Survivance is a critical term in Native American studies.

History

Survivance was originally a legal term, but fell out of use in the 18th century. It was also borrowed from the French term 'suvivance' in other contexts.

Usage

It was first employed in the context of Native American Studies by the

Anishinaabe The Anishinaabeg (adjectival: Anishinaabe) are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples present in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. They include the Ojibwe (including Saulteaux and Oji-Cree), Odawa, Potawat ...

cultural theorist

Gerald Vizenor Gerald is a male Germanic given name meaning "rule of the spear" from the prefix ''ger-'' ("spear") and suffix ''-wald'' ("rule"). Variants include the English given name Jerrold, the feminine nickname Jeri and the Welsh language Gerallt and ...

, in his 1999 book '' Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance''.Gerald Vizenor,
Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance
' (Lincoln: Nebraska, 1999) There he explains that "Survivance is 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".Vizenor
(1999), p. vii Vizenor makes the term, which is deliberately imprecise, the cornerstone of his analysis of contemporary Native American literature, culture and politics. Several critics (e.g. Alan Velie) have analysed the term as a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsCherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...

-descent poet

Diane Glancy (Helen) Diane Glancy (March 18, 1941) is an American poet, author, and playwright. Life and career Glancy was born in Kansas City, Missouri, to a Cherokee descent (non-enrolled) father, Lewis H. Hall, and an English-German-American mother. At a ...

demonstrates the ways that an imprecise term can inspire creativity by reconfiguring it: "Poetry is rebound. A turn of writing. (Sur)vivance: Sur - a survival outside survival. Vivance - the vitality of it." Vizenor frequently defines "survivance" in opposition to "victimry," some commentators note.

Karl Kroeber __NOTOC__ Karl Kroeber (November 24, 1926 – November 8, 2009) was an American literary scholar, known for his writing on the English Romantics and American Indian literature. He was the son of Theodora and Alfred L. Kroeber, both anthropologists ...

writes that Vizenor's "work aims to repair a peculiarly vicious consequence of genocidal attacks on native of the Americas: an inducing in them of their destroyers' view that they are mere survivors. By accepting this white definition of themselves as victims, natives complete psychologically the not-quite-entirely-successful physical genocide." Similarly, Joe Lockard calls it "the condition of self-reliant or communal survival without the social or personal indulgence of victimization." The word has become a

term of art Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a particu ...

in contemporary Native American studies, used far beyond the context of Vizenor's own work. It is now also an interactive video game, and is used in captions for the

National Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers. The museum has three ...

, as well as being employed numerous times in titles of books and academic articles.

Similar terms

The word was subsequently utilized in the 20th century by

francophone Canadians Francophone Canadians (or French-speaking Canadians) are citizens of Canada who speak French. In 2011, 9,809,155 people in Canada, or 30.1% of the population, were Francophone, including 7,274,090 people, or 22% of the population, who declared th ...

as "

La Survivance La Survivance is an expression used by French Canadians denoting the phlegmatic survival of francophone culture, typically in the face of Canadian anglophone or Anglo-American hegemony. It was used frequently in Quebec, especially before the Quiet ...

", from the French "survivance" (''relict'') and also employed by the French theorist Jacques Derrida to denote a spectral existence that would be neither life nor death, and migrated into English thence from French.Maurizio Calbi, ''Spectral Shakespeares: Media Adaptations in the Twenty-First Century'' (London: Palgrave, 2013), p. 165

References

{{reflist Literary criticism Philosophical movements Postmodern theory Native American studies Native American literature