Settler colonialism is trauma: Anhiti Patnaik, ‘How the Subaltern Speaks: Canadian Settler Colonialism and Narratives of Trauma’, IUP Journal of English Studies, 16, 4, 2021, pp, 37-44 | settler colonial studies blog

Settler colonialism is trauma: Anhiti Patnaik, ‘How the Subaltern Speaks: Canadian Settler Colonialism and Narratives of Trauma’, IUP Journal of English Studies, 16, 4, 2021, pp, 37-44

06Feb22

Abstract: This paper critically compares the work of two contemporary Canadian artists Leanne Simpson and Kent Monkman. Simpson’s innovative collection of poems titled Islands of Decolonial Love (2013) and Monkman’s provocative exhibition Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience (2014) emerge from their personal and historical experiences of settler colonialism in Canada, which continues to impact the lives of the First Nations People adversely. The paper reveals how Simpson and Monkman challenge the government’s tokenistic efforts at reparation and rehabilitation. To represent the specific horrors of urban poverty, sexual violence, and daily microaggressions that the First Nations People face without falling into the trap of appropriation or sentimentalism, Simpson and Monkman combine visual and aesthetic traditions from their Cree and Anishinaabe roots. This paper highlights the significance of these hybrid genres of First Nations storytelling in the project of decolonization and resilience. It demonstrates how the Native Canadian subaltern ‘speaks’ in these narratives without relinquishing the position of subalternity.

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