What Makes it Indigenous?
On Readability and Forced Readability in Indigenous Media
I’m young(er) and I’m showing a demo of a new video game I’ve been working on. It’s a deeply personal piece and very much interwoven with ideas and stories all stemming from my Culture. My assigned ‘mentor’ looks on blankly as I excitedly describe the piece. I finish, they nod and then the words come tumbling out: “That’s lovely, but what makes it Indigenous?”¹ It is a lance to my gut, one I am far too used to by now, and I utter the rejoinder like an over-worn mantra:
“I make it Indigenous.”
That is to say, it is Indigenous because I am Indigenous, but my ‘mentor’ is unimpressed. They move on to another, less volatile, piece of feedback, obviously they’re not going to get the answer they want and see no point in trying to talk to an obstinate Native. I wish the slap to my wounded spirit could fade as easily. Now ask yourself as I did myself after this last exchange: Why have I heard this particular question to the point where I now carry a scripted reply? And what is actually being asked here?
When someone says to an Indigenous artist, “what is Indigenous about this?” what are they actually asking? Are they asking for “Authenticity” or is it something else?
Before we can really dive into the ask, it is necessary to point out that since colonization, what get’s shown as Indigenous culture or art in the Americas has been curated by non-Indigenous people. Without this understanding, it is impossible to uncover the hidden assumptions that lie within this question. That is to say simply, that what you have been shown and told is “Indigenous’’ has been, up to perhaps the last two decades, selected exclusively by non-Indigenous people for a non-Indigenous audience. With that in mind it needs to be stated that what “looks” Indigenous is carrying more colonial-settler bias than we think. That a conversation about “what Indigenous art looks like” in the public space has been driven, overwhelmingly, by settler preconceptions.
If one was asking for an Indigenous artist to introduce or confirm their Community/Nation would they ask this question or would they say “Which Nation are you from?” or “What Community do you belong to?” Being asked how they understand their connection to community is a common and expected question of Indigenous people. However, when a question is phrased in such a way that there is a clear ask for signifiers to be pointed out and explained or contextualized then we can clearly see that the ask is tied up in the trappings of “looking for Authenticity” but is in actuality an ask for Readability.
On Insiders and Outsiders
To collect the cultural knowledge of others as if your mind was some museum, and for the sole purpose of being able to say “I am not an outsider” is, in my mind, the very definition of a person who perceives themselves as being inherently separate from these cultures
Throughout this piece I will be using the terms Insider and Outsider. There are those that will object to the use of these terms: insiders and outsiders. It is a shameful fact that the language of Othering has been co-opted by the dominant Western culture to ignore the conceit of Othering: that those in power must not unduly objectify and Other to gain or maintain power. Instead this co-opting demands that no one should ever be considered outside or inside. That all things are available to all to know. A position that is the rallying cry of American Exceptionalism and is inherently at odds with the reality of knowledge use, protection and dissemination. It is a fact of life that we cannot deeply know a culture and land that we do not live in and on.
I, a Metis game designer from Canada, can never know the intricacies and nuances of the lived experience of a Jah Hut carver from Malaysia and they cannot know mine. I do not advocate that anyone should attempt to gain this kind of knowledge for no other reason than to possess it. To collect the cultural knowledge of others as if your mind was some museum, and for the sole purpose of being able to say “I am not an outsider” is, in my mind, the very definition of a person who perceives themselves as being inherently separate from these cultures. It is a position of Western arrogance, not unlike the concept of “race blindness” (also known as “colour blindness”). It is grounded in the philosophy that the ones who possess power should never be perceived as having that power.
If the objection to the use of the terms “insider” and “outsider” rests solely on an invocation of feelings of exclusion then it is an objection that ignores reality.
Much of today’s ultra wealthy are able to maintain their position because there exists a separation between those who can and those who cannot access/utilize knowledge. It is most obvious when one looks at things like the ever increasing scope and length of intellectual property laws to create monopolies on ideas and technology. Then accepting that there is a lived reality of being an insider and outsider, a position almost all of us inhabit simultaneously, we will continue forward using these terms.
What is Readability?
