Term · Native North America
Survivance
Gerald Vizenor's term for an active Native presence that refuses narratives of disappearance and victimry.
The Anishinaabe writer Gerald Vizenor developed the term, notably in Manifest Manners (1994), combining survival and resistance. It counters the colonial story of the 'vanishing Indian' by emphasising continuing, creative Native presence.
For theatre history, survivance shifts attention from what was lost to how Indigenous performance continues and changes.