On Writing, with Kim Anderson

Kim Anderson talks to Open Book about her research, identities of Native girls and women and her new book, Life Stages and Native Women: Memory, Teachings, and Story Medicine (University of Manitoba Press).

The launch for Life Stages and Native Women: Memory, Teachings, and Story Medicine is on Thursday, October 20th at the Toronto Women's Bookstore. See Open Book: Toronto's Events Page for details.

Open Book:

Tell us about your book, Life Stages and Native Women: Memory, Teachings, and Story Medicine.

Kim Anderson:

After I finished writing my last book, A Recognition of Being: Reconstructing Native Womanhood, I wanted to continue to explore Native female identity, with a focus on how our identities are shaped by age as well as gender. Life Stages and Native Women is based on stories that I collected with 14 elders who shared what they remembered of girls and women along the life stage continuum in their childhood communities. I wove the stories together with literature to create a picture of how these lives were validated, honoured and respected by the cultures and communities they came from. The stories carry a power within that will hopefully inspire us to think about how to live good lives in balance with “all our relations” — human, plant, animal, spirit, etc. In particular, they teach us about the power of girls and women within cultures that still valued the sacred feminine. Some of this information comes through in the descriptions of life stage ceremonies, such as the puberty seclusion for girls. In other cases, it can be seen in the every day relations of community members, or in practices and protocols, such as those surrounding pregnancy, birth and death.

OB:

What sort of research did you do to prepare for writing Life Stages and Native Women?

KA:

The book is built on oral history interviews with twelve women and two men, so the research involved seeking out elder historians who could speak about women and girls in their childhood communities in the 1930s, ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s. I also did research by sifting through existing literature for material about Algonquian women and girls during this time period. Some of this was information that anthropologists had created, some from Indigenous writing, and so on.

OB:

Were you especially struck by any of the similarities or differences in the Métis, Cree and Anishinaabe women's experiences?

KA:

The elders I spoke to had the common experience of growing up in land-based communities. A lot of the practices were similar in that they were grounded in the reverence for life that comes from a close connection with the land, and the honoring of the feminine as a life-giving force. Social relations were also similar in that community members of all ages had to work together to ensure community survival. Because of this, there was an imperative to ensure that people had a sense of belonging and commitment to the collective. Many of the ceremonies are similar too, as all of these people come from the Algonquian language family and the culture that is associated with that family. There were, of course, differences that were related to the different histories, geographic locations, and cultural practices that vary from region to region. But all in all, the similarities allowed me to tell a coherent story.

OB:

How did you become interested in your subject?

KA:

I have always been interested in life stages as they are understood through Indigenous theory. What has struck me the most about life stage theory of the Anishinaabek is that everyone along the life stage continuum is valued for what they bring to the collective. This is not always the case in the worlds that we live in today, where people who are in the middle years are sometimes considered to be more valuable, productive or important, while the young and old become invisible or marginalized. I was also interested in looking at identities of women and girls in societies that have a shorter history with patriarchy, as patriarchy was introduced as a strategy of colonization. We find it hard to imagine a world without patriarchy, and threads of it exist in the stories of our elders.

OB:

Can you tell us about your next writing project?

KA:

I am working on a research project on Indigenous masculinities right now. I’ve been studying and writing about women’s identities, traditional/historical roles and responsibilities for 20 years, and people have often asked me about Native men’s identities. I have always felt that it was up to Indigenous men to tell those stories, but recently I have come to see that I can play a role in getting a dialogue going on this subject. So I am working with a team that is focused on what masculinities mean to Indigenous men. My personal interest is how men’s identities manifest in the absence of patriarchy — that is to say, what does men’s power, authority, sacredness look like within societies where the sacred feminine is still operational? We have access to such knowledge by looking at the very recent history of Native peoples in North America and elsewhere in the world. My colleague Robert Innes and I will be producing an anthology out of the work we are doing on Indigenous masculinities.

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