What you have been shown and told is “Indigenous’’ has been, up to perhaps the last two decades, selected exclusively by non-Indigenous people for a non-Indigenous audience
Readability, put simply, is the ability of an object’s appearance to meet a viewer’s expectations of its cultural origin. Put more complexly, Readability is the act of using cultural identifiers based on the observer’s pre-existing knowledge of that culture to quickly classify an object as belonging to that culture, or not. It’s the quick assessment we each unconsciously make when we look at something like a Noh mask, for example. Because it is produced by an act of identification it engages only in observation and distinction based on what the viewer already knows. What aspects of this cultural cannon are known to an individual varies depending on the lived cultural experience of that individual. For example, if you have never seen a Noh mask before, or had zero knowledge of Japanese culture, you would simply default to the question of “what is it?”. Not having any knowledge of a thing makes us open to accepting an answer, regardless of its verity.
While Readability can and is used to reinforce stereotypes it should be noted that the function of Readability is unto itself neutral and a natural part of having knowledge of a culture, be it your own or another’s. It is natural for there to be insiders of a culture, those enmeshed from birth or for a meaningful length of engagement; and outsiders, those who have their own separate lived cultural experience but who, through that cultural lens experience and understand other cultures. It is why it doesn’t matter which culture the observer belongs to, we do this even within our own.
If I, a person who is enmeshed in the culture of Cree/Metis florals, an insider, is able to “read” the floral origin in an abstract piece by a Cree artist, then I have just engaged in processing the Readability of that piece. If I had not experienced these things and was, in a sense, a total outsider to that culture, then I could not read what was apparent to the insider. This is not a problem to solve and is a natural aspect of lacking key cultural signifier knowledge. Because we cannot apply the engrained knowledge of a cultural experience we have not lived, we are always applying our own lived experience of another’s cultural export (ex: food, textiles, music, books and other media, etc.).
Readability is always then a function of our personal cultural cannon. However, if an outsider chooses to impose their own, personal, concept of a culture onto that culture then they would be using Readability to enforce stereotyping and cultural erasure. Essentially enacting a process I call Forced Readability. However, before I can discuss Forced Readability we first need to explore why it is so damaging.
Uncanny Signifiers
Imagine there is a new manga-styled American-made comic that is very popular in America. One wholly written, designed and directed by Americans with no ties to Japan save for their enjoyment of translated manga and exported Japanese culture. In this example we will presume that the comic attempts to be manga rather than just amending tropes or imagery. What we would end up with would be read as “manga” to an American audience, but in a Japanese audience would cause the discomfort of the uncanny. By mimicking the signifiers of Japanese manga without the deeper cultural context they originate from, the American creators can only simulate the signifiers rather than replicate. In this way they create what I call “Uncanny Signifiers;” signifiers which at first glance seem correct to the original culture, but upon further examination reveal themselves to instead be a paint job on top of a different cultural cannon.
This is, at its heart, the problem with the appropriation of culture. Because the outsider cannot know beyond the surface; the attempted replicated signifiers then become simulation without substance. The act of appropriation differs from simulacrum² because the original is still there to be compared to. Appropriation by its nature cannot happen without an original to copy. However, without a stronghold to protect the original, with time the appropriation can, and does, erase and replace the original thus becoming simulacra.
As I said earlier, Readability itself is a neutral and natural action that within a culture is the background noise of normalcy. It only becomes recognizable as a distinct action when it is being applied by outsiders to a different culture though one, by definition, that the outsider has been exposed to in some manner. Because the outsider can only possess a limited, and sometimes simplified, collection of signifiers of the other culture, their ability to Read something as belonging to that culture lacks the deeper knowledge required to pick out nuance or subtlety within the signifiers. Things that an insider would readily identify.
Take for example the film Bad Education. In the opening shots there are obvious American flags and colonial era buildings to signify to the audience that this film is set in America. However, someone not raised in the hyper nationalistic culture of the “red, white and blue” All-American would miss the signifiers of the all-white student body wearing monocolour outfits exclusively in the colours of red, white and blue to denote hyper American nationalism. An insider to American culture sees it and may think “this is the nationalism of my culture” or possibly an even more nuanced: “this denotes and reinforces subtle themes the film will touch on.” However, an outsider would simply think “this looks American.” The distinction between the two is an important one when discussing the issue of Forced Readability.
