Indigenous filmmaking and futures

What lives in the spaces between dreams and apocalypse? Two authors discuss their books on Indigenous media: Karrmen Crey, whose Producing Sovereignty: The Rise of Indigenous Media in Canada considers the political and cultural conditions that enabled the proliferation of Indigenous media across Canada in the early 1990s. The product of years of embedded fieldwork within Indigenous film crews in Northwestern Australia, William Lempert’s Dreaming Down the Track delves deeply into Aboriginal cinema as a transformative community process. Crey and Lempert are joined in conversation here about the process of preserving community stories and enacting sovereign futures.

Karrmen Crey is associate professor of Aboriginal communication and media studies in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. Crey is author of Producing Sovereignty: The Rise of Indigenous Media in Canada and coeditor (with Joanna Hearne) of By Their Work: Indigenous Women’s Digital Media in North America.

William Lempert is Osterweis Family Associate Professor of Anthropology at Bowdoin College and author of Dreaming Down the Track: Awakenings in Aboriginal Cinema.

REFERENCES/MEDIA:

Donna’s Story (film)

Indians + Aliens (reality television series)

The Visit (animated documentary short)

Tjawa Tjawa (film)

Rutherford Falls (sitcom)

REFERENCES/PEOPLE:

Mark Moora

Faye Ginsburg

Jesse Wente

Doug Cuthand

Donna Gamble

Lisa Jackson

Billy-Ray Belcourt

Jeff Barnaby

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Cynthia Lickers-Sage

Taiko Waititi

Foucault

Coulthard

Audra Simpson

REFERENCES/OTHER

Mark Rifkin / Beyond Settler Time

ImagiNATIVE Australia

Karrmen Crey’s Producing Sovereignty: The Rise of Indigenous Media in Canada and By Their Work: Indigenous Women’s Digital Media in North America (a collection co-edited with Joanna Hearne) are available from University of Minnesota Press. Dreaming Down the Track: Awakenings in Aboriginal Cinema by William Lempert is available from University of Minnesota Press, and has an open-access edition through Manifold. 

Episode Transcript

Karrmen Crey (00:05):
We are conceiving of indigenous media as not
something that is just what wesee on the screen. We really
need to look at the context ofproduction to understand it as a
practice, as a form of socialpractice.

Willi Lempert (00:20):
There are these narratives that are assumed
about certain types of stories.These things can go different
ways. The desire for resolutionor for challenge and deficit in
different genres.

Karrmen Crey (00:36):
Well, hi, I'm Karrmen Cray. I'm associate
professor in the School ofCommunication at Simon Fraser
University. I'm also on myfather's side, Stallo, from
Chiam First Nation, which is inSouthern British Columbia. I'm
just starting us off by way ofintroduction. I'm also here with
Willi Lempert, and we'll allowhim to introduce himself as we

(01:00):
launch into discussion of ourboth pretty recently published
books on indigenous media thatwere published by the University
of Minnesota.
I'll let you take it away,Willi.

Willi Lempert (01:09):
Thanks, Carmen. I'm really thrilled to connect
with you about our books today.I'm an associate professor of
anthropology at Bowdoin Collegein Brunswick, Maine. I've been
looking forward to this for along time to connect our books
to the broader of Canadian andAustralian indigenous media
context.

Karrmen Crey (01:25):
Yeah. I think this will be a really interesting
conversation because my area ofspecialty really focuses much
more on North America, thoughthe global dimensions of
indigenous media is, undeniableand absolutely a part of the
Indigenous media histories thatI know we're going to dig into a

(01:46):
little bit today. I'm reallyexcited to hear from you and
about your experience. Is itappropriate to call it like
Aboriginal media or is itindigenous media more recently?
That seems to be a more recentterm than in different histories
of indigenous medias around theworld.

Willi Lempert (02:02):
I mean, that's a great question. So the
distinction of indigenous inAustralia at a sort of technical
level is that it includes TorresStrait Islanders, whereas
Aboriginal is very specificallyto the continent itself. But
you're absolutely right. It alsospeaks to even when considering
the continent indigenous andthen more recently, First

(02:23):
Nations, as my understanding isa nod towards Canada's
sovereignty movements has beensomething that's more recently
been utilized to think aboutnationhood itself. So there's
there's absolutely varyingelements of why those terms are
used, and indigenous isincreasingly an important way of
describing the media, even justsort of on the mainland.

Karrmen Crey (02:46):
I know I'm gonna come back to this question, but
maybe what we should do first istalk about what we're going to
talk about, which are our books.Just by way of, general
overview, my book is calledproducing sovereignty, the rise
of indigenous media in Canada.So it looks at the indigenous

(03:08):
media history from the nineteennineties onward, and that time
frame was primarily establishedby, me observing that indigenous
media really exploded as of 1990onward in Canada. My impetus for
the research really had to dowith how did this happen. Like,

(03:30):
is 1990 onward?
Why does it rise exponentiallyand not just in one area or one
format, but across all availableformats, film, television,
video, digital media, all acrossCanada during that era, which it
has continued to develop since.In a nutshell, that's what my

(03:52):
book is about. Maybe I'll letyou go, Willie.

Willi Lempert (03:56):
Yeah, and just as a transition, I really loved
engaging deeply with your bookProducing Sovereignty. I think
it's vital on so many levels. Ilearned a lot about the nuances
of Canadian indigenous media,right? I sort of understood bits
and pieces, but I think yourbook does a really fantastic job
of bringing together the bigpicture of the various elements

(04:17):
and of course the institutionsthat are engaged. That would
have been more than enough, butI think you also do a great job
of grounding the sort of bigpicture view within particular
filmmakers and films and crucialissues.
And I especially appreciate howyou highlight media and
filmmakers that have receivedless attention while still

(04:39):
keeping a sense of the bigpicture and the major movements.
So very excited to talk aboutyour book and to say a little
bit about my book that waspublished in June, also through
Minnesota. It's called DreamingDown the Awakenings in
Aboriginal Cinema. It's based onthirty two months of fieldwork
in Northwestern Australia, whereI was embedded within indigenous

(05:02):
production teams. I collaboratedon dozens of films and the book
follows a subset of theseprojects in and around the Balgo
Aboriginal community in theGreat Sandy Desert.
And throughout this project, Idescribe how the process of
cinematic envisioning transformshow creators imagine and
actualize Aboriginal futuresduring apocalyptic times. And so

(05:25):
this book is sort of a subset ofthe films I focused on in my
fieldwork and my dissertation,specifically around the film
career of Kukucha elder MarkMora. In his sort of entire film
arc where I got to know him inthe last decade or so of his
life, Projects around Balgo, youknow, in his project Java Java,

(05:45):
which I'll talk a little bitabout. He went to the Sydney
Film Festival and Imaginativeand really, you know, I was
chronicling in this book how hefell deeper into this idea that
films were a very important wayof actualizing sovereign
community futures on his countryfor his family. And so I'm

(06:07):
really thinking about the filmsin terms of their total social
lives throughout the entire sortof span of the process.
I talk about this idea of abroader visibility paradox
around the flourishing sphere ofindigenous Australian media,
which I think connects to yourdiscussion about Canada,
particularly in the nineties,which I'm excited to talk about.

