Imagining the Anthropocene Future: Body and the Environment in Indigenous Speculative Fiction (Studies in Linguistics, Anglophone Literatures and Cultures) [1 ed.] 3631905785, 9783631905784

Table of contents :
Cover
HalfTitle
Series Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1. Dualistic thinking and its implications
1.1 Dichotomies: Form/matter and mind/body
1.2 A woman as a body
1.3 The nature of a woman and essentialist theories
1.4 Nature/culture dualism
1.5 “We have never been human”
1.6 Dualism: The logic of colonization
1.6.1 Indigenous nations’ critique of capitalism
1.6.2 Gendered development and violence
1.6.3 The traumatic legacy of Indian boarding schools
1.6.4 Native American DNA
Chapter 2. Attempts at overcoming mind–body dualisms
2.1 Challenging Cartesian dualism
2.2 Early feminists and the body
2.3 Social constructionism
2.4 Sexual difference
2.5 Ecofeminism
2.6 Judith Butler and performativity
2.7 Monique Wittig: Unsettling the oppositions through the lesbian body
2.8 The material turn in feminist theory, environmental humanities and science studies
2.8.1 Agency without subjects
2.8.2 Elizabeth Grosz and corporeal feminism
2.8.3 Elizabeth Wilson and gut feminism
2.8.4 Donna Haraway: Cyberfeminism, cyborg and the body
2.8.5 Mapping (trans)corporeal transits
2.8.6 Nancy Tuana and viscous porosity
2.8.7 Stacy Alaimo and transcorporeality
2.8.8 Rosi Braidotti and the posthuman
2.9 A return to phenomenology
Chapter 3. “We Are the Land”: Toward understanding the Native American worldview
3.1 Feminist new materialism and Indigenous materialisms
3.2 We live in a cycle: American Indian thinking
3.3 The Indigenous sense of place, body and spirituality
3.4 An American Indian expansive conception of persons
3.5 Oral tradition and Indigenous storytelling
3.5.1 The healing power of stories and the role of language
3.5.2 Indigenous knowledge
3.5.3 Native science
3.5.4 Indigenous speculative fiction
3.6 “Ecological Indians”
3.7 Native American identity in the urban milieu
Chapter 4. Bodies, class, technology and environmental injustice in Zainab Amadahy’s speculative fiction
4.1 Zainab Amadahy’s The Moons of Palmares
4.1.1 (Neo-)colonization of the planets
4.1.2 Resistance
4.1.3 Battling the concept of a Noble Savage
4.1.4 Environmental racism and toxicity
4.1.5 Overpopulation, reproductive rights and environmental injustice
4.2 Zainab Amadahy’s Resistance
4.2.1 The urban environment
4.2.2 The oppression of women
4.2.3 More-than-human agency
4.2.4 Making kin with technology
Chapter 5. Reimagining heroism: Sacred mountains, plants and Indigenous women in Rebecca Roanhorse’s and Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s speculative fiction
5.1 Rebecca Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning
5.1.1 Native Apocalypse
5.1.2 “The Wall” and more-than-human agency
5.1.3 Violence against women
5.1.4 Reimagining heroism: The agency of women
5.1.5 Porous bodies and expansive definition of a person
5.2 Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s Oracles
5.2.1 The journey of an Indigenous heroine: Becoming a Medicine Woman
5.2.2 Human and more-than-human interconnections in Oracles
5.2.3 Reading objects: The significance of Indigenous knowledge
5.2.4 Capitalism, Indigenous knowledge and identity
Chapter 6. Biopolitical futures: Indigenous bodies, Native American DNA and making kin in the Anthropocene
6.1 Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves
6.1.1 Advanced capitalism and exhaustion
6.1.2 Indigenous circular storytelling
6.1.3 Animals and hunting: Complications to kinship
6.1.4 Unlearning the binaries: “We are all related”
6.1.5 Healing the land
6.2 “Make kin not babies”: On cross-species connections in the Anthropocene
6.2.1 Dystopian future in Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God
6.2.2 Extinction and kinship across species
6.2.3 Embodied experience as a pregnant woman
6.2.4 Science and religion
Conclusions
References
Series Index

