Abstract
LeAnne Howe’s Choctalking on Other Realities (2013) is an eclectic text, described as “a combination of memoir, tragedy, absurdist fiction, and marvelous realism” (Howe, “Why I Write”). As it is based on the author’s experience of travel, I will read it as a travel narrative. While focusing on Howe’s travels out of the United States, I will underline the aspects in which her traveling subject differs from traditional travel narratives, which are usually characterized by an endeavor in an ethnographic, exploratory, or scientific presentation of the host. While doing so, I will point to this book’s textual involvement in pushing the boundaries of travel writing and, along with it, of indigenous activism. To this aim, I will discuss Howe’s concept of tribalography, as a tool for understanding and interpreting self, home, and the other. While stemming from one culture, tribalography is oriented towards a transnational understanding and the role of an artist on a global level. Howe’s text will be read with the background of recent Native American and women studies, travel writing theory, and postcolonial insights.
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Krivokapić, M. Traveling for reciprocity: LeAnne Howe’s Choctalking on Other Realities. Neohelicon 46, 521–541 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-019-00505-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-019-00505-1