(06:27):
So there's that, and at the sametime, there's these escalating
state policies of dispossessionand defunding. And it's also in
the context of a recent nationalreferendum that was voted down,
the first negotiations toestablish treaties between
Aboriginal nations and theAustralian state. And so it
really aims to understand thestakes of Aboriginal and settler

(06:49):
state relations in this currentcontext through sort of close
attention to specific mediaprojects.

Karrmen Crey (06:57):
Great. So I guess there's so many parallels
between our projectshistorically, socially,
politically, in terms of notjust like, state law and policy,
but indigenous nationalism,sovereignty, and the role of
media within these socialmovements and political debates.

(07:17):
We can start really broadly.We've both been teaching now at
universities and elsewhere forthe better part of a decade
anyway. And I think one of thefirst questions a lot of people
has is when we talk aboutindigenous media, what are we
talking about?
Because it's not always going tobe the same thing, and those
definitions can shift and changeover time. In my experience, you

(07:40):
know, it's one of the most takenfor granted questions, but it's
actually a really important one.Sometimes I feel like I get
asked what's indigenous media,and what people were really
asking is, like, what makesindigenous media different from
other media? And that kind ofquestion framed with certain

(08:02):
kinds of expectations is almostasking, you know, what are the
features, aesthetic andotherwise, that I can define
that describe indigenous media?And so it's almost like a
category of descriptions thatfeels a little essentialist to
me, when people are looking for,oh, I can describe it in this

(08:27):
way, and it has these features,and it looks this way, and its
politics are this way.
And I find that troubling. And,you know, I think a lot of other
people have challenged that wayof thinking, you know, the
cultural essentialistperspective. So how do you,
Willie, answer this question?

Willi Lempert (08:43):
I'm so glad you started with this often. The
sort of fundamental questionsare very deep and they're
questions that animate theentire space and how people are
thinking about things very sortof self reflexively. So I'll
start with the relativelyconcise answer based on sort of
my experience in NorthwesternAustralia and how people in the

(09:06):
field and in my fieldworkdescribed what Indigenous media
was. It was understood as havingthree components, and I'll sort
of elaborate on this, and I'mexcited to hear your thoughts on
how this plays out in Canada andin your work as well. But the
three components were, one,media produced by an Indigenous
run organization.

(09:26):
That was really important withan Indigenous person in the lead
creative role. And there's a lotof layers to what that means and
with a mostly Indigenous crew.And so this relates also to the
particular context of ofIndigeneity in Australia and the
inclusion of non indigenousmedia crew, as well as how media
qualities around productionvalues and genre are considered

(09:49):
and negotiated. One aspect thatcomes up a lot, and I'll use the
term white fella, it's a verycommon, not necessarily
judgmental word that's used inAboriginal community media to
mean usually a EuropeanAustralian, but it can also be a
broader term of someone who'snot from the community or from

(10:09):
away. And there's a long andongoing discussion in the
indigenous Australian sphereabout how to consider the
boundaries of who should beincluded in an indigenous
project.
So one of the discussions thathappens is on the one hand,
there's this kind ofessentialist purity politics
about Aboriginal media. And Ican't even think of another

(10:31):
genre that's similarly framedaround a group of people that
has to face the sort of standardthat a single non member can be
perceived as polluting a filmproject. And people would often
talk about the frustration ofsort of not being allowed to
have help without beingquestioned about the sort of

(10:52):
purity of the project. So thatrelates to enduring colonial
conceptions of Aboriginal peopleas radically other, and
particularly in Australiaimagined living temporally in
the past as quote unquote theworld's oldest continuing
societies and then spatially inthe desert out back away. So

(11:13):
this is one of the areas inwhich strong indigenous
organizations and creative leadsand projects make really crucial
and individual decisions basedon deep experience.
There's a lot of stories ofwhite fellows who've been
considered to be reallyproductive and core members of
crews and a lot of stories ofwhite fellows who've derailed
entire projects. And in thebook, have a chapter that talks

(11:33):
about a model for white fellowroles and clear boundaries
called fires, tires and paper.And this focuses on the
importance of indigenous controlover vision, materials and
funding, with also white fellasoften facilitating bureaucratic
barriers toward these specificends if specifically invited to
do so. So there's that piece ofwho who's involved in the film

(11:56):
and the sort of purity politicsinvolved, there's another
element that has to do withindigenous community membership
in Australia as compared toCanada and The United States. So
since there are not yet anytreaties in Australia, community
and tribal membership is notbased on blood quantum
requirements, and there's adifferent sort of set of
economic stakes of officialbelonging.

(12:17):
And so membership is based onthe three elements of
established descent, selfidentification, and community
recognition based on livedrelationships with the
community. So the topics offilms emerge from those
relationships with family andtend to organically develop from
stories of family members oncrews and in organizations. So
there's that element too that isa little bit different in

(12:38):
Australia than some othersettler state contexts. And then
briefly, there's other subtleissues around media qualities
that connect to the culturalessentialist aspect of your
question, which I think is soimportant. And I appreciate you
bringing that up.
People would talk often aboutindigenous production values,
specifically in workshops atfestivals based on shared

(12:59):
experiences with relations,communities and country.
Faginsberg, as you talk about inyour book, has this idea of
embedded aesthetics in whichaesthetics is connected to the
social material dimensions ofmedia and relations. And I was
thinking a lot about this inyour book with the discussion of
cyclical storytelling and nothaving omniscient narrators.

(13:22):
There are these qualities thatare sort of emerge based on
shared values, but it is it canslip into the sort of through
Navajo Eyes famous project thatyou also mentioned in which it
becomes quite sort of narrowlydefined as a certain type of way

(13:43):
of doing things and not others.So the final thing I'll mention
is there are often really deepgenre discussions at indigenous
television networks about sortof where place certain programs
and how to give awards and whatawards meant.
There were a lot of debatesabout what falls into our
culture category or our eldersand our language. And these

(14:06):
were, you know, negotiated anddebated things, but things that
were very deeply engaged andunderstood in incredibly
sophisticated ways. And there'sa sort of balance between making
sure that there's not pressureto make media that aligns with
narrow definitions of culture asonly traditional practices in

(14:26):
Aboriginal languages. InAustralia, this often tends to
be about dreaming stories andsong lines. And yet at the same
time, such projects are seen asreally important by a lot of
folks in the context of colonialdispossession and aging elders.
So that was one tension. And sothere's that in the sense that
those are really importantprojects. But there's also

(14:49):
simultaneously a really selfconscious focus to not have such
constraints. Projects I wasinvolved with, you know, span
from music videos, stop motionanimation, like comedy, sign
language, visual dictionaries,dramas, desert trips, PSAs,
commercials. So there was a lotof self awareness that there's a

(15:10):
balancing of tensions aroundthis essentialist danger while
also honoring the fact that, youknow, a lot of traditional
culture projects were importantto folks and communities.

