"Native American Life Stories and "Authorship
Legal and Ethical Issues
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7399801 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lenora Ledwon (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1997 |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 579-579 |
| Publication date | 1997-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The American Indian Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0095-182X • E-ISSN: 1534-1828 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1185713 |
| OpenAlex | W2315847998 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 5 |
Juridical discourse concerning life stories has been primarily concerned with property and contract issues, and categories such as ownership and authorship. Such legal discourse generally fails to acknowledge the unique nature of Native American life stories, particularly when such stories are written in collaboration with non-Native editors or transcribers. This essay focuses on one fundamental question that has overlapping legal and ethical aspects: how does a non-Native collaborator avoid a colonizing relationship to Native American texts? In suggesting possible answers to this vexing question, I have always on the horizon of my mind's eye two figures Emmanuel Levinas, the philosopher, and Coyote, the trickster. Both remind me of the dangers of paradigms and the difficulty of my task. Levinas reminds me that paradigms are guilty of irresponsibility, and tend to destroy Otherness. Coyote reminds me that paradigms are meant to be broken in the name of fluidity and freedom. Keeping their admonitions in mind, I will attempt the delicate task of proposing an answer via the route of the master paradigm that is the law. It is well known that Native Americans have suffered legally sanctioned appropriation of property rights in genocidal proportions. But there is one area of property law that has yet to be explored in any detail intellectual property rights and Native American life stories. When such a life story is, as often happens, written in collaboration with a non-Native editor, translator, or transcriber, the commodification and objectification of the Other becomes a real possibility. This hazard of appropriation is always present when a text is the product of two unequally powerful cultures. Collaborations also raise some thorny issues
Engineering ethics · Ethical issues · Genealogy · Native american · Political science · Sociology · Archaeological Research and Protection · Engineering · History · Law in Society and Culture · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration
| Citations per year | 0.11 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2007 - 2008 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |