Addressing Indigeneity

Indigeneity is a multilayered identification structure that consists of innumerable cultural particularities that can neither be convincingly replicated nor completely explained. Reading this speech forced me to consider the effects and consequences of maintaining indigeneity in a foreign environment that demands a certain type of performance. When Ellen Johnson took the stage in Norway to accept the Nobel Peace Prize she shared the stage with two other women. Her performance then was highlighted by their presence and considered in terms of their cultures and personas as well as hers. Contrast then, is perhaps more powerful than inherent attribute; all critical moments are defined by their setting and the physical factors therein.

I struggled to find a solid way to organize this speech and break it down into categories that appropriately portrayed Johnson’s portrayal of indigeneity. However the more I considered it the more I realized that, because of her physical and contextual location, Johnson was unable to act with full indigenous agency. With this realization it became possible to create categories by which to analyze this speech. We settled on three categories: identity, audience, and language. Identity was one of the most poignant categories because there were so many different identities at work within the narrative. Johnson repeatedly draws attention to the groups she claims allegiance as a means by which to claim some of the indigeneity that the setting and occasion strip her of. She invokes the memory of women who have accepted this award before her in a twofold effort to show alliance and demonstrate solidarity, “The enduring spirit of the great women whose work transcended gender and geographical boundaries is in this room with us…these our forebears, these women who are Nobel Peace Laureates, challenge us to redouble our efforts in the relentless pursuit of peace” (Johnson). By appealing to the collective group of women who have won the award previously, Johnson locates herself within a community that is recognized, but not included in Western Academia. In his chapter, Reading Hawaii’s Asian American Literacy Narratives Young emphasizes the impact language can have on race and group inclusion. “Literacy and race become so intertwined that there are material consequences despite rhetoric on the contrary” (Young 140).

The most palpable tactic Johnson uses to identify with or disassociate from can be defined as “address”. I was acutely interested in analyzing the way Johnson chose to address her audience because of the implicit identity consequences. In the opening lines of the speech Johnson addresses each group in, “Your Majesties, Royal Highnesses, Excellencies, Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Nobel Laureates, my brothers and sisters:” (Johnson). Immediately there is a separation of the audience into the familiar and the foreign. The formality of “Your Majesties, Royal Highnesses, Excellencies, Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee”, stands in staunch comparison with the familiar “brothers and sisters”. Before she does anything else Johnsons takes care to show which groups she is apart of and which she is a guest of. In doing so she attempts to preserve some of her damaged indigeneity. This pattern of address is present throughout the speech, serving as a reminder of the divisional nature of this setting. If Johnson were to deliver this speech in her native Liberia she could make certain assumptions about its reception based on knowledge of her people. Georganne Nordstrom explains this phenomenon in terms of the native Hawaiian people, “By identifying with her subjects as a Hawaiian monarch, Liliuokalani could rely on her people to assume several things…Thus by her very position, her moral character was established with her people” (Nordstrom 127).

The common factor in both of the previously stated categories has been language. Language is the mechanism by which all else is made possible. Johnson is careful to use very formal language, as is the accepted style for this this genre. Conversely, Johnson mirrors this formality with punctuated informal addresses to her “brothers and sisters”, the other Africans in the room and at large (Johnson). Though this speech follows all of the appropriated formatting standards of Nobel laureate acceptance speeches, it has an element of explanation. Johnson betrays awareness that by the accepting the award she sacrifices, at least temporarily, some of her indigenous agency. In an attempt to retain it she intertwines her speech with instances of autobiographical anecdotes, "Mine has been a long journey, a lifetime journey to Oslo. It was shaped by the values of my parents and by my two grandmothers – indigenous Liberians, farmers and market traders – neither of whom could read or write. They taught me that only through service is one’s life truly blessed" (Johnson). These narratives are an attempt to reintegrate her indigenous Liberian experience into the formal Western structure of the speech. Thus the speech is largely a multifaceted performance of indigeneity that falls short of an authentic indigenous experience. It is nearly impossible to represent indigeneity authentically because the performative nature of the presentation detracts from the authentic agency it may have had.

There is a political connotation to literacy and performative language, Nordstrom quotes Kenneth Burke saying, “all literary acts embody attitudes, of resignation, solace, vengeance, expectancy… and thus works of poetry are to be considered symbolic action” (Burke qtd in Nordstrom 123). With this in mind I believe that, though Johnsons speech lacks certain indigenous elements it was doomed to this shortcoming by its very nature as a speech, especially as a speech constructed for and delivered in a foreign local with foreign customs and literary techniques.