Karrmen Crey (15:23):
Probably when I was starting my research, when I
started my PhD at University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles in the
film and television program, Ithink there was some confusion
between the idea of content andcontext. So, you know, I had to
first clarify a lot alongexactly the lines that you were

(15:44):
saying that it's, production byindigenous create an indigenous
creator or creatives. And, thatdefinition has gotten clearer
even more in Canada, since allof the scandals of, pretendians

(16:05):
in the indigenous medialandscape here, which were in
the news very prominently thatreally affected the in
indigenous media communitieshere profoundly. I think it's
been a deeply troubling andchurning kind of time, and it

(16:26):
reached into all areas. So Ithink in those tensions, in
those conflicts, there's becomean increased clarification of
what we mean by, you know, byindigenous people.
And it's along the lines, youknow, that this gets you know,
we have without diving headfirstinto it, you know, the the by

(16:47):
question has always remained,you know, the core of that
question. Do indigenous peoplehave creative control, direction
of the project, whatever thatproject is? The head of the
indigenous screen office, formerhead, Jesse Wente, he's
Anishinaabe, and he has alwaysspoken about indigenous media as

(17:07):
by and for indigenous people. Sothe by has gotten increasingly
clear as everybody's had toarticulate what we mean by by.
And that has been, you know,along the lines of that's been
codified in some productioncontext as more than 50%
ownership of a productioncompany has to be indigenous in

(17:28):
order for them to qualify forfunding that has been set aside
for indigenous production,whatever that would look like,
you know, often through statefunding.
And the Ford, though, as aspectof that formulation, I think,
has always been very wide open.Like, what do we mean by four?

(17:50):
And, you know, that looks likeyou're describing a lot of
things, but it rests within akind of, I think, as you've
described it, an ethicalquestion about you know, when we
think about four, it involvesrelations with kinds of
audiences, viewers. What do weshow and not show? Like, it

(18:14):
involves these kinds of ethicalquestions.
Now when I started the project,I just started it really broadly
and was like started with thebuy as you know, just to open up
as wide a lens on what thatmeans in Canada specifically.
Because I had to give it someshape. Otherwise, I would just

(18:34):
go on and on and on, you know,looking all over. Even North
America would have been too muchto talk about. So just focusing
on the Canadian context, youknow, it was like, who, you
know, who's who's identified asthe director, the producer, the,
you know, the lead, creative onthis project?
And then that gave me as kind ofa big scope to be able to look

(19:00):
at the patterns of production.Like, where are these creatives
working? When are they working?What genre? What format?
What institutions. You know? Soit gave me a good way to develop
a kind of, like, profile of whatdoes this landscape really look

(19:21):
like. And so I think the thedebates around the four part of
the formulation are somethingthat the creatives are gonna
work out what they mean by that,and that's not something I'm
going to direct or dictate. It'sbut it does get at that
indigenous producers have, youknow, values, principles, and

(19:42):
ethical orientations that leadthem to make different decisions
in the production, in theediting, in the, you know,
screenings, you know, that wholethe whole process of making the
the media is going to beinflected by, different values.
And that's, you know, ultimatelywhere my research is going to be

(20:05):
heading. But, really, what thebook was looking at was, like,
what do we what does this looklike when we take the broadest
lens that is reasonable andmanageable to see really where
are indigenous creatives workingduring this really significant
time period in indigenoushistory, in Canada. So I think

(20:29):
we're really, in so many ways,fundamentally aligned. So
there's been, you know, the thequestions around the, the purity
of the project, I think, havekind of sort of sorted
themselves out that yeah.Certainly.
Like like, in my project too, Iwasn't necessarily looking only
at you know, if I was followingthe filmmakers, say, and, like,

(20:52):
looked at their body of work,they were going to have
different roles on differentproductions, and the extent of
their creative input and controlwas always gonna be constrained
in some way by the context ofproduction, by funding, that
sort of thing. But they'rethey've made creative decisions

(21:13):
that contributed to theproduction, and I wanted to look
at what those were. Andsometimes they were really
important interventions too. Soif it was, say if they were
brought on, say, as a guestdirector or some, you know,
something like that, I wasinterested how they negotiated
their role in that productionand how they made decisions

(21:36):
about how they were going toshape the project with their
with their contributions, and alot of that I found really on
the production side of things.So and I think we really have a
lot of that in common is that weare conceiving of indigenous
media as not something that isjust what we see on the screen.

(21:56):
We really need to look at thecontext of production to
understand more fully what it asa practice, as a form of social
practice.

Willi Lempert (22:09):
Yeah. I could not agree more. And I appreciate
what you're saying about thefact that people have values of
production. One of the things Iwas thinking about in my book
and in reading yours is that youknow, production values almost
go without saying that they'rejust high or low, as in
Hollywood production values. Butpeople have different values and

(22:30):
they're sort of cultures andtraditions of values, which is
very different than the questionof the qualities of a genre,
which is much more aboutsomething frozen in time and can
veer into even, you know, thecolonial pretty quick.
And to your point, you know, Iwas thinking too about how for
at least decades now, peoplewho, you know, indigenous

(22:51):
managers and people runningAboriginal and indigenous media
organizations in Australia, theyhave a very fine tooth comb and
quick gut understandings of nonindigenous people involved. It's
almost impossible for someone tonow derail projects. People are

(23:12):
so experienced and understandingwho will be someone who's
interested in facilitatingthings in an appropriate way or
someone who has got some otherbaggage coming along. So there's
there's so much sort of toplevel also agency in very
quickly making sure that peoplewho shouldn't be there aren't

(23:35):
there. And there's a lot ofpower in that and a lot of
skill.
To this conversation, I wantedto connect to a question that I
think relates, which has to dowith the importance of, as one
example, nonlinear storytellingin indigenous media that you
have engaged as part of a sortof way into thinking more about

(23:57):
kind of cultures of productionvalues and kind of patterns of
how people think about tellingstories. I really appreciate in
your book when you talk aboutDonna's story, the importance of
cyclical storytelling thatdoesn't provide neat closure.
And I thought you mentioned thata few times throughout the book,
and it's a really powerful pointthat it has to do with the fact

(24:21):
that these these deeper issuesare not closed about indigenous
women's, you know, violenceagainst indigenous women amidst
other issues to the importanceof sort of humanizing people
amidst really difficult topics.And I wonder if you can say
something about, you know, howyou think about that sort of non

(24:45):
essentializing way of talkingabout those patterns of
storytelling that you noticed inyour book and and in your
fieldwork perhaps beyond aswell?

Karrmen Crey (24:56):
So you're referring to Donna's story as a
National Film Board of Canadadocumentary production. For
those who don't know, theNational Film Board of Canada is
Canada's public film agency. Soas a national film agency, its
job has historically been to,you know, sort of represent
Canada to Canadians and theworld. You know, that's the sort

(25:18):
of catch of its mission. And,historically, it's had a really
bad track record of depictingindigenous people in Canada to
Canadians.
Like, I've screened some reallyto show my students examples,
some deeply troubling, you know,films from, like, the fifties,

(25:40):
sixties, you know, that areshowing the happy assimilation
of indigenous people into, youknow, Canadian society, and this
is really marking an era, ofCanadian national identity that
was very problematic forindigenous people and is just
about to, at that era, going totrigger a major sort of

(26:07):
indigenous nationalism movementthat is going to carry through
into today. But so as a kind ofredress, the National Film Board
of Canada's policy became, well,indigenous people should
represent indigenous people andconcerns, and this became, you
know, a really guidingprinciple. And so their
orientation shifted to settingaside funding and programs for

(26:31):
indigenous filmmakers. And thechapter you're referring to in
the book is focusing on DougCuthan. He is a Creed, like,
journalist, documentaryfilmmaker, you know,
editorialist, like author.
He's just really worn a lot ofhats, and I noticed he wasn't
really discussed in theliterature, which was

(26:52):
interesting to me. I'm like, whydid people overlook him? So I
really made the this chapterabout focusing on him. And, his
critical you know, certainly hasan unerring critical perspective
and was very cautious indepicting the focus of the film,
Donna Gamble, as a Cree womanwho's working through addiction.

