Abstract
This project looks at the significance and importance of oral tradition as a literary device in the modern resurgence of Indigenous identity and revitalization, primarily through digital space or, more specifically, podcasting. The first few chapters will be a continuation of my argument and provide evidence to support and more deeply understand a different way of thinking. This is crucial because to research and study something truly is to separate your beliefs, thoughts, opinions, and ways of knowing to grasp a belief that differs entirely from yours. Chapter one will focus on the idea of decolonizing research, explaining the origins and significance of the oral tradition and how it has interacted with colonization. Chapter two will explore the complex relationships between oral tradition, intersectionality, and feminism by highlighting various Indigenous works and authors focusing on these complexities. Chapter three then begins to tie these concepts together by looking at how using a feminist and Indigenous lens to understand colonialism and the effects that it has had and continues to have on Indigenous culture and how decolonizing is crucial to the modern resurgence. Chapter four then digs into the heart of the oral tradition as a literary technique and how a specific example of it, a female Indigenous podcast, works to exemplify all of these contexts and ideas and explore the digital space. Here, we will get to see how Native women have done the work and how they have shared their stories. This final chapter is crucial to understanding why the oral tradition is literary if you can shift your perspective and exemplify that in this day and age, there are more media than just novels that are becoming a part of the literary space.
In this project, I argue that oral tradition as a literary technique is crucial to the resurgence of indigeneity. I am proving this argument by exploring pre- and post-colonial ideologies and contexts essential to understanding oral tradition and why it is important. The concepts in my first couple of chapters further explain my argument because my argument is separated from traditional Western ideas of research and academia. You will not be able to comprehend this thesis without having a basis for understanding the significance of the complex relationships between the oral tradition and colonialism, research, feminism, academia, activism, and a lot of other topics that I am going to further elaborate on as we move forward through this argument. Understanding Indigenous cultures requires ethics that differ from how Westerners read texts and how they analyze them.
Advisor
Garcia, Daimys
Department
English
Recommended Citation
Wild, Isabella Claire, "The Oral Tradition as a Literary Device through the Indigenous Feminist Perspective" (2024). Senior Independent Study Theses. Paper 10988.
https://openworks.wooster.edu/independentstudy/10988
Keywords
Oral Tradition, Indigenous Feminism, Literary Device
Publication Date
2024
Degree Granted
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type
Senior Independent Study Thesis
© Copyright 2024 Isabella Claire Wild