HOME IN THE CHOCTAW DIASPORA: SURVIVAL AND REMEMBRANCE AWAY FROM NANIH WAIYA

Abstract

This thesis analyzes oral histories collected from Choctaw people since their displacement away from Nanih Waiya, to look for an understanding of Home and the formations of Home that have enabled Choctaw identities over time. Oral sources were reviewed from four collections that represent distinct spatial and temporal Choctaw perspectives, located at the Alabama Department of Archives and History, the Western History Collections at the University of Oklahoma, the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida, and the Center for Oral and Public History at California State University, Fullerton. The Choctaw values of survival and remembrance are so consistent in the analysis, that significant material formations observed in these collections are made meaningful by their relation to these values. Findings have been used to develop a narrative from a diasporic perspective that is rooted in the decolonization project of critically rereading history. Through oral sources and theoretical framing, the voices of Choctaw people contribute to and challenge colonial, postcolonial, and decolonization discourses.