(27:13):
And it it's kind of a portraitof a woman who has worked as a
sex worker who has struggledwith addiction, and she is
transforming her life.
She's really found a lot of herhealth and healing really
through connection with hercommunity and her culture. And
there's a way where that storycould have been plotted along

(27:36):
the redemption narrative arcthat a lot of documentaries, a
lot of films really want toimpose on human beings. That
there's this sort of you know,you you you awry like a phoenix
from the ashes. You arise and,you know, change your life

(27:56):
through, you know, this romanticdeeply romanticized connection
with community. But thisdocumentary is really different
in that it's really about thework and complexity of that.
Like, that that that's not justa simple thing to do, that
there's a lot of trauma withinfamilies and certainly within
Donna's that is there and apresence and that they are

(28:20):
actively working to heal from,but this is a very deep history
that marks indigenous families.You can't impose this, like,
unproblematic narrative, andthat was really about creating a
portrait of, like, this is areal human person. Like, this is
not a abstracted native womanvictim narrative. Like, the that

(28:41):
that really abstracts women intoa signifier, you know, like a
metaphor for Canada's failuresand this you know, the West's
failure, for indigenous people.And rather, it really is about
the work of what recovery foraddicts really looks like.
And in the end, she relapses,and she goes the relapse isn't

(29:04):
shown on camera. Donna narratesthat to the camera that she did
relapse. And the end is that shehas now entered back into the
cycle of recovery. So, really,it's structured. Doug told me
that he really had to fight forthat ending with the NFB because
they wanted the hopeful, youknow, inspiring ending that

(29:29):
native people often representfor white people, like settler
eyes.
And he's like, no. This is hereal. This is a human struggle,
and that recovery is not astraight trajectory upwards
towards, like, sobriety. It's acycle that people are in their
entire lives. Relapse is a partof recovery.
Right? So it's inherently acycle. And so she's in the

(29:54):
cycle. Like, she's workingthrough a cycle in the film. And
I've just really appreciated howhe really stuck to his, like,
ethical and representationalguns there and was like, no.
We have to humanize, reallyhumanize, and have some
integrity towards what recoveryactually looks like. If you

(30:14):
really want to represent thestruggle that many indigenous
people are in, let's be honestabout what that struggle looks
like and stop romanticizingrecovery for anybody, but let
alone sort of tokenize her storyto, like, inspire audiences.
Like, to have the, you know,quote, unquote, inspirational

(30:36):
story around what real humanindigenous woman who is an
inspiration to her community,who is, you know, a social
worker who does workshops withhigh schools on sexual health,
that she is an inspiration whocan relapse. You know? Like,
that doesn't make her any less.
That ethical orientation, that'swhat I think about what like,

(30:59):
he's intervening at theproduction level in terms of,
like, really fighting forsomething that's real that was
really crucial to tell thatstory and to advocate for her.
And that he intervened in thiskind of genre conventions of the
sort of inspirationaldocumentary in order to tell
something different, and thatwas, I think, much more

(31:22):
important than sort of tacking afalse ending onto that. That
would totally misunderstand herand misunderstand what addiction
and recovery looks like. Sothat's kind of, like cyclical
for me was kind of, like, youknow, it's in the context of
what was needed to tell thatstory. But I don't know, I think
for you, you've talked about thecyclical aspects of different

(31:45):
stories differently.
So do you wanna talk a bit aboutwhy that sticks for you in terms
of your own work?

Willi Lempert (31:52):
Yeah, absolutely. And as a quick aside, I really
appreciate how you come back toDonna's story toward the end of
the book and connect it to TR's,the Truth and Reconciliation
Committee and the deeper pointsabout reconciliation. While I
have it in my mind, what I wasthinking about is how there are
these narratives that areassumed about certain types of

(32:13):
stories. And there was one thatwas almost the opposite, but the
same that played out in myfieldwork, where there was a PSA
short video that was meant toget kids to go to school. And
the film went great.
It was a local metal band, hadsongs. There was a lot of comedy
in it. It was picking kids upfrom the basketball court,
taking them to school, and theywere happy to go. But the

(32:34):
problem was they were happy tobe playing basketball. They were
happy to be walking around theircommunity and not being at
school.
And it was basically rejectedbecause the critique is that the
kids were too happy not being inschool. And it led to sort of
very strange set ofconversations. Then they had to
make a new one that was sort ofmorose and down about kids

(32:56):
struggling. And so it just makesme think that these things can
go different ways to desire forsort of resolution or for
challenge and deficit indifferent genres. To the point
of cyclical storytelling, youknow, some stories like Mark,
the story of Mark's life that Itell in my book, the life

(33:19):
history near where he grew up ina mission out of town.
And that was a story that wassort of cyclically told. So he
started at the present, kind ofwent deeper into the past. And
so there are these stories thatkind of feel like their cycles
and how they're told and intheir meanings and literally
things happening again andagain, policies and communities

(33:42):
closing and reopening and thesewaves of colonial oppression
that come in and out indifferent ways. But then at the
same time, there is sometimesthis over theorization of a
radical difference aroundcyclical time that can make it
seem like people don't live inthe same reality at all.
Rifkin's book TemporalSovereignty, I think does a nice

(34:04):
job of engaging this.
What I think is great aboutdiving into particular media
projects as they unfold and thepeople who are making them is
you can really parse out to yourpoint about the assumptions and
the expectations that people arepushing against, but also the
way in which things are directednot by some sort of deeper
fundamental quality, but by bythe topic and the context and

(34:27):
the relations involved. Theparticularity of projects is
really important. Cause therewere also very linear music
videos that were about goingsomewhere, of course. And I
think the specificity becomesreally important.

Karrmen Crey (34:40):
Yeah. That was I mean, that ultimately, I think,
what my the project in my bookwas about. There are parallels
around demands for indigenoussovereignty for that format,
like, indigenous nationalistmovements. There are broad
historical and social andeconomic forces at work that
contribute to these trajectoriesthat look a lot the same. But my

(35:04):
problem is when people startascribing, like, kind of sussing
out, looking for these kind ofessentialist readings of
indigenous media based onbroader patterns rather than
looking very closely at underrecognizing that indigenous
nationalisms is not areparticular and specific to

(35:26):
indigenous nations or moreabstractly political entities,
however that is beingformulated.
And so indigenous nationalisms,you know, in Canada took shape
around the rhetoric, thelanguage of nationhood because
it's being articulated within asocial and political global

(35:48):
order that only recognizes othernations. Right? So employing the
the sort of westernized languageand rhetoric of nationhood is to
stake out a line and assert thatuninterrupted territorial
occupation, the ongoingpolitical ordering of indigenous

(36:12):
people, the relationships to oneanother and to place and the kin
within that place, thatstructure, the laws that guide
indigenous that indigenous, youknow, nation, into the present.
You know? This is something thatis a global phenomenon, but the

