Representations of Rural Place and Indigenous Identities in Canadian Award-Winning Young Adult and Middle-Grade Novels

• In Event: Race, Space, Language, and Place

Abstract

This study examines representations of the land and rural places and identities in Canadian award-winning books written by Indigenous authors. The study contradicts dominant colonizing perspectives of “rural” and “Indigenous'' that undervalue and/or disregard the lives, knowledge and perspectives of rural Indigenous community members. While the books are rich with thick descriptions of the geographies, flora and fauna of places, the books’ representation of places is relational. Critical content analysis makes visible the books’ complex representations of rural land and identities where Indigenous characters are agentic, resilient, and adaptable in the face of settler colonialism.

Authors

• Karen Eppley, Pennsylvania State University
  Presenting Author

• Jeffrey W. Wood, Laurentian University
  Presenting Author

• Shelley Stagg Peterson, OISE/University of Toronto
  Presenting Author