Invitation

by Brigette Gil

To whom it may concern,

Do you see the waters moving in the piece above? Its strong waves interconnected with the sequins embedded into it? Our class was invited to be in dialogue with Aranibar-Fernández’s Water Labor (2019-2021) by taking a closer look at the hand-embroidery in person. As I walked closer to the piece, I witnessed the tensions of each fabric holding each other - the land, the oil tankers and shipping containers represented by the sequins, the water - and felt intrigued by the idea of production. Why did she use soft, smooth fabric and sparkling sequins? How did she get the fabric to showcase the ripples of water while maintaining the form of the world together? Likewise, how did she fit the coordinates of the transportation of commodities? She began to discuss the generational talents of mending she learned from her grandmother and how Water Labor took time to create. The sequins act still on the map yet conceptualized movement, how then do we think about their production? The re-orientation of the world to counter the disordering of colonial relations to land and beings invites us to think, feel, and experience an understanding of Indigeneity within the Native American and Indigenous Studies field.

An invitation commonly refers to an encouragement, formal request, or card. As such, it may be “an action that causes or encourages something to happen”, “an occasion when someone is formally asked to do something”, or “a piece of paper or card that invites someone to an event” (Cambridge 1). When we are invited to become part of Dartmouth’s Class of ____ how do we position ourselves among a colonial institution?

Naturally, we are introduced to the origins of the school, its purpose, and how the institution will become our home during our undergraduate years. So, who were those invited prior to us? The idea of manifest destiny claims that white settlers held a legitimate invitation of their settler actions. Thus, invitations take on a variety of forms that have permeated into power relations in U.S. society. Unintentionally inviting is a form of invitation level that has “appeared by chance” to demonstrate “respect, trust, optimism, self-belief, etc. in its human interactions. The only problem is that this outcome is a side effect, it is ‘just the way it is’” (Haigh 302). A human interaction involves two parties, where there is a continuous effort to acknowledge each other. Here, however, the initial perception of trustworthiness turns into an animosity of intervention that exemplifies a lack of “maintenance” by their invitation. Negation of a community premises the Western invitation fundamental to North American colonialism and land dispossession towards a path to modernity (Norgaard and Reed 489).

Settler colonial invitations became associated with their impacts on “environments cultivated by Indigenous peoples to support Indigenous cultures, mental health and well-being, and political and economic sovereignty (including food sovereignty)” (Norgaard and Reed 468). This raises an inquiry, “How does the natural environment influence significant meso- or micro-level processes such as identity formation, the strength or composition of social networks, or the role of emotions in the internalization of racism and colonialism?” (Norgaard and Reed 464). The emotions mentioned are often neglected with an unintentional invitation and are vital to understanding the destruction of ecological relationships essential to Indigenous cultures.

Intentionally inviting is another invitational level that encourages a supportive, nurturing, self-aware environment where “places are caring and cared for” (Haigh 302).

One of the five protagonists, Eliana Garcia and their niece are seen organizing dehusked corn by color to dry under the sun.

As shown above, the Quechua women of the Peruvian Andes demonstrate a kinship to their agricultural practices as a core connection to their ancestors through generational knowledge of the land. Eliana acknowledges her intentional agency to pursue care for her home as those before her did while simultaneously sharing this epistemology to her niece who shall pick up what’s being taught. This praxis is evident among all Quechua women such as Brizaida who explains that land is “part of our family” that holds and produces life.

Brizaida Zucus, one of the protagonists of the film, discusses how Quechua culture appreciates land as an extension of their own.

Thus, as members of society that are not exclusively human, there is an aspect of Indigeneity that goes beyond a respect for human life to respect for all living beings that necessitates an invitation of reciprocity. Consequently, the agency active among both sides in an intentional invitation differs from a hegemonic incapability to sustain a valued relation in an unintentional invitation. 

Invitations hold a positive connotation to it, it's nice to be acknowledged and wanted. How do people convey this sentiment? To acknowledge, requires one to create knowledge of themselves. An Indigenous worldview honors oral conversations as a means of transmitting knowledge and relation (Kovach 43). Conversations may be held through the practice of storying as it weaves and connects individual stories into a story shared among people. Doing so, develops trust, reciprocity, and vulnerability when listening and speaking into a space (San Pedro et al. 678). Being in dialogue hence contributes to a valued relationship with those who are sharing stories towards a shared understanding of each other. No one is left “to be silenced, unacknowledged. We impact and are impacted.” (San Pedro et al. 690).

As Ivy League students who have or will most likely engage with research, how do your intentions respect a co-creation of knowledge? Keep in mind that “While certain western research paradigms frown upon the relational because of its potential to bias research, Indigenous methodologies embrace relational assumptions as central to their core epistemologies” (Kovach 42). Reciprocity begins at the preparation stage in the researcher's effort to give back (Kovach 46). When we engage in conversations in our respective fields, we act on a collective thinking that contribute to a shared forward momentum “by looking to our prior selves, words, and realities (retrospection), we were re-storying who we were by asking new questions and gaining new meaning and understanding in the present” (San Pedro et al. 679). By fostering a community discussion group for multi-tribal and multicultural students, San Pedro et al. enable students to reflect on “the importance of invitation, patience, and sacredness—when [a student] could or could not attend certain rituals. This liminal position has helped him develop meaningful relationships through sustained friendships that continually were (and continue to be) built on trust” (680). An invitation offers mutual support, remember that when you are situated in a position that may seem to “control” your resources but in reality, you are invited to work together.

