Indigenous Counterstories

Stories have the power to unify, challenge, and heal. All too often, though, the stories of marginalized peoples are silenced or distorted by those in power. Counterstories, on the other hand, center the knowledge, experiences, and voices by presenting alternative accounts. Indigenous people have been telling stories as a teaching device for centuries, but this pathbreaking volume is the first collection to examine Indigenous counterstory as both a concept and practice.

Indigenous Counterstories features contributions by Indigenous scholars and allies. Using critical counterstory as their framework, the contributors share firsthand accounts from their classroom and workplace experiences to demonstrate how Indigenous storytelling is a knowledge-making enterprise. Chapters like A. Ellie Mitchell's "Homing In" feature a composite character and chronicles a day in the life of a new Anishinaabe academic that explores the tokenization of many academics from marginalized communities. In "Reclaiming Agency through Storytelling", Nicole Augustine draws on her personal history of intimate partners violence and being a Mi' kmaq woman to critique the patriarchal effects of colonization. Jacquetta Shade-Johnson and Catheryn Jennings, two Cherokee Nation scholars and friends, draw on their shared educational background as both students and educators to consider Indigenous-serving academic institutions framed through the narrative structure of a podcast episode.

In sharing their observations and experiences, the contributors to this volume employ experimental and nonlinear styles common to Indigenous storytelling. As a result, their chapters both exemplify and enhance our understanding of Indigenous counterstorytelling. Appealing to scholars and students alike, this innovative collection invites readers to embrace a more inclusive method of academic research and writing.

Heather N. Hill (Cherokee Nation) is Associate Professor of English at Northwest Missouri State University. Her scholarship has appeared in journals such as The Writing Center Journal, WLN: Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, WPA: Writing Program Administration, and others. 

Kimberly G. Wieser-Weryackwe is Professor of English and an affiliated faculty member with the Department of Native American Studies at the University of Oklahoma. She is one of the co-authors of Reasoning Together: The Native Critics Collective, the author of Back to the Blanket: Recovered Rhetorics and Literacies in American Indian Studies, and the editor of American Indian Literature: An Encyclopedia for Students.