Forced Readability is not an act of appropriation since it is the insider/Other who crafts the signifiers, it is a much more insidious and damaging act. The outsider first crafts in their mind a simulacrum of the insiders/Other’s culture and then imposes that simulacrum on the Other. Essentially, it is the outsider telling the insider what their (the insider’s) “real” cultural cannon is and for the outsider, they are insisting that their outsider encounter with the signifier is the authentic one, not the insider’s. It is beyond simulacrum. It is simulacrum that becomes an enforcement of the outside-in rather than inside-out signifier.
Root of the Problem
The outsider’s main motivation is to ensure that their their cultural similars can easily read a piece as being “authentic,” not to give them a piece that is authentic.
Forced Readability is an act that does not happen without the intention of the outsider to make the Other’s cultural signifiers immediately obvious to their cultural similars. It is this intention (conscious or unconscious) where we start to unravel the source of the problem. Because Forced Readability is an issue of people rather than persons. That is to say, Forced Readability comes not from the desire of the individual to learn, but from the individual’s desire to serve the interests of their collective outsiders. More specifically, the outsider does this not for their own sake (in the sense of gaining cultural knowledge of the insider), but for the sake of profit. They want this insider’s work because it has value to others and that makes it valuable to them. Again, they do not want anything from the insider artist for their own sake, but for the sake of the potential profit it will extract from other outsiders (or cultural similars). It is never about the work for the work’s sake.
Because of this belief (however accurate) that their cultural similars will be unable to recognize the insider’s work as belonging to the exploitable culture at first glance/read means that when an outsider asks an insider “what are the clear signifiers that (object) belongs to your culture?” or more specifically when an Indigenous creative is asked “what makes this Indigenous?”, what they are saying, in actuality, is that they cannot see it, but they need to. The insider’s cultural signifiers are authentic and un-curated, but that is not what the outsider wants. They do not crave authenticity, but rather obviousness. The outsider’s main motivation is to ensure that their their cultural similars can easily read a piece as being “authentic,” not to give them a piece that is authentic.
It only matters to them that these signifiers elicit the attention/attraction/money of their cultural similars. Because they recognize that there is no interest by the Outsider culture to learn or being open to true authenticity of Insider culture, as it would require the Outsider’s cultural similars to confront their own preconceived beliefs of what makes something “look Indigenous.” Therefore, they then put the burden of that back on the Insider to adjust the readability of the piece. Now comes the ‘forced’ aspect of Forced Readability.
Forcing Readability
Because Forced Readability is driven by the imagined knowledge-base of the outsider’s similars, and because the outsider wants something from these others (time, attention, money, attendance numbers, ect.) it doesn’t matter to them what is real, original or authentic. It only matters what the perception of authenticity is to other outsiders and this perception must be upheld, no matter the cost to the insider’s cultural or personal wellbeing. So the insider will be asked, either directly or through more subtler and manipulative means, to conform to this preconception.
This means that the insider artist is forced to make a choice: conform to the outsider’s understanding no matter how incorrect of the insider’s cultural signifiers and be supported, or reject conformity and be ostracized from potential livelihood (real or imagined).
This forcing of Readability then creates its own insidious feedback loop that each time overwrites the culture of the Insider with the beliefs and culture of the Outsider more and more thoroughly. It is an infectious cycle that is set up to have the insider artist become the tool of their culture’s destruction. Plainly put, this cycle operates as such:
In this way Forced Readability is far more damaging to the insider and their culture than appropriation. Appropriation does not require the participation of the insider and cannot damage the original, only the perception of the original. Forced Readability (when successful), however, cannot function without the manipulation of the Insider to create the work, but the work itself gives little room to the Insider’s voice. It is the Outsider talking to their similars through the Insider.
It is a manipulation of the Insider for Outsider purposes which renders them into mere tool and not author. In this process the Insider is no longer an actor with agency, but a mere telephone to be spoken through. It is the “toolification” of the Other. Through Forced Readability the insider becomes a tool of their original culture’s erasure. If left unaddressed, it will continue to eat away at the Insider’s culture until only the copy of the Outsider’s simulacra of the original remains. A mere photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy. A blurry mess in which the authentic is barely readable.
