Blood Narrative is a comparative literary and cultural study of post-World War II literary and activist texts by New Zealand Maori and American Indians, groups who share much in their responses to European settler colonialism. Chadwick Allen reveals the complex narrative tactics employed by writers and activists in these societies that enabled them to realize unprecedented practical power in making both their voices and their own sense of indigeneity heard. Allen shows how both Maori and Native Americans resisted the assimilationist tide rising out of World War II and how, in the 1960s and 1970s, they each experienced a renaissance of political and cultural activism-and literary production-that culminated in the formation of the first general assembly of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. He focuses his comparison on two fronts: first, the blood/land/memory complex that refers to these groups' struggle to define indigeneity and to be freed from the definitions of authenticity imposed by dominant settler cultures. Allen's second focus is on the discourse of treaties between American Indians and the U.S. government and between Maori and Great Britain, which he contends offer strong legal and moral bases from which these indigenous minorities can argue land and resource rights as well as cultural and identity politics. With its implicit critique of multiculturalism and of postcolonial studies that have tended to neglect the colonized status of indigenous First World minorities, Blood Narrative will appeal to students and scholars of literature, American and European history, multiculturalism, postcolonialism, and comparative cultural studies.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Introduction: Marking the Indigenous in Indigenous Minority Texts; 1: A Directed Self-Determination; A Marae on Paper: Writing a New Maori World in Te Ao Hou; Indian Truth: Debating Indigenous Identity After Indians in the War; 2: An Indigenous Renaissance; Rebuilding the Ancestor: Constructing Self and Community in the Maori Renaissance; Blood/ Land / Memory: Narrating Indigenous Identity in the American Indian Renaissance; Conclusion: Declaring a Fourth World; Appendix: Integrated Time Line, World War II to 1980; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Prizes

Compares the discourses of indigeneity used by Maori and Native American peoples and proposes the concept treaty discourse to characterize the relevant form of postcolonial situation.

Reviews

"Allen's book is well documented... [T]he parallel that Allen traces between the Maoris and the American Indians is enlightening."--Natacha Gagne, Pacific Affairs "The strength of Allen's provocative book lies in its analysis of the literature that emerged during the Maori and American Indian 'renaissance' of the 1960s and early 1970s... Allen's comparative study is worth a careful read for scholars interested in the construction of indigenous identities in postcolonial situations."--James O. Gump, Pacific Historical Review "Blood Narrative, by Chadwick Allen... ,is a welcome addition to post-modern studies, steeped in postcolonial theory."--Benjamin Kracht, History: Reviews of New Books "[An] exemplary transnational project... Allen's book displays-in addition to a broad grasp of certain theories, bodies of literature and criticism, and historical records-original, independent thinking. These strengths are complemented by the clarity and coherence of his prose... This is a noteworthy book that deserves wide reading."--Stephen Tatum, Western American Literature "Blood Narrative is a valuable, wise, and thoughtful study."--Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, American Literature "Chadwick Allen has produced a complex and significant study, which contributes to the growing body of research, writing and teaching in the comparative history of Indigenous Peoples... [H]is work has created new understanding about both the meanings and contradictions of indigenous identity... This book would be profitable reading for those Australians, both indigenous and non-indigenous, who seek recognition of the basic sovereign rights enshrined in a treaty."--Roderic Lacey, Journal of Pacific History "Blood Narrative is recommended both for its localizations and its potential to spill over into adjacent fields of Indigenous study with impact."--Michael Jacklin, The Australian Journal of Anthropology Mixed review in American Ethnologist. Also reviewed in Choice and American Indian Culture and Research Journal. Listed in CHE, Ethnicities, and Race and Class. Reviewed in French in Anthropologies et Societes. Negative review in Contemporary Literature.