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- Title
Back to Nature? Conservatism and First Nations Cultural Ecologies.
- Authors
DÄWES, BIRGIT
- Abstract
In Kassel in 2012, the dOCUMENTA 13 exhibition featured seven landscape paintings by British Columbia artist Emily Carr, many of which depict First Nations totem poles in picturesque forest scenes. While these images of Native landscapes are experimental, powerful, and even subversive, they also uneasily ring with a tenacious cliché: that North America's indigenous people live in harmony with nature, balancing out their biospheres to wisely conserve their resources. In contrast to this popular image, this paper will sketch a First Nations cultural ecology beyond limiting dualisms. Inquiring into the close relationships between space and subjectivity, I will use examples by Velma Wallis (Gwich'in Athabascan) and Eden Robinson (Haisla/Heiltsuk) in order to trace the ways in which Northwestern Landscapes are translated into agency by First Nations writers. Taking up Joni Adamson's cue that we need to develop "a more inclusive environmentalism and a more multicultural ecocriticism," my approach seeks to not only illuminate alternative systems of knowledge in First Nations literature but also to expand the theoretical and methodological frameworks of ecocriticism.
- Subjects
CANADA; CARR, Emily, 1871-1945; INDIGENOUS art; ECOLOGY in art; ENVIRONMENTALISM in art; CANADIAN landscape painting; WALLIS, Velma; ROBINSON, Eden; ATHAPASCAN art; EXHIBITIONS
- Publication
Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien, 2014, Vol 34, Issue 1, p46
- ISSN
0944-7008
- Publication type
Article