| In this dissertation, I focus on the problem of how little we still study the knowledge production of indigenous peoples. This dissertation examines Native literacies in the Americas before and after contact and I also study the vernacular literacies and poetics of peoples of mixed racial descent (before and after 1492). I argue that engaging Native and Mestiza/o thought can produce dialogue beyond one discipline to reflect the reality of our plurilingual and pluricultural world.; The research concludes the following: in the ancient intellectual history of the New World, the text (or writing), image (in multi-dimensional forms) and orality in Native American traditions are not separated or disconnected arts. I also find that indigenous and mestiza/o identities are always and in all ways composing and rethinking their lettered and unlettered literacies and poetics. In this dissertation, I assert that as diverse scholars in our theory and methods, we need to continue to think about the history of knowledge production and we need to think beyond the conventions that we have inherited to produce and work towards creating more humane and dignifying ways of studying people and cultures.; I consider the writings of a range of scholars such as Michel de Certeau, Miguel Leon-Portilla, and Walter Mignolo among other key figures in the theories of knowledge production and in critiques of discourse and ideology. |