The dangers of a dishonest invitation threaten everyone involved. Unintentionally disinviting is a target-driven control system that displays disregard, insincerity, a lack of concern, and more for those participating (Haigh 302). Reed describes management activities as undermining the intricate values of a process when he claims that “You can give me all the acorns in the world, you can get me all the fish in the world, you can get me everything for me to be an Indian, but it will not be the same unless I’m going out and processing, going out and harvesting, gathering myself” (466). There are steps involved with being invited or inviting others to connect with various forms of knowledge. Similarly, another Quechua woman, Sonia Quispe, conveys the same harms when one refuses to respect the knowledge construction:  

Sonia Quispe reaffirms Quechua identity through the intricate bonds they have with the land.

It seems obvious to respect an invitation, one should be courteous of their time to think about your presence. However, this has not always been the case. Intentionally disinviting is a powerful tool that controls, it defeats, disempowers, and discriminates to diminish the self-concept and confidence of others (Haigh 302). The telling and retelling of stories is an intimate public experience, that can also act as a “site of audiencing”:

The arpilleras offer us the opportunity to engage in tradition and art to retell an element of a story through the prism of our own individual experience. In this way, textile becomes “place”, traversing time and space while still indelibly connected to a particular moment and person—that piece of their mother’s tablecloth or grandfather’s old shirt, the location where these materials were made, all hold memory and history of place of their own…textiles serve as a less direct and less confrontational means of processing experiences than either oral or written art…[and] where imagery creates a visual narrative. (Clark 6)

On March 11, 2000, there was a massacre in Mampuján, Colombia by the paramilitary coalition, United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). More than 1,400 people were displaced due to accusations of affiliation with guerrilla associations. 

Powers that fail to learn, cause harm. They do not wish to learn from but rather invisibilize a group. What this tool lacks are the ability to feel, to empathize with the place they are inviting themselves to. Actions that actively produce violence do not understand that “Emotions animate meaning systems and structure power relations” (Norgaard and Reed 464). Invitation as a form of passing knowledge and experiences between people necessitates emotion.

Not only to determine the kind of invitation occurring but to form resistance. Norgaard and Reed findings of “racialized feeling rules and systems of oppression” to identify the Karuk people’s grief, anger, shame, and hopelessness that arise from the environmental decline as a possible motivation for action. There is an interconnectedness behind power, the body, and the nonhuman, that fuels destruction equally as it can generate resistance.

Hermanos Mapuche en huelga de hambre / Mapuche people on hunger strike. Chilean arpillera, Aurora Ortiz, 2011. Photo by Martin Melaugh.

Carolina Aranibar-Fernández Water Labor, 2019-2021, hand-embroidery and sequins on fabric, 38 13/16 × 49 13/16 in. Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth.

Sembradoras de Vida/Mothers of the Land 00:40:41

Sembradoras de Vida/Mothers of the Land 00:08:27

Sembradoras de Vida/Mothers of the Land 00:28:38

Desplazamiento / Displacement. Colombian arpillera, Mujeres tejiendo sueños y sabores de paz, Mampuján, 2010. Photo by Marin Melaugh.

To preface, the Mapuche people consider the category “Chilean” as racist and separate themselves from that racialization. Here, 34 peasant Mapuche prisoners went on a hunger strike to protest against being accused as terrorists by the state for defending their land.

“Invitational Theory is an applied field that seeks, intentionally, to modify the sum of the (often non-verbal) signals and signs that affect human self-belief and to create from these a system of educational practice” (Haigh 299). A request for companionship involves a variation of intentions and related outcomes. How does an invitation demand? Are those invited subjected to these demands? Is there an option to consider rejection?

Change is the only constant in our lives, thus my lasting invitation to you is to always remain in dialogue with the concern, confusion, discomfort, effervescence, collectiveness, and resistance that make up the interdisciplinary field that is Native American and Indigenous Studies. I pose this last inquiry to you, the reader, what places are you invited to in and outside of Dartmouth?

Works Cited

Aranibar-Fernández, Carolina. Water Labor, 2019-2021, hand-embroidery and sequins on fabric, 38 13/16 × 49 13/16 in. Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth. https://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/explore/collection/recent-acquisitions/2024-acquisition-highlights/water-labor

Clark, Fiona. “Literary ‘Arpilleras’: Textiles as Place-Based, Creative Pedagogy.” Modern Languages Open, no. 1, 2022,https://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.409

Haigh, Martin. “Invitational Education: Theory, Research and Practice.” Journal of Geography in Higher Education, vol. 35, no. 2, 2011, pp. 299–309, https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2011.554115

“Invitation.” Cambridge Dictionary, Cambridge University Press & Assessment, 2024, dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/invitation.

Kovach, Margaret. “Conversation Method in Indigenous Research.” First Peoples Child & Family Review, vol. 5, no. 1, 2010, pp. 40–48, https://doi.org/10.7202/1069060ar

Norgaard, Kari Marie, and Ron Reed. “Emotional Impacts of Environmental Decline: What Can Native Cosmologies Teach Sociology about Emotions and Environmental Justice?” Theory and Society, vol. 46, no. 6, 2017, pp. 463–95, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-017-9302-6

San Pedro, Timothy, Carlos, Elijah, and Mburu, Jane. “Critical Listening and Storying: Fostering Respect for Difference and Action Within and Beyond a Native American Literature Classroom.” Urban Education (Beverly Hills, Calif.), vol. 52, no. 5, 2017, pp. 667–93, https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085915623346

Sarmiento, Álvaro, and Diego Sarmiento Pagan. “Sembradoras de Vida: Mothers of the Land.” Berlinale, February 14, 2019. https://www.berlinale.de/en/2019/programme/201914060.html. 

Transforming threads of resistance: political arpilleras & textiles by women from Chile and around the world. 27 January 2012, Student Union Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts Amherst.