(36:33):
particularities of thesecommunities, nations, the
articulation of that sovereigntyis going to look different.
And if you're going to look atindigenous media, you have to
get really contextual andspecific in order to think about
how are they articulatingthemselves, and what is the role
of media in that. Or, you know,certainly, people collaborate on

(36:58):
projects. You know, this is areal historical trend, and so
seeking a tribal nationalism asthe main lens for interpretation
can get really complicated. Andthat's what I appreciated about
looking at indigenous media inCanada was that this is really
complicated. All thenegotiations behind the screen

(37:19):
and on screen or that werehappening off screen and that
affected the content on screenis an approach that I took.
Really, my book looked atinstitutional analysis as a
framework for reinterpretingindigenous media, which is an
approach that bridges theproduction context with what

(37:41):
ends up on screen. Like, we canunderstand the negotiations off
screen as something that getsinscribed on screen. And the
reason I took that approach isbecause it was one way of
addressing the question of,like, how did indigenous media
rise up across Canada in all ofthese institutions, all
different all, like, provincialbroadcasters, art galleries,

(38:03):
museums, the National FilmAgency, broadcasters? Like, how
did it start taking shape in allof these institutions sort of
all at the same time? So tostart to, like, sketch out a
feel of the landscape, I waslooking at how are indigenous
artists and advocatesintervening in these established

(38:24):
Canadian cultural and mediainstitutions to create space for
indigenous production that wouldthen, you know, end up on
screens in Canada and butlargely, you know, often for
indigenous audiences.
So there's a form of engagement,I think, that's specific to
indigenous nationhood that weneed to think about in the sense

(38:47):
that, certainly, in Canada, youknow, we have the Indian Act,
which was established in 1876,sort of a law governing like,
historically, a very, veryoppressive federal law that
intervened overwhelmingly in thelives of indigenous people,
setting up what are parametersfor in legislating indigenous
identity, setting up the reservesystem, making indigenous people

(39:11):
wards of the state. But,historically, you know, the
Indian Act has been the onepiece of legislation that
acknowledges that indigenouspeople were here before
settlers, before Canada washere, and it sketched out
Canada's obligation toindigenous people. So

(39:32):
dismantling the Indian Act is acomplex thing. But what it has
meant for indigenous people is,like, there are along with
treaties, they exist as evidenceof a nation to nation
relationship between Canada andindigenous peoples, and Canada
has an obligation to indigenouspeoples. So if there's a kind of

(39:53):
nation to nation acknowledgmentthere, that means Canada is
obligated to create withinfederal and, provincial
institutions space forindigenous people.
So indigenous people interveningin those institutions is a way
of saying, no. We you areobligated to include us here,

(40:16):
and, therefore, our productionhere, our interventions are
within these institutions, theirproduction practices, their sort
of genres, their forms ofrepresentation. And so I was
interested. I'm like, okay. Howare indigenous creatives
negotiating those institutions,and then how do we see that end

(40:38):
up on screen?
And so Doug Cuthand is a greatperson to bring up. I mean, this
is the approach I take to every,you know, filmmaker or
organization that forms the coreof the chapters is how are they
intervening in these processes?How can we read what they're
doing as these reallysophisticated critical

(41:01):
negotiations of conventionalmedia practice? So we see that,
you know, there's a chapter onthe aboriginal people's
television network looking athow do indigenous people take up
reality television to representindigenous epistemologies, for
instance, in the program that Ilove called Indians and Aliens,

(41:23):
which is a really great realityTV program, but it became a
vehicle for foregrounding andvalidating indigenous
understandings of off worldphenomena that are unidentified
aerial phenomena, I think is theterm, is actually like, well,
how do we understand the thisphenomena through indigenous,

(41:45):
like, Cree lenses? Like, how dowe understand their relationship
to unidentified aerialphenomena?
And they did it through realityTV. So it's like this really
amazing kind of production andreally sophisticated, like,
negotiation of reality TVexploitation and, like, mystery
paranormal sort of realitytelevision to tell a different

(42:08):
story about, like, how do weunderstand these as actually in
continuity with Cree encounterswith the unexplained that go
back way before settler presencewas here. Really, institutional
analysis allowed me to get atthat range and get away from
essentializing while at the sametime really thinking about the

(42:29):
negotiations that take placethat end up on screen. And
they're really sophisticated andreally interesting and critical
objects.

Willi Lempert (42:37):
You know, I I was so interested in reading about
Indians and Aliens. I watchedjust this sort of YouTube, I
think, you know, sort of trailerfor it. And it almost seems like
it does this incredible feat byappealing to folks who might
watch ancient aliens with almostthe exact opposite takeaway at
so many levels. And it made methink of Lisa Jackson, someone

(42:59):
who shows up in your book, ofcourse, her short animated film,
The Visit, which is one of myfavorites. And I was wondering
if that was sort of connected tothat in any way.

Karrmen Crey (43:12):
Yeah. I would have to go back in to see like, I did
an interview with Lisa that'sactually coming out in a
collection Joanna Hearn and Icoedited that will be coming out
at University of Minnesota. AndI did an interview with Lisa
about the visit, and it's, like,a documentary audio that is then
animated on screen about a Ibelieve it's a Cree communities,

(43:36):
like, but more western thanIndians and Aliens is more
northern Cree in Quebec, what'snow called Quebec. The family
that she interviews that thatmakes up the documentary audio.
I'm not sure where they wereactually located.
I feel like they were inAlberta, but I could be wrong.

Willi Lempert (43:53):
Yeah. No. I can't remember, but I really
appreciated that that section.

Karrmen Crey (43:58):
And do you this in aliens might have been a 2000 it
was in the February, but thevisit is 2009. So they're in and
around the same time. This itcould be, you know, like, kind
of identifying larger culturalpatterns. Like, you and I both,
out of necessity, talk aboutindigenous futurisms quite a

(44:22):
lot. Like, you know, my bookisn't so focused on it, but I
know you've written aboutindigenous futurisms,
previously.
And it's something I've, like,out of necessity had to talk
about because later February andwell into February is a real big
era for indigenous futuristwork. And Lisa has done a lot of

(44:46):
work with indigenous futurismsin in different platforms and
genres. She did the VR project.Bedobin, first sight, is this
immersive, like, a VR project,that Lisa Jackson did, and it
was released in 2018. So I feellike, you know, we've seen a lot

(45:07):
of indigenous futurist work,certainly from the 2000 the
early two thousand tens andonwards just exploded.
That is kind of symptomatic of areal surge. I wanna say Billy
Ray Belcourt talks about thisalmost like a surge of vitality,

(45:27):
not just within the language ofresurgence as indigenous people
having the energetic life givingresources to draw upon
resistance, for politicalengagement, like the Dakota
Access Pipeline protests,missing and murdered indigenous
women and girls crisisinvestigation and activism, Idle

(45:48):
No More, which was 02/1314. Soall of this is happening in
2010. These major mobilizations,this incredible, like, waterfall
of indigenous production that'skinda has this futurist
orientation, and Bellcourt talksabout it as indigenous people
has have always had joy, havealways had these life giving

(46:09):
energies. But there is somethingmore recently around this
unbelievable surge ofindigenous, like, vitality and
looking towards the future andimagining the future as a part
of not just surviving, but beingalive, like, the energetic
resources to do this work thatthe state and settler

