Weeks’chiloowew : Resistance and Disidentification in Tomson Highway’s Kiss of the Fur Queen and Jean de Léry’s History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil
This article examines the relationship between symbolic and physical violence toward First Nations peoples in the Americas. It examines the mutual sympathies of symbolic and physical violence, and the interdependence between them. Through an examination of how colonial and postcolonial narratives re...
Published in: | Canadian Review of American Studies |
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Main Author: | |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
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University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)
2020
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/cras.2018.025 https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/cras.2018.025 |
Summary: | This article examines the relationship between symbolic and physical violence toward First Nations peoples in the Americas. It examines the mutual sympathies of symbolic and physical violence, and the interdependence between them. Through an examination of how colonial and postcolonial narratives recount symbolic violence—through problematic narratives—and physical violence—through institutions like residential schools—the article charts how resistance to this violence is both actively mobilized and innate. Developing José Esteban Muñoz’s theory of disidentification, where resistance to colonial influence is neither an acceptance of dominant ideology nor overt resistance or opposition to it, early modern colonial documents are examined, and contemporary fictional texts demonstrate a third way of responding to dominant ideologies. |
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