Jamaican writer and philosopher Sylvia Wynter defines indigenization as the process that happens when a displaced Indigenous person’s return to their homeland is no longer possible. Be that as it may, the displaced Indigenous person develops an Indigenous relationship with the new land rooted in “spiritual, cosmological, and sacred relationships.” In this talk, Hawkes will discuss how Zora Neale Hurston presents African Americans’ indigenization within the United States through literary reflections on their relationships with the land and its peoples. Through an analysis of her creative and ethnographic work, Hawkes argues that Hurston presents African American and Native futures as inextricably intersecting based on their respective experiences with colonialist violence, thus broadening notions of indigenization within the discourse of Black Americanness and Indigeneity.

DeLisa D. Hawkes is an assistant professor of Africana Studies and an affiliate faculty of the Department of English and the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Program at the University of Tennessee, specializing in nineteenth to twenty-first-century African American literature. Her current book project, Separate Yet Intertwined: Rediscovering Black Indigeneity in the New Negro Renaissance, examines literary representations of Black Indigeneity and relational sovereignty in New Negro Renaissance-era literature.

SouthTalks is a series of events (including lectures, performances, film screenings, and panel discussions) that explores the interdisciplinary nature of Southern Studies. This series is free and open to the public, and typically takes place in the Tupelo Room of Barnard Observatory unless otherwise noted. Visit southernstudies.olemiss.edu for more information about all Center events.