Cultural Authority
It creates a self-serving opportunity for the outsider to dismiss the work of those without their prescribed cultural authority as inauthentic or polluted
While it is not impossible for this cycle to be disrupted, it is very expensive. I mean this in terms of the emotional, mental as well as financial toll caused by the act of resisting a colonial power structure; which is actively and passively invested in maintaining the Readability/visual cannon status-quo of the Other. Disrupting the outsider’s control of the cannon requires an absolute rejection of the influence of their power. A total refusal to take any funds or opportunities that would lead to anything less than the insider’s absolute control over their own work. Not an easy task inside of a system that first divided and removed power before offering an illusion of its return, but now on the terms of the outsider. If an insider’s entire livelihood is reliant on the support of the outsider then this task becomes almost impossible. This is often why the still-at-home young and the independently wealthy insiders are always in a better position to resist the outsider’s power structure.
It is, however, not lost on me that too often those with the support to resist are also the ones who most lack “Cultural Authority.” Cultural authority is a term I use to describe Indigenous individuals who are recognized (rightly or wrongly) by the colonial power structure as being an important carrier of traditional knowledge. Often it does not even need to be knowledge, as in the States blood quantum is often used instead. Regardless of the metric, it remains an offshoot of the Western concept of Cultural Capital, as coined by Bourdieu, wherein it is possible for an individual to hold knowledge, behaviours and skills that make them readable as belonging to a particular social class.
However it is important to remember that Cultural Authority is a colonial hierarchical position that sorts Indigenous/colonized people into these silos based on the colonizer’s desire for resources. These specific resources are the insider’s “original/pre-colonial” knowledge, behaviours and skills. More often than not, the cultural capital of a colonized person is not enough to grant them Cultural Authority as they must also both possess the physical signifiers of the colonizers “ideal” and be deemed “safe” to that colonial system to be granted the position.
This ideal is intrinsically wrapped up in the colonial fetishization of one group of Others who have been used as stand-in signifiers for all their cultural similars in media (paintings, photos and film) since colonization. In North America these fetishized Indigenous features belong to specific Nations/peoples and are assumed to belong to all North American Indigenous peoples. This internalization of colonial ideals has led to many Indigenous people rejecting and manipulating their natural appearance to match this colonial expectation. An example of how the outsider’s dominance of another culture’s readability in turn warps the authentic and produces simulacra.
It should be clear that because this system is set up by the outsider, which insider is deemed to have Cultural Authority can and does change based on what benefits that system. For example, say there were two Indigenous beaders. Both are the same age and from the same community. Both possessed identical cultural knowledge, behaviors and skills. However, one fits the fetishistic ideal appearance while the other does not. Here is where things become uncomfortably interesting. When working within the shifting requirements of cultural authority of the two the ideal one is the first to be granted cultural authority over the first unless they actively resists this system. At such a point the un-ideal option will be readily granted cultural authority over the other. Since cultural authority is not set by the insider community itself it creates a self-serving opportunity for the outsider to dismiss the work of those without their prescribed cultural authority as inauthentic or polluted (the horror of the mixed).
Obviously the colonial power structure would always choose the insider with cultural power/authority who is beholden to the outsider’s power structure than the insider without cultural power/authority who rejects the outsider’s power structure. But it will also reject an insider with cultural power/authority who rejects the outsider’s power structure as they are “too unwieldy”. It is only in the best interest of the colonial system to choose to raise up the insider with cultural power/authority who is beholden to the it’s power structure than the insider without cultural power/authority who rejects it.
It deliberately craft positions of power within the insider’s cultural practices that benefits first the outsider and second the individual insider, never the community or people as a whole.
This is not to say that communities cannot publicly reject designations they disagree with or even present their own. But it should be obvious by now that this is exhausting work and only gets public/outsider recognition after an enormous amount of labour by the community. If they are even aware of the claim in the first place. An Indigenous person living in Germany who is being granted cultural authority that their community would not support is unlikely to face any pushback due to distance and restriction of information. This is how these systems of control over who is granted cultural authority thrive: in little private spaces rather than large public ones.
The Cycle of Abuse
Without the intentionality to shield naive talent from the worst of manipulations and protect their artistic/cultural vision, the system perpetuates itself
It is rare that these situations benefit the insider culture and society as a collective, and often only in those cases where the individual insider chooses to reinvest their wealth in community rather than self. This is rarely because the insider who benefits is a cartoon villain who wants control/power/money at the detriment of their people/community.³ Instead it is because they, as I stated earlier, are dependent on the support of the outsider.