Citation preview

Imagining the Anthropocene Future This is the first study to examine the intersections of Indigenous scholarship, theories of New Materialism and Native American fiction regarding the Anthropocene future. The book discusses selected speculative fiction novels by North American Indigenous female writers such as Zainab Amadahy, Rebecca Roanhorse, Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel, Cherie Dimaline and Louise Erdrich. They offer a distinctive contribution to the emerging trend in Native American literature called Indigenous futurisms. The writers challenge established paradigms of science fiction genre by presenting alternative worlds where Indigenous people are heroes and Native knowledge means power. The book discusses how academic theory and selected Indigenous speculative fiction address the possibilities for more complex conceptions of the materiality of human bodies and the more-than-human world.

The Author Paula Wieczorek is Assistant Professor in the Department of English Studies at the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszów, Poland. She specialises in contemporary Native American literature, ecocriticism and posthumanism.

Paula Wieczorek

Paula Wieczorek

40

Imagining the Anthropocene Future

Studies in Linguistics, Anglophone Liter atures and Cultures 40

Studies in Linguistics, Anglophone Liter atures and Cultures 40

Paula Wieczorek

Imagining the Anthropocene Future Body and the Environment in Indigenous Speculative Fiction

ISBN 978-3-631-90578-4

LALC_40_290578_Wieczorek_EV_A5HC152x214 GlobalL Kopie.indd Benutzerdefiniert H

06.10.23 12:56

Imagining the Anthropocene Future This is the first study to examine the intersections of Indigenous scholarship, theories of New Materialism and Native American fiction regarding the Anthropocene future. The book discusses selected speculative fiction novels by North American Indigenous female writers such as Zainab Amadahy, Rebecca Roanhorse, Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel, Cherie Dimaline and Louise Erdrich. They offer a distinctive contribution to the emerging trend in Native American literature called Indigenous futurisms. The writers challenge established paradigms of science fiction genre by presenting alternative worlds where Indigenous people are heroes and Native knowledge means power. The book discusses how academic theory and selected Indigenous speculative fiction address the possibilities for more complex conceptions of the materiality of human bodies and the more-than-human world.

The Author Paula Wieczorek is Assistant Professor in the Department of English Studies at the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszów, Poland. She specialises in contemporary Native American literature, ecocriticism and posthumanism.

LALC_40_290578_Wieczorek_EV_A5HC152x214 GlobalL Kopie.indd Benutzerdefiniert H

Paula Wieczorek

Paula Wieczorek

40

Imagining the Anthropocene Future

Studies in Linguistics, Anglophone Liter atures and Cultures 40

Studies in Linguistics, Anglophone Liter atures and Cultures 40

Paula Wieczorek

Imagining the Anthropocene Future Body and the Environment in Indigenous Speculative Fiction

06.10.23 12:56

Imagining the Anthropocene Future

STUDIES IN LINGUISTICS, ANGLOPHONE LITERATURES AND CULTURES Edited by Robert Kiełtyka and Agnieszka Uberman Advisory Board: Réka Benczes (Budapest, Hungary) Zoltán Kövecses (Budapest, Hungary) Anna Malicka-Kleparska (Lublin, Poland) Sándor Martsa † (Pécs, Hungary) Rafał Molencki (Katowice, Poland) Tadeusz Rachwał (Warsaw, Poland) Elżbieta Rokosz (Rzeszów, Poland) Slávka Tomaščíková (Košice, Slovakia)

VOLUME 40

Paula Wieczorek

Imagining the Anthropocene Future Body and the Environment in Indigenous Speculative Fiction

Lausanne - Berlin - Bruxelles - Chennai - New York – Oxford

Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available online at http://dnb.d-nb.de. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. This publication was financially supported by the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszów. Cover illustration: Courtesy of Benjamin Ben Chaim.

ISSN 2364-7558 ISBN 978-3-631-90578-4 (Print) E-ISBN 978-3-631-90976-8 (E-PDF) E-ISBN 978-3-631-90977-5 (E-PUB) DOI 10.3726/ b21277 © 2023 Peter Lang Group AG, Lausanne Published by Peter Lang GmbH, Berlin, Deutschland [email protected] - www.peterlang.com All rights reserved. All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. This publication has been peer reviewed.

