Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Max Bledstein
3082596
English 7140
March 5, 2017
In The Generation of Postmemory,: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust,
Marianne Hirsch puts out a call which Leanne Simpsons Dancing on Our Turtles Back answers
resoundingly. As Hirsch first explains in her 1992 essay, Family Pictures: Maus, Mourning, and
survivors feeling residual trauma from the Holocaust through photographs of their elders (8).
Later revisions of the concept, namely Hirschs aforementioned monograph, question how the
term can be broadened and used to encourage activism (6). With Biskaabiiyang, a Nishnaabeg
verb meaning to look back, Simpson demonstrates how different generations can share trauma,
but also culture, values, and tools for survival (Simpson 49). I will argue that the impact of
Biskaabiiyang on attitudes towards stories, life, and creation provides a model for using
intergenerational trauma and teachings as means for collective resurgence, thereby responding to
Although postmemory provides a model for the relationships between generations, even
Hirsch appears to understand the concepts potential shortcomings. Hirsch describes postmemory
as the relationship that the generation after bears to the personal, collective, and cultural
Bledstein 2
trauma of those who came beforeto experiences they remember only by means of the stories,
images, and behaviours among which they grew up (Generation 5). Postmemory links
generations through trauma, since the descendants of those who experience traumatic events
firsthand have their own experiences of that trauma. Going beyond merely chronicling this
phenomenon, Hirsch says of her book, In attempting to look back to the past in order to move
forward toward the future, it asks how memory studies, and the work of postmemory, might
(Generation 6). Although The Generation of Postmemory begins asking this question, Hirsch
does not provide a definitive answer about the potential relationship between postmemory and
activism.
provide further possibilities for the relationships between generations. According to Simpson,
Biskaabiiyang means, to pick up the things we were forced to leave behind, whether they are
songs, dances, values, or philosophies, and bring them into existence in the future (50). Thus,
younger generations can access the cultural artifacts and ideas of their ancestors. In spite of the
destructiveness of modern colonialism, Biskaabiiyang allows Simpson and her tribe to figure
out how to live as Nishnaabeg in the contemporary world andbuild a Nishnaabeg renaissance
(51). The renaissance must be communal, as the Nishnaabeg need to support each other in this
process and work together to stitch lifeways back together (51). Across generations, they learn
from one another and cooperate to resurge and revitalize their culture. Ultimately, Biskaabiiyang
means re-creating the cultural and political flourishment of the past to support the well-being of
our contemporary citizens (51). Previous generations of Nishnaabeg thereby fortify the
Bledstein 3
struggles and joys of living members of the tribe. Through Biskaabiiyang, contemporary
trauma as well as lessons, stories, and values that can be passed down. Wendy Djinn Geniusz
explains the multifaceted nature of Biskaabiiyang: For generations Anishinaabe and all native
peoples have been bombarded by negative stereotypes about our cultures and ourselves When
using Biskaabiiyang methodologies, an individual must recognize and deal with this negative
kind of thinking before conducting research (9-10). While Simpson concentrates more on the
highlights the pains of racism passed down through generations. But like Simpson, Geniusz also
[defined as knowledge, information, and the synthesis of personal teachings] and anishnaabe-
Biskaabiiyang allows for the sharing of not only the pain of colonial oppression, but the values
postmemory as well as their ancestors tools for revitalization and resurgence. Through
Biskabiiyang also explains how the creations of Simpsons ancestors influence the values
of her and her contemporaries. Simpson reflects on how previous generations of Nishnaabeg
created circumstances to commune with the implicate order, and also created the new
generation of Nishnaabeg, based on bringing out their personal gifts and creativity (92). As a
result, she defines pre-colonial Indigenous groups as societies of presence, because their
creation required a higher degree of presence than modern colonial existence (92). Within
Bledstein 4
contemporary colonial life, people seek understanding through culture and technology, but
Indigenous groups create their own understandings (93). Thus, the creations of Simpson and
other contemporary Indigenous people allow them to disconnect ever so slightly from the
dominant economic system and connect to a way of being based on doing, rather than blind
consumption (93).As opposed to life led solely through the consumptive processes of modern
existence, engaging in the creative processes of prior generations connects past and present.
treatments of both the earth and young women. The way of being based on doing incorporates
a reverential treatment for the environment, including an understanding of the sacredness of the
water that sustains us, the air that we breathe, and the fire within us (36). This understanding
must be passed onto future generations of women, since their relationship with the land is the
umbilical bond to all of Creation (37). Accordingly, the young women will model themselves
after this Earth (37). As Simpson explains, the education and treatment of one generation
reverberates through later generations. Thus, future Nishnaabeg women will be invariably
connected with their ancestors. This connection also informs her decision to wear a skirt to a
ceremony, in spite of her frustration with the rigidity of gender norms. Simpson writes, I
Minowewebeneshiihn, and then I made my decision (61). Through the use of Biskaabiiyang,
Simpson appreciates the implications of her choice for future Nishnaabeg women, and thereby
Just as the treatment of current generations affects future ones, stories can also have
reverberations far beyond their immediate context. Such reverberations particularly occur with
narratives and histories (46). She likens Dibaajimowan to the stories our Ancestors cast in the
lake, echoing or reverberating out through time and space into the present (103). As a result of
these echoes, Simpson says of her great-great-great-grandmother, The stories I have of her
influence my life. The telling of these stories in Nishnaabeg contextsmeaning oral contexts
where contemporary Nishnaabeg cultural practices are the normis an act of Nishnaabeg
Simpson lives in the modern world, she uses the teachings and values of the past.
As a result, stories and other Nishnaabeg traditions get passed down through generations
to become tools for Indigenous resistance and resurgence. Simpson writes of her ancestors,
They resisted by taking the seeds of our culture and political systems and packing them away,
so that one day another generation of Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg might be able to plant them
(15). Simpson and her contemporaries then have the opportunity to use these seeds for modern
day resistance. Their resistance is an imperative coming from older generations, as Simpson
explains: Our responsibilities for resurgence pre-existed before we were present on the earth. In
our greatest period of destruction, our Grandparents resisted by planting the seeds of resurgence
(66). The Nishnaabeg thereby inherit from their ancestors not just the tools for cultural
revitalization, but the responsibility to use them. In the worldview Simpson articulates,
resurgence in the modern day comes both from current generations and older ones.
Simpson also notes that resistance must proceed with the spirit of Biskaabiiyang to be
useful as political action, thereby demonstrating a model for activism through intergenerational
connections in the manner Hirsch seeks. Without Biskaabiiyang, activist movements risk losing
sight of the traditions behind them: When resistance is defined solely as large-scale political
Bledstein 6
mobilization, we miss much of what has kept our languages, cultures, and systems of governance
alive. We have those things today because our Ancestors often acted within the family unit to
physically survive (Simpson 16). Simpson thus shows, as per Hirsch, how an acknowledgement
of the history shared between generations might constitute a platform of activist and
resistance takes inspiration and motivations from the behaviour of older generations. As Simpson
concludes, Bringing the old into the new is our way forward (148-9). Through Biskaabiiyang,
political movements draw on the wealth of ancestral knowledge, shared between generations, to
Works Cited
Geniusz, Wendy Djinn. Our Knowledge Is Not Primitive: Decolonizing Botanical Anishinaabe
Hirsch, Marianne. Family Pictures: Maus, Mourning, and Post-Memory. Discourse, vol. 15,
-. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture after the Holocaust. New York,