| dc.description | Even so, it is true--as Gottlieb writes--that "collaborative projects often contain hidden sources of discomfort, accommodation, and compromise that may keep them at least distantly allied to . . . problematic political terrain" (1995:23). And as Lawless points out, in any case we need to acknowledge the effect our "cultural baggage" has on what we see, hear, and understand on both sides of the cultural interface (1992). Collaboration will always be an interactive standoff in one sense, with practitioners on each side obligated to take their own cultural constructions as well as those of their partners into consideration--with the realization that in many cases there will be no middle ground for sweet agreement. In this spirit, we feel that what we have accomplished with this collection is not in the realm of the impossible; rather, we have tried to do the possible, the plausible, the necessary, and we have tried to do it in the appropriate and responsible ways available to us. It remains for us, and for our many colleagues engaged in the study of Native American oral traditions, to continue opening up the mutually responsive, mutually responsible, dialogues that will bring forth the hundreds of other tribal literatures and languages of America. And it remains for all of us to learn how to hold them properly in our hands. | eng |
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