Unit Author: K. Anne Pyburn, Indiana University
Survivance
Description
It is impossible to tell honest histories of Indigenous People without detailing the evil acts and consequences of settler society. Students learning about the history of violence against Native People and their traumatic experiences of the past and the present may see Indigenous groups, possibly including themselves, as victims. While this is a reasonable reaction, it can be debilitating and numerous Indigenous authors have written about the difference between being a victim and being victimized. Victim is a negative identity, victimization is a negative act or experience.
One important author who has written about this issue is Gerald Vizenor, who coined the term “survivance.” He gives this definition of the term: an active sense of presence, the continuance of native stories, not a mere reaction, or a survivable name. Native survivance stories are renunciations of dominance, tragedy, and victimry. Survivance means the right of succession or reversion of an estate, and in that sense, the estate of native “survivancy”.
This is a complex definition that intentionally leaves open the possibility of many definitions, but the crux of his idea is that victims relinquish authority and power, while people who have withstood evil may see that they have tremendous authority and power. Without blaming the victims for their suffering, Vizenor and others have written about the power and grace of survivance to encourage victimized people to recognize their strength.
This is a complex definition that intentionally leaves open the possibility of many definitions, but the crux of his idea is that victims relinquish authority and power, while people who have withstood evil may see that they have tremendous authority and power. Without blaming the victims for their suffering, Vizenor and others have written about the power and grace of survivance to encourage victimized people to recognize their strength.
Learning Goals
Students should contemplate the difference between action and reaction to difficult circumstances. Indigenous students might consider how they can take authority and power from the history of their people. It will encourage other students to see themselves in the history of “the other,” and think about the impact of their own heritage on their understanding of the past.
Reading Lists
Background for Instructor
Survivance: Narratives of Native Presence. Edited by Gerald Vizenor. 2008. University of Nebraska Press.
Powerpoint: History of Survivance: Upper Midwest 19th-Century Native American Narratives
Assigned for Learners
Survivance: Narratives of Native Presence. Edited by Gerald Vizenor. 2008. University of Nebraska Press.
Colloquium talk: "Researching My Heritage: Diné (Navajo Survivance and The Old Leupp Boarding School" by Davina Two Bears. School for Advance Research.
In this video, Dr. Davina Two Bears talks about the survivance of her grandparents who preserved their cultural values despite being sent to a government school intended to destroy their Native identities.
Activity and Assessment Ideas
This PowerPoint details acts of survivance among several Native American Peoples. In a small class, encourage students to react verbally to each example. In a large class, ask students to write a paragraph in response to the examples and 2 or 3 should be invited to read their impromptu essays to the class. It is likely that the idea of “authenticity” will enter the discussion (if not it can easily be introduced with a question or two about “new” traditions that are being discussed).
It is important that students understand cultures are alive, carried by living people, and though they always reference the past, living cultures breathe in new ideas and grow all the time. This was true in the past as it is true in the present. Taking strength from the past and renewing or reinterpreting tradition is just one way of defining culture. If the discussion on this topic becomes lively, encourage students to think of examples of “new traditions” that they know about or that they would like to invent.
Play the game Survivance and be prepared to report on your activity for the next class.
Survivance is a social impact game. Players choose from non-linear quests that are structured in the phases of the Indigenous life journey. At the end of each quest, players create an act of survivance—a form of self-determination based on Anishinabe scholar Gerald Vizenor’s term “survivance.” Survivance merges survival and endurance in asserting Indigenous presence in contemporary media.