On Using Correct Terms

"Indigenous Peoples", "First Nations", "Native Americans", "Aboriginals", "Indians": What Terms Are Correct?

Guest Editorial Guest by Arinn Dembo

This discussion came up with a large mailing list of professional colleagues recently. When referring to the first human inhabitants of the western hemisphere, what terms are correct?

There were many responses to this, all of them illuminating. The short answer is that when you're addressing an individual, the preferred mode of address is whatever they tell you it is!

Different people prefer different labels, and they will have their own reasons for their preference. Not everyone belongs to a Nation, Tribe, or some formally organized group. And many people prefer not to be lumped in with all Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, and will identify with no label except their specific heritage--Mi'kmaq, Inuk, Métis etc..

That being said, there are some general rules that everyone can follow to be as courteous and respectful as possible.

1. "Indigenous Peoples" is probably the most inclusive and respectful term presently available, as it covers people with many different affiliations and personal histories. Whether it is your preferred term or not, however, the word “Indigenous” should always be respectfully capitalized when referring to human beings. This is also true of any other term you may use in its stead.
2. Most people agree that the word “Indian” has a long and troubled history, bound to an ongoing legacy of racism and genocide. That said, many Indigenous People do use the word “Indian” or “NDN” in their own daily lives--ironically, defiantly, proudly, etc.. They have the right to reclaim racist terms that have been historically used against them in any way they wish, just as Black people and other racialized people do. However, the fact that they reclaim those terms for their OWN use has no bearing on whether non-Indigenous people can use those same terms in public or in private and still be considered civilized.
3. Many, many people have wisely pointed out that Indigenous People are not a monolith. They do not all belong to a Nation, they are not all enrolled into any government-recognized political unit, they do not share a single language or culture, and they have widely various religious beliefs and personal values. They will not all agree on ANY subject, including how non-Indigenous people should behave toward them and around them.

   If you are fortunate enough to have friends who tell you how to address them privately, that is wonderful for you. But please don’t assume that their personal choices will always put you in line with current standards of public courtesy or "correct" terminology. No individual person could bear that weight, and no one should be asked to do so.

   I can tell you for a fact that I would not be comfortable trying to teach anyone the One True Way to be inoffensive to all Jewish people, to all LGBTQIA+ people, or even to all women—even though I belong to all those categories. All I can tell you is what I personally prefer, and explain why some terms will make a lot of people in my communities uncomfortable.

   Example: many LGTBQIA+ people do not like the word “Queer” to be used by anyone, but particularly not by straight people. They find the word offensive because it is a slur that was used historically to harm them. I personally do use "Queer" myself, however, and I find it more comfortable than other terms that might be more clinically specific descriptions of my sexuality. That's a personal choice for me, and I can reserve the right to use the label myself without granting blanket permission to anyone else.

4. Finally...this topic is an important one, and professional writers should recognize that use of respectful terms is an issue of craft, not just "political correctness". We should all be familiar with the basic resources on this subject that are currently available to non-Indigenous writers, agents and publishers. Here’s a few that I have looked at:
   
   • Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing by and about Indigenous Peoples, by Greg Younging, is a textbook that has been recommended to me many times. I own a copy, and it has been helpful, but no single reference volume is complete.
   • The Canadian Press (CP) Style Guide for Reporting On Indigenous People can also be read for free at this link: http://jhr.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/JHR2017-Style-Book-Indigenous-People.pdf
   • Questions Agents and Editors Can Use to Evaluate American Indian Content can be read for free at this link: http://writernity.blogspot.com/2017/02/questions-agents-and-editors-can-use-to.html. It's a long and comprehensive blog post written to help non-Indigenous agents, editors and publishers evaluate content that has Indigenous characters or themes, but by extension it can also help non-Indigenous writers realize that writing about Indigenous Peoples is not a casual undertaking.

     I would also encourage everyone to make use of the free resource links and inexpensive webinars that are provided at the Writing the Other website. I watched this webinar from author Debbie Reese and found it accessible and valuable. It is worthwhile both as a chance to educate myself further, and as an opportunity to support Reese's work as an educator.

     https://writingtheother.com/public-writing-native-american-characters/"

   There are many other websites, essays, blogs and videos on this topic that are educational as well. If you've found something that was eye-opening or helpful, why not share the link in the comment section?