(46:30):
colonialism has really sought toextinguish.
It's been about wearingindigenous people down, about,
like, draining all those lifegiving resources for its own
benefit, obviously, which isdispossession and occupation. So
there there is somethinggenerationally that has shifted,

(46:51):
I think. And I would also putsomething like revenge as a part
of that energetic resource. JeffBarnaby, the El Maya
Tailfeathers, a Red Girl'sReasoning, these are revenge
films, which I think point to,similarly, having the resources
to be active in that way ofreally engaging and dismantling

(47:16):
settler racism, colonialism,misogyny. I put like,
personally, I put that kind oflooking towards the future and
the energy and joy of beingtogether and working together
that kind of representationallyshows up as, you know, a lot of
science fiction, fantasy, youknow, speculative fiction tropes

(47:37):
and genres.
And I also put revenge up therebecause to be able to take
revenge on something means youhave the energy to do so. Right?
So I'm seeing it as indexingsomething really important
generationally. And I think,like, Lisa Jackson, of course,
and, like, we she's such apivotal figure in this. I don't

(48:01):
know that she would describeherself as a futurist, but she
certainly works in the genresalong with, you know, so many
other indigenous folks.
Jeff Barnaby, who passed away, Ithink, in was it '20 you know,
just a few years ago, and itfeels honestly more recent than
that. It was, like, awful andway too young. But he also

(48:25):
played a key role in developingthis this amazing body of work
that really is about, like, whatis our future going to look
like? How are we going to have afuture beyond the apocalypse of
settler colonialism? So whatdoes post apocalypse look like

(48:45):
for us?
And I think that's one of thequestion like, you've brought
that up as well, like, thisquestion of apocalypse.

Willi Lempert (48:52):
Yeah. You know, in the process, I appreciate
your discussion of futurism. Icouldn't agree more. It's taken
hold and this idea ofapocalypse. I remember asking
people if what they thought ofthat term, and I was expecting
pushback because I don't want tooverstate things.
So I wanted to be sure. Butpeople said, that's right. You

(49:14):
know, it it it works in terms ofcapturing the weight and gravity
and to the point about thefuture. And I think you're
right, it's animated by a lot ofthings, one of which is
apocalyptic understandings ofwhere the world is going for
indigenous people and at somedeeper levels as well. And one
of the really interestingdiscussions I had with folks who

(49:37):
had been in Balgo for a longtime or and some folks who
hadn't been there for a while, Iwas focusing a lot on the
future.
It was coming up in a lot offilms. When I would talk with
people about the films and thattheme, people's first reaction
was, No, that doesn't come up inVAALGO. People don't use that
word. It doesn't have a meaningin Kuguja and local languages,

(49:59):
which is true in one kind ofnarrow way of thinking about
things, which gets back to thesort of limiting way of thinking
about what cyclical time is orisn't. But people were using it
all the time by the mid andearly twenty tens.
And it's in a lot ofgovernmental, very cynical sort

(50:21):
of jobs programs type of work.They'll be called future workers
and those kind of things. But itseemed to really be animated by
a global discourse that I thinkimaginative had a big role. A
lot of this stuff is coming fromCanada and Concordia University
and Jason Lewis and ScottWennady and a lot of really
central folks like, you know,Lisa Jackson, Leanne Simpson.

(50:44):
And it's interesting to me thatit seemed to be making its way
through indigenous activists andmedia circuits around the world
to where in VAALGO, it'ssomething people talked about
all the time.
And I think you're right. It wasoften discussed, like in the
future with some were very oftendirected directly to the prime

(51:05):
minister. Like in the future,this is what we need. And it was
often at the intersection ofdemands directly to the state,
as well as plans and hopes anddreams for family amidst the
backdrop that felt veryapocalyptic. And while I was
there, there were these listsgoing around where were going to
defund most Aboriginalcommunities which are not

(51:26):
protected by treaties.
So this is something that canhappen quickly. The referendum
for a voice was shut down thatwould have acknowledged in the
constitution. There were avariety of things that that
happened and there's treatynegotiations going on. But there
is a sense that things are verydire, but people are also more
connected than ever. And to thisand in media, there's more

(51:50):
technological ability too,that's just available around
science fiction and VR and thesekind of things.
So I think it's all cometogether in a way where the
future has a very political,almost punk rock, but very
hopeful kind of constellation ofmeaning from Standing Rock to a

(52:11):
variety of protest movementslike in Sydney and Canberra.
There's this, seems to me and,you know, thinking about what
you're saying, there issomething that it speaks to
that's deeper, that's of themoment and that is resonating
around the world and echoingthrough media in technologies

(52:34):
and specific topics. To thatpoint, maybe sort of connecting
two questions I was thinkingabout around Imaginative and I
think appropriately connectingit to virtual reality and
futurist media. So from my pointof view, Imaginative was the
film festival by far the mostbeloved throughout Australia by
indigenous filmmakers and mediamakers. Wonder if you can speak

(52:56):
to that confluence of whatImaginative does, and you have
such a deep understanding ofwhere it comes from
institutionally, can you say abit about why it's become such a
vital global site on and offscreen of media relations and
that that excitement aroundfuturity and new technologies
that also is not in competitionwith other genres.

Karrmen Crey (53:19):
Coming from in Canada, I sort of had this
distorted idea aboutImaginative. You know, people
are like, it's the biggestindigenous film festival in the
world. And I was like, that'sreally cool. And what started
going when I was doing my PhDresearch. Cynthia Lickers Sage
was one of the founders and wascertainly a part of this Canada

(53:40):
wide surge of indigenous mediaproduction and advocacy in the
nineties.
She actually worked inassociation with the Aboriginal
Film and Video Art Alliance, andshe had gone to Toronto to kinda
continue the work of mediaactivism that had started with
the alliance. And, you know,that's sort of one version of
the story, but I definitely needto talk to her about her version

(54:02):
of the story and sort of howthat experience was for her. She
went to Toronto and foundedImaginative. I think there are
resources in Toronto that arevery different than anywhere
else in Canada, for sure, andits proximity to New York and
just being a kind of real urbancenter in Canada. I think the

(54:22):
resources were more amenable tosupporting what ultimately
became the size it is, which isreally remarkable.
Definitely, my next researchproject is looking at film
festivals, fan conventions,these sort of areas that are a
part of indigenous mediacultures, like film cultures,

(54:45):
production cultures. They're fedby things like festivals, by
conventions that engage withthinking about these different
media industries and whatindigenous presence in them
could look like. But myperspective of festivals is that
they're not sort of an end pointto a film. They're not just

(55:06):
exhibition sites. They areactually engines for the
production of indigenous media.
In thinking about where do weget to see indigenous media,
it's not often on mainstreamscreens. You know? Reservation
Dogs, Rutherford Falls, DarkWinds, you know, Taiko, YTT,
Largo kinda held up as, like,yeah. Of course. They made these

(55:27):
unbelievable inroads productionwise into mainstream film and
television industries, andthey're sort of what people
recognize and see today.
But when we think aboutindigenous media worlds, like
the realities of where do youget your work seen, it is often
at festivals. So people areoften trying to get their work
done within the cycle forsubmitting to festivals to get