Never are they allowed enough power or funds to abstain from it or if they do possess this ability it would require them to detox/rehab themselves from the lifestyle they have been (often without realizing it) forced to live. This lifestyle (the “new urban disconnect” or the “lavish Hollywood” to name a few) is also another system that maintains the cannon status-quo. It would be a dangerous mistake to think that this system of cultural control begins and ends with mere money.
While overwhelming these systems do not completely exist unchallenged. Many Indigenous artists have and continue to push back and challenged the idea of this status-quo. Artists such as Ruth Cuthand and Cara Romero have also been openly critical of “stereotypical Native art” and the constant assumption by Settlers about what makes something Indigenous. This critique continues to be only marginally acknowledged by settler arts organizations and galleries who continue to prioritize art that lands in the comfort zone of settler buyers and attendees. The status-quo of what “Reads” as Indigenous is well protected in the colonial arts systems and structures.
Any attempt to change it rather than succumb to it is met with force, coercion or manipulation. One such means of force is the cycle of “Use and Lose” of new/naïve Indigenous creatives that permeates the artistic organizational landscape in the Americas.
This cycle is defined by three core characteristics:
- the introduction of a new insider artist (often under 25) into a space/organization beholden to the colonial/capitalist system;
- the lack of safe, reciprocal and protective elders in that same space; and
- the manipulation of that insider into life/work decisions they are not equipped to make or handle.
New artists then have two outcomes if they submit to outsider pressure: “succeed” and become a new recruiter for the system or “fail” and be discarded. Rarely is success or failure an outcome the youth has any control over no matter how talented. This is because the cycle, and by extent the system, is not interested in how talented or good the insider is as an artist, only how much abuse they can tolerate.
Where these artists do have choice is in these three things:
- Leaving in the system,
- Confronting the system, or
- Stopping their part in the cycle if they are already a “success.”
Not all see this cycle for what it is and it is often the case where if the “successful” insider is invested in building up the next generation they can and do make the crucial mistake of exposing this naïve, and easier to manipulate, insider to the same machinations that control themselves. This can come in the form of introducing a young director from a home community to several producers or investors the original insider has worked with.
While there is nothing inherently wrong with introducing young talent to the financial movers there is also rarely any intention on the part of the established insider to maintain a protective role.⁶ In essence they throw fresh meat to the beasts and call it helping. I would however, argue that this is rarely if ever done with malicious intent. Too long in a system and you can start to believe that you made these decisions without influence and so no harm could come to the young insider since no “harm” came to you. But without the intentionality to shield new talent from the worst of manipulations and protect their artistic/cultural vision, the system perpetuates itself without having to do the work of seeking out new/naïve insider talent. And so the benefiting insider becomes a recruiter, another tool to uphold Forced Readability.
What is to be Done About it?
As I conclude, my mind now turns to the question of “what is to be done?” and my answer is: we talk about it. Loudly.
The idea of Forced Readability and the cycle of abuse of Indigenous people in the arts sector needs to be broadly known and discussed openly. As Indigenous artists we must interrupt this toxic cycle whenever we find ourselves in a position to do so. We must make clear to these settler organizations what the harm is and how it functions. There are already those who are doing the work. It is time for more of us to add our voice and our actions to theirs. Above all know that the work before us is something that we are all more than equipped to handle and overcome when we join together.
Endnotes:
[1] I want to acknowledge the inherent colonial positioning of the words: Indigenous, Native, Aboriginal and American Indian. These terms are not what we call ourselves and are themselves designations created by the colonial oppressive systems. I use them in the context of this work because they are, for now, the best I have at my disposal to indicate those original people who stand in opposition to the settler mandate.
[2] ‘It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real‘. (1981:. 2) Jean Baudrillard. The Precession of Simulacra
[3] A trope often utilized in Western media, Tzekel-Kan from the Dreamworks’ Road to El Dorado is one such example.
[4] https://themusekenora.ca/exhibit/ruth-cuthand-beads-of-truth/
[5] https://hyperallergic.com/792326/cara-romero-stands-defiant-against-institutional-categorization/
[6] This can be even more of a difficult position to navigate when the catch-all use of the term Indigenous can mean the old and new artists are from different Nations (or same Nation but different communities) where there is no close community connection.