Contents Acknowledgements .............................................................................................. 9 Introduction .........................................................................................................  11 Chapter 1. Dualistic thinking and its implications ............................  31

1.1 Dichotomies: Form/​matter and mind/​body ............................................  31 1.2 A woman as a body .....................................................................................  32 1.3 The nature of a woman and essentialist theories ....................................  35

1.4 Nature/​culture dualism ..............................................................................  37 1.5 “We have never been human” ....................................................................  39 1.6 Dualism: The logic of colonization ...........................................................  42 1.6.1 Indigenous nations’ critique of capitalism ....................................  43 1.6.2 Gendered development and violence ............................................  44 1.6.3 The traumatic legacy of Indian boarding schools ........................  46 1.6.4 Native American DNA ....................................................................  48

Chapter 2. Attempts at overcoming mind–​body dualisms .............  53 2.1 Challenging Cartesian dualism .................................................................  53 2.2 Early feminists and the body .....................................................................  55 2.3 Social constructionism ...............................................................................  56 2.4 Sexual difference .........................................................................................  58 2.5 Ecofeminism ................................................................................................  60 2.6 Judith Butler and performativity ...............................................................  63 2.7 Monique Wittig: Unsettling the oppositions through the lesbian body ..............................................................................................................  65 2.8 The material turn in feminist theory, environmental humanities and science studies ......................................................................................  67

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Contents

2.8.1 2.8.2 2.8.3 2.8.4 2.8.5 2.8.6 2.8.7 2.8.8

Agency without subjects ..................................................................  70 Elizabeth Grosz and corporeal feminism ......................................  76 Elizabeth Wilson and gut feminism ..............................................  79 Donna Haraway: Cyberfeminism, cyborg and the body ............  80 Mapping (trans)corporeal transits .................................................  82 Nancy Tuana and viscous porosity ................................................  85 Stacy Alaimo and transcorporeality ..............................................  86 Rosi Braidotti and the posthuman .................................................  88

2.9 A return to phenomenology ......................................................................  94

Chapter 3. “We Are the Land”: Toward understanding the Native American worldview ..........................................................................  99 3.1 Feminist new materialism and Indigenous materialisms ......................  99 3.2 We live in a cycle: American Indian thinking .......................................  102 3.3 The Indigenous sense of place, body and spirituality ...........................  106 3.4 An American Indian expansive conception of persons .......................  112 3.5 Oral tradition and Indigenous storytelling ............................................  116 3.5.1 The healing power of stories and the role of language ..............  118 3.5.2 Indigenous knowledge ...................................................................  121 3.5.3 Native science .................................................................................  125 3.5.4 Indigenous speculative fiction ......................................................  127 3.6 “Ecological Indians” ..................................................................................  131 3.7 Native American identity in the urban milieu ......................................  133

Chapter 4. Bodies, class, technology and environmental injustice in Zainab Amadahy’s speculative fiction ...........................  139 4.1 Zainab Amadahy’s The Moons of Palmares ............................................  139 4.1.1 (Neo-​)colonization of the planets ................................................  139 4.1.2 Resistance ........................................................................................  143 4.1.3 Battling the concept of a Noble Savage ........................................  144

Contents



7

4.1.4 Environmental racism and toxicity ..............................................  151 4.1.5 Overpopulation, reproductive rights and environmental injustice ............................................................................................  155

4.2 Zainab Amadahy’s Resistance ..................................................................  159 4.2.1 The urban environment .................................................................  159 4.2.2 The oppression of women .............................................................  161 4.2.3 More-​than-​human agency ............................................................  164 4.2.4 Making kin with technology .........................................................  168