(55:49):
their work seen. The festivalsthemselves provide panels,
events. Imaginative has thesemicro meeting industry sessions
where filmmakers, producers,creatives can meet with industry
experts to talk over theirideas. Putting creatives in
direct contact with industrypeople is a way of fostering

(56:11):
production.
Right? It's trying to make thoseconnections. They also have
commissioned projects like theembargo and embargo two,
projects that Dennis Goulet, whoworked with the festival, I
think, is artistic director fora while and set up these kind of
collaborative short film whatare they called? Incubators? I I

(56:33):
don't mean to use Silicon Valleywords, but pretty much, I mean,
that's how they worked.
It was like to get indigenousfilmmakers working with one
another to produce projects thatwould then be shown at the
festival, they are fosteringproduction. And this is
something like, my next projectis around indigenous production
cultures and what do I mean bythat. And looking at film
festivals at, like, Indigipop x,the major indigenous fan

(56:58):
convention, this is a way oftalking about, like, what are
these you know, what are thoughtof as parenthetical or
peripheral activities thatactually directly contribute to
indigenous production andcritically reflect on it. So
Imaginative is one of thoseplaces, and it has themes every
year, you know, sort of a a kindof focus, and indigenous

(57:18):
futurist work has certainly beena focus there.

Willi Lempert (57:21):
Yeah. I remember Bedobin was the title of two
separate things. There was theVR, and then there was the one
that I think maybe LeanneSimpson was involved with. It
was so of the zeitgeist thatthat concept and particular term
about the past and futuremeeting in the present was
happening in multiple projects.And I really appreciate, you

(57:43):
know, that there's like athere's a VR space, there's
games, there's cookies beingprinted with this laser kind of
like futurist printer.
You know, in Australia, myexperience is the same that
festivals are really the beatingheart of the circulatory system
of the media world. There'sthere's so many layers of

(58:05):
festivals. And to me, what'sreally special about Imagine
Native, just having attended andhearing what folks love about
it, is it seems to achievethings that are quite separated
in Australia. So for example,Djawadjawad, one of the films
that I worked on for the longestperiod of time, its world
premiere was in Balgo in thecommunity at the art center.
There were often sort of Fridaynight drive ins, which was a

(58:28):
sort of primer white paintedback of the basketball court.
People would drive their LandCruisers and sit on blankets and
watch these documentaries, localfilms. Often that was the place
that things were played andpeople would, you know, talk
about how they knew folks in thefilms, and it's a very
relational place. Then when Italk about it in my book, sort

(58:52):
of these expanding circuits andcircles of circulation. So the
sort of beating heart of theremote indigenous media sector
when I was there was theNational Remote Indigenous Media
Festival. And so this would beat a different community
throughout every year.
It's changed a little since, buthas a similar role. They would
have these indigenous communitytelevision film festival

(59:15):
screenings at night. And thosewere introduced by community
members and people wouldrecollect things during the
films. There were, you know,inside jokes, layers of meaning,
lot of talking throughout thefilms. But even much more
importantly, off screen, therewere countless workshops around
skill building, developing, youknow, values of production.

(59:37):
People were camping, there weremeals. I remember this one in
the beach area, there was thiscrocodile that had to famously
sort of be avoided. People werehaving an experience with each
other, that renewing ofrelations and colleagues. And
there's awards that areacknowledging people's work, but
very much not about the reachand popularity, but much more

(59:57):
about the process andrelationships they fostered in
the meaning of their work. Andthen there's strategy sessions
of people navigating thecomplexities of funding and
sharing those things.
So it felt so much more than thefilm festival in a way was the
smallest part of it. People wereexcited to have their films in,
but it had so many layers. Butin Australia, so Jawajawal went

(01:00:18):
to the Sydney International FilmFestival, and that was much more
felt like a prestigeinternational circuit component,
which was important because itsort of legitimized the song
lines on screens series thatJawa Jawa was a part of. And
there was red carpet, wine andcheese kind of things. But
Imaginative feels like it'sdoing some of both of those

(01:00:40):
things that would happen at acommunity festival and at a very
prestigious internationalfestival.
I sort of left before I got tosee it in its fullest form, but
the Winda Film Festival wasassisted by Imaginative in
Sydney to be developed assomething that could be at that
larger scale, but have thosefundamental sort of values and

(01:01:01):
way of thinking about thefestival as relational and
connective. I think that filmfestivals are the fundamental
events and driving forces andengines, as you put it, of a lot
of these sort of arenas. And I'mexcited for that project that
you're going to be engagingthose types of events.

Karrmen Crey (01:01:20):
Yeah. This is it's I think it's something unique.
You know, it's good to hearabout the work being done at
festivals in Australia. Again,going to the ethics kind of
perspective, the kind of ideaof, like, how do we support one
another? How do we cometogether?
How do we help provide supportand direction and help a project

(01:01:41):
come into being and, you know,support the creatives in doing
so? I think those are differentethical questions than a lot of
mainstream festivals that arereally oriented toward
mainstream opportunities. Not tosay that indigenous film
festivals also don't have an eyeto other screens that have wider
audiences. I mean, a lot ofpeople are oriented that way.

(01:02:04):
But the idea of, like, the waythat communities form around and
through these festivals are ableto come together is something
you've talked about.
Kirsten Dowell has talked about,I think Amalia Cordova. You
know, there are people who've,like, looked at these sites of
community and productioncommunities that are really

(01:02:25):
enabled by these festivals thatare really important to
understand. You know, the reasonI started going is, like, one, I
got to see productions I wouldnever see otherwise. This might
be your only chance in the yearto see work you'll never know
about otherwise. Being able tomeet up with people I know and,
you know, see these filmmakers Iknow really well and maybe have

(01:02:49):
known for years.
But, again, it's reallyfacilitating, like, these
ongoing relationships, andthat's really important to me as
well. I'm really glad, like,Imaginative has continued with
this idea. They even shiftedtheir screenings, like,
schedules to help supportindigenous filmmakers to go to

(01:03:10):
industry sessions so that thefilmmakers could go to these
sessions, but also go into thescreenings. And so making those
kinds of adjustments, like, dowe support these creatives
through the festival'soperations is, again, something
that not a lot of festivals, Ithink, are going to be thinking
about or thinking through in anongoing ethical way. So that

(01:03:33):
just really makes them unique intheir orientation to the media
worlds.
It's something very important toacknowledge and understand.

Willi Lempert (01:03:44):
Whenever I'm trying to think about how to
convey the festival meaning,there's an annual conference for
anthropologists called the AAAs,the American anthropology, you
know, like SCMS for mediastudies, or NAISA in indigenous
studies. And to me, it's kind oflike that. There are panels and
there are papers, but that's notthe deeper, exciting thing about
them. You know, it's makingthose connections and laying the

(01:04:07):
seeds for future projects andrenewing relationships. I'd love
to hear more about your thoughtson this sort of tensions between
the thriving indigenous mediaworld, which you talk about,
especially in relation to thenineties.
But Canada is often looked toperhaps overly idealistically as
a real bastion for thrivingindigenous media. But I wonder

(01:04:30):
if you could say a little bitmore about the sort of tension
between that thriving and statepower. And you note on page 29
that on one level, there is thissort of dynamic where the state
can kind of try to controlthrough governmentality or other
ways of thinking about it, asort of controlled expression of

(01:04:52):
resistance and representation.But of course, there's many
layers to it. And I sort oflanded in the particular
Australian context around thisvisibility paradox way of
thinking about it.
I'd love to hear a little bitabout how you think of this
tension between state sponsoredmedia that they know on some
level is going to be critical orpromote sovereign movements that

(01:05:14):
would undermine settler colonialpower. And there's many people
involved in these circuits whohave probably different
feelings, but anything in thatrealm, I'd love to hear how
you've thought about that overtime.

