Roots to Routes: Contemporary indigenous fiction by women writers in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand

Abstract

Scope and Method of Study: This study analyzes the role of place and its cultural significance in the fiction of eight contemporary Indigenous women writers from the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, four former colonies of the British Empire. I argue that places are social and cultural constructions that regenerate themselves as a result of their inhabitants' active participation. At the same time, the inhabitants' experiences in specific places aid them in renewing their relationships with their tribal and national histories and cultures. Places show that Indigenous people can survive in a postcolonial world, heal, regain homes and rituals, and subsequently build new homes and create new traditions.

Findings and Conclusions: Responding to postcolonial scholarship, which focuses on the violence of colonialism and on Indigenous people's loss of land and family members, I have found a different approach to place which deals with such losses. I suggest that even the most recent definitions of place can be revised and expanded so that they include an internalized and creative component, one which is shaped by people's imaginations and memories and also by their experiences of places. The Indigenous writers I examine show that places are not only concrete locations but also internalized processes that result from individuals' mental interpretations. This new way of thinking about place is relevant to many Indigenous people who lost their land and their family members because it implies an approach to place that involves going beyond one's physical presence in a particular location.