Aurora Nomination

My memorial essay, "Dave Duncan's Legacy" in On Spec magazine #111 has been shortlisted for an Aurora Award, in the "Best Related" category. It is an honour to be nominated, but it is up against five magazines, an anthology, and a podcast, all of which are extremely worthy and all of which represent much more sustained effort than my one essay. So, happy to take being shortlisted as validation of the essay, but the others need their much more substantial contributions to be validated by the win. Good luck to them all, I know I will have difficulty choosing which of them to vote for.

Supporting Graduate Student Writing

My recent presentation to Spark, University of Lethbridge Teaching Symposium, entitled "Supporting Graduate Student Writing in a Thesis and Dissertation" is now available on SlideShare.

The talk covers roughly the same material as my 32-page guide, "Writing Strategies for Theses and Dissertations", except this time from the point of view of thesis/dissertation supervisors. I am trying to make supervisors understand that it is not enough to support graduate students through the literature review, proposal, research methods selection, data collection, and data analysis, but that they must also explicitly provide instruction in thesis-writing. All too often, a student successfully completes all their graduate coursework, their thesis proposal, data collection and analysis, and then suddenly the support from the advisor dries up as they say, "great, now run along and write that all up" as if writing a thesis were not as problematic as every other step. My basic argument is that graduate students have to unlearn the writing strategies that made them successful term paper writers and undergraduate graduates, and must now learn an entirely new and different set of writing skills to master the writing strategies required for any sustained piece of writing.

My presentation to the Sparks Symposium seemed to go over very well, and my online version of the presentation received fifty-hits the first week, so pleased with the initial reception. Hopefully, the presentation will continue to gain some momentum, because unless the problem is recognized and addressed by supervisors, we will continue to see a 50% attrition rate among graduate students in thesis and dissertation route programs.

If you do download or review the presentation, make sure to read the "notes" section as well, as the notes include some of my verbal commentary not on the slides.

Getting to the Publishable Draft

Guest Post by Sociologist, Lisa Wade

I asked to reprint Dr. Wade's column below because it nicely illustrates the important point that most graduate students and beginning writers never get to see published authors in the process of writing, only the finished product. I often find that graduate students and new writers are disappointed with their first drafts because they are making invidious comparisons between their rough draft and draft 5 (or maybe 36) of their very favorite authors (i.e., the very best writing their field has to offer). This is simultaneously inferiority complex . . . and hubris. One cannot successfully complete a thesis or a book without realizing that everybody's first draft sucks (maybe worse than yours!) This realization is the first (I would say primary) step in becoming a successful academic or writer.

On intellectual thrashing: My thanks to Dorothy Roberts

Lisa Wade, PhD on April 7, 2017

One of the most important moments of my graduate education occurred during a talk by Dorothy Roberts for the sociology department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. At the time I had been teaching her book, Killing the Black Body. I thought this book was genius, absolutely loved it, so I was really excited to be seeing her in person.

I sat in anticipation; she was introduced and then, before she launched into the substance of her talk, she apologized for likely weaknesses in her thinking as, she explained, she had only been thinking about it for “about a year.”

I was stunned.

I couldn’t believe that Dorothy Roberts would have to think about anything for a year. In my mind, her brilliance appeared full form, in a span of mere moments, perfectly articulated.

Her comment made me realize, for the first time, that the fantastic books and expertly-crafted journal articles written by scholars were the result of hard work, not just genius. And I realized that part of the task of writing these things is to hide all of the hard work that goes into writing them. They read as if it were obvious that the conclusions of the paper are true when, in fact, the conclusion on paper are probably just one of many sets of possible conclusions with which the author experimented. Roberts’ humble admission made me realize that all of the wild intellectual goose chases, mental thrashing, deleted passages, and revised arguments were part of my job, not evidence that I was perpetually failing.

And I was and am tremendously grateful to Dr. Roberts for that insight.

Reprinted with Lisa Wade's permission from Sociological Images

Lisa Wade, PhD is a professor at Occidental College. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture, and a textbook about gender. You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram,.