenous knowledge, and Aboriginal identity of the Mi'gmaq in Newfoundland. A near fine copy in a very good dust jacket with light edge wear, and light sunning on the spine.

Seller Inventory # 007924

Bibliographic Details

• Title: WALKING A TIGHTROPE: ABORIGINAL PEOPLE AND THEIR REPRESENTATIONS **ABORIGINAL STUDIES SERIES**
• Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo, ON
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0889204608
• ISBN 13: 9780889204607
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 0.7 kilograms
• Seller catalogs:
  • WORLD HISTORY
  • CANADA
  • INDIGENOUS AND NATIVE PEOPLES

About this title

Synopsis

“The most we can hope for is that we are paraphrased correctly.” In this statement, Lenore Keeshig-Tobias underscores one of the main issues in the representation of Aboriginal peoples by non-Aboriginals. Non-Aboriginal people often fail to understand the sheer diversity, multiplicity, and shifting identities of Aboriginal people. As a result, Aboriginal people are often taken out of their own contexts.

Walking a Tightrope plays an important role in the dynamic historical process of ongoing change in the representation of Aboriginal peoples. It locates and examines the multiplicity and distinctiveness of Aboriginal voices and their representations, both as they portray themselves and as others have characterized them. In addition to exploring perspectives and approaches to the representation of Aboriginal peoples, it also looks at Native notions of time (history), land, cultures, identities, and literacies. Until these are understood by non-Aboriginals, Aboriginal people will continue to be misrepresented―both as individuals and as groups.

By acknowledging the complex and unique legal and historical status of Aboriginal peoples, we can begin to understand the culture of Native peoples in North America. Until then, given the strength of stereotypes, Native people have come to expect no better representation than a paraphrase.

About the Authors

Ute Lischke teaches German literature, film studies and cultural perspectives at Wilfrid Laurier University where she is Associate Professor in the Department of English and Film Studies. Lischke is the author of Lily Braun, 1865-1916 German Writer, Feminist, Socialist (2000). Her most recent books, edited with David T. McNab, include Blockades and Resistance: Studies in Actions of Peace and the Temagami Blockades of 1988-89 (2003), Walking a Tightrope: Aboriginal People and their Representations (2005), and The Long Journey of a Forgotten People: Métis Identities and Family Histories, (2007) all with WLU Press.

David T. McNab is a Métis historian who has worked for three decades on Aboriginal land and treaty rights issues in Canada. McNab teaches in the School of Arts and Letters in the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies at York University in Toronto where he is Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies. He has also been a claims advisor for Nin.Da.Waab.Jig., Walpole Island Heritage Center, Bkejwanong First Nations since 1992. In addition to more than seventy articles, McNab has published Earth, Water, Air and Fire: Studies in Canadian Ethnohistory (editor) (1998) and Circles of Time: Aboriginal Land Rights and Resistance in Ontario (1999) as well as the co-edited (with Ute Lischke) Blockades and Resistance: Studies in Actions of Peace and the Temagami Blockades of 1988-89 (2003), Walking a Tightrope: Aboriginal People and their Representations (2005), and The Long Journey of a Forgotten People: Métis Identities and Family Histories, (2007) all with WLU Press.