Karrmen Crey (01:05:26):
Yeah. That if this is analogous to the visibility
paradox that you're talkingabout, it's sort of like, why
would a state, a liberaldemocratic state, fund and
support perspectives that areexpressly meant to delegitimize
and, ultimately dismantle? Belike, it's critical of the

(01:05:47):
state. So why would the statefund and support that? And the
way I talked about it wasthrough, Foucault's concept of
governmentality, and otherpeople have articulated this in
different ways.
Indigenous scholars have thoughtabout this in different ways,
but it's fundamentally atechnique. You know? Foucault
goes into it and talks about,you know, it the state shifts

(01:06:07):
its identity. It's a way ofmanaging discontent by giving a
platform for it. So the statereally manages discontent by
accommodating it.
I think we think about statepower as often top down. That's
not actually how power works.Right? It it works by appearing

(01:06:28):
to accommodate dissentingperspectives without
delegitimizing the state. So thestate will shift its identity to
accommodate critique of itselfby, for instance, making its
poll a policy aroundmulticulturalism, the idea that
you can have a culturallyvariegated landscape in order to
accommodate, to kind of, shoreup its own legitimacy by

(01:06:52):
accommodating difference.
And that's an old technique.Right? Like, it's it's it's done
all over the place. We seereconciliation, we can place
within as a form ofgovernmentality. It's a way of
creating a kind of, like, formaltransition point out of
indigenous discontent into akind of we see you.

(01:07:14):
We recognize you. Yeah. Let'stransform our relationship,
indigenous state relations.Let's transform that. And so it
inaugurates a transition betweena presumably more colonial past
into a more accommodationistpresence.
But, you know, Glenn Coulthardand others have critiqued that.

(01:07:34):
It's like, you can'tartificially construct a
transition point and, like,pretend as though colonization
is something that happened, butwe're in a different place now.
It's like, no. You just switchedyour language up. Like, you
changed your technique.
You're still colonial, butyou're just using a rhetoric and
approach to quell dissent, totry to appear as though it's

(01:07:56):
over. Like, we've moved pastthe, you know, unpleasantness,
the troubles. You know? So thisis, you know, very common. And
so it becomes a question, well,why are indigenous people taking
up, you know, in a sense,seeming to accept the bargain?
But that's not what's reallyhappening. Right? This goes back
to indigenous nationalism. Ithas always been about, like, the
state has an obligation toindigenous nations. So the state

(01:08:20):
setting aside these programs andresources is actually meeting is
is a part of its obligations.
So indigenous people aren'tconceding and being absorbed
into the body politic or intothese institutions. They're
going in and creating space toyou know, for the articulation

(01:08:41):
of indigenous perspectives andto transform the way that
institution operates, inrecognition of indigenous right
to those resources, to thoseprograms, to participating in
whatever way they see fit. So onthe one hand, I think the self
defeating perspective is to seewhat indigenous people are doing

(01:09:05):
as giving into governmentality.If we shift our perspective to
what indigenous people aredoing, we can see it as a form
of negotiating what AudraSimpson, Mohawk anthropologist
Audra Simpson, calls, like, thestrangulation of colonial
society. How do indigenouspeople still stay together under

(01:09:27):
this strangulating order?
And it's she talks about howMohawk people have maintained
their poll themselves as apolitical entity despite it
appearing as though a lot ofMohawk society looks like it
mirrors or mimics the colonialstate apparatuses. She's like,

(01:09:48):
well, they did it to throw up aveil, to say, we don't need you
to come in here and manage inour everyday lives. Look. We
have passports. We have a bandoffice.
We have a council. You know,we're governing ourselves, and
look. We have what you have, sostay out of our business. It's a
it's a very sophisticated way ofnavigating the strangulating

(01:10:11):
constraints of colonization tostay together as Mohawk people,
and that's what nativenationalists do. It's, it looks
one way when you're looking atit from the colonizer's
perspective.
It looks like assimilation, butthat's not what native people
are doing. They're using everyapparatus, every technique

(01:10:32):
within their control, to holdtogether as people. So this is
you know, we could expand intotalking about, you know, why
indigenous people take upcapitalism, you know, like, say,
casino capitalism like we see inRutherford Falls. Like, why? The
isn't that a watering down?
It's like, no. It's not not atall. They're using capital to

(01:10:56):
facilitate different principlesof being together, of getting
back what was stolen. This isarticulated in Rutherford Falls,
which is an amazing series and Icould talk about for another
hour. But I think we really needto shift perspective.
Like, the moment you thinkindigenous people are being
assimilated, you need to reallyreorient your perspective and

(01:11:18):
think about how are indigenouspeople engaging with these
apparatuses to shore up andprotect and operate within
principles that have never beenextinguished of holding together
as political entities likenations.

Willi Lempert (01:11:33):
Absolutely. I I really appreciate all that
nuance, and I don't want toforget to advertise in the book
that you all have coming outsoon. The one thing I would add
is I really appreciated your useof Barry Barclay, his idea of
the view from the ship and theview from the shore. And one of

(01:11:54):
the things that I was thinkingabout in relation to this is
that amidst all the thingsyou're saying, think there is a
sense from state settler statessuch as Australia and Canada
that the project of settlercolonization is so
overwhelmingly successful and onsome levels complete that
there's a sort of dismissal ofmedia as having the impact that

(01:12:18):
they actually do. And people areable to wield that
misunderstanding in ways thatpower movements from Standing
Rock to the referendum inAustralia and many other places.
But I thought you put thatreally well in those subtle
dynamics and the sort of cynicalposition people could fall in

(01:12:43):
around these topics butshouldn't. But I would love to,
you know, for the title or maybea short description of your book
to be part of this production ifyou have that on hand.

Karrmen Crey (01:12:55):
Sure. Yeah. I will say by wrapping this up that,
the by plugging the book, thecoming out, University of
Minnesota Press, I coedited withJoanna Hearn. That is called By
Their Work, Indigenous Women'sDigital Media in North America.
It is a big one in the sensethat it is actually pretty
voluminous, and it really looksat the history of indigenous

(01:13:19):
women and women identified andqueer folks, their contributions
to shaping the indigenousdigital landscape historically
and the people who are workingtoday.
So we're really excited aboutit, and looking forward to
seeing it released. And thankyou for bringing that up,
Willie, and for thisconversation today. We could

(01:13:42):
keep going, but I think wecovered a lot of good ground
today.

Willi Lempert (01:13:45):
It was a real pleasure.

Narrator (01:13:48):
This has been a University of Minnesota Press
production. Willi Lempert's bookDreaming Down the Track,
Awakenings in Aboriginal Cinema,and Carmen Cray's books
Producing Sovereignty The Riseof Indigenous Media in Canada
and more recently by their workIndigenous Women's Digital Media
in North America co edited byJoanna Hearne are all available

(01:14:10):
from University of MinnesotaPress. Thank you for listening.