Chapter 5. Reimagining heroism: Sacred mountains, plants and Indigenous women in Rebecca Roanhorse’s and Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s speculative fiction ...........................................  173 5.1 Rebecca Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning ..................................................  173 5.1.1 Native Apocalypse ..........................................................................  173 5.1.2 “The Wall” and more-​than-​human agency .................................  176 5.1.3 Violence against women ................................................................  179 5.1.4 Reimagining heroism: The agency of women ............................  182 5.1.5 Porous bodies and expansive definition of a person .................  187 5.2 Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s Oracles ..................................................  190 5.2.1 The journey of an Indigenous heroine: Becoming a Medicine Woman ...........................................................................  190 5.2.2 Human and more-​than-​human interconnections in Oracles ...  195 5.2.3 Reading objects: The significance of Indigenous knowledge ...  201 5.2.4 Capitalism, Indigenous knowledge and identity ........................  204

Chapter 6. Biopolitical futures: Indigenous bodies, Native American DNA and making kin in the Anthropocene ...................  209 6.1 Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves ..................................................  210 6.1.1 Advanced capitalism and exhaustion ..........................................  210 6.1.2 Indigenous circular storytelling ...................................................  214 6.1.3 Animals and hunting: Complications to kinship .......................  217 6.1.4 Unlearning the binaries: “We are all related” .............................  221

8

Contents

6.1.5 Healing the land .............................................................................  222

6.2 “Make kin not babies”: On cross-​species connections in the Anthropocene ............................................................................................  225 6.2.1 Dystopian future in Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God .......................................................................................  226 6.2.2 Extinction and kinship across species .........................................  231 6.2.3 Embodied experience as a pregnant woman ..............................  235 6.2.4 Science and religion .......................................................................  239

Conclusions ........................................................................................................  241 References ............................................................................................................  249

Acknowledgements The seeds of this book project were planted during my academic work with Professor Elżbieta Rokosz whose mentorship inspired me to pursue my research interests in Native American literature. I would like to thank Professor Rokosz for her invaluable advice and insightful comments. Her immense knowledge and experience have always encouraged me in my academic research. I am grateful to Dr Patrycja Austin for her guidance and critical feedback, which helped me crystallize several of the arguments included in the book. Her work has always been a considerable influence, without which I would have never followed this path. I am incredibly grateful for her suggestions that have undoubtedly improved the quality of this book. Many of the ideas included in the book developed thanks to the conversations I had with friends and colleagues. I would like to thank especially Stefanie Sachsenmaier (Middlesex University London), Lydia Kaye (Regent’s University London) and Natalie Schiller (University of Auckland, New Zealand), for their friendship, late-​night and early-​morning writing sessions, and mental support. The many conversations that we had gave me strength and inspiration to pursue my writing. I also wish to thank two reviewers Professor Joanna Ziarkowska-​Ciechanowska (University of Warsaw) and Professor Dorota Kołodziejczyk (University of Wrocław), for their critical comments and queries, which helped me shape the final version of the book. I would like to extend my heartfelt appreciation to the Indigenous scholars, whose books and scholarly works have been a tremendous source of inspiration and knowledge. Their writings have provided invaluable insights into Indigenous cultures, histories, and perspectives, shaping the foundation of this research. I am deeply grateful for their dedication to preserving and sharing Indigenous knowledge, which has contributed immensely to the advancement of academic scholarship and the broader understanding of Indigenous peoples. As a non-​Indigenous researcher, I recognize the importance of acknowledging my position and perspective within the research process. I am aware that my identity and experiences shape the way I approach and understand Indigenous communities and their knowledge systems. I strive to be cognizant of the power dynamics and historical context that influence the relationships between non-​Indigenous researchers and Indigenous communities.

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Acknowledgements

I acknowledge that as a non-​Indigenous researcher, I do not possess the lived experiences, cultural heritage, or ancestral connections to Indigenous communities. I recognize that Indigenous knowledge and perspectives are rich, diverse, and valuable, and they should be treated with utmost respect and reciprocity. I am committed to engaging in research that promotes decolonization, self-​ determination, and Indigenous sovereignty. I recognize that Indigenous communities have been subjected to centuries of colonization, dispossession, and marginalization, resulting in systemic inequities and injustices. It is my responsibility to work in collaboration with Indigenous communities, respecting their rights, protocols, and aspirations, and prioritizing their voices and agency throughout the research process. I understand that my positionality as a non-​Indigenous researcher necessitates ongoing self-​reflection, critical awareness, and a commitment to unlearning and challenging colonial frameworks and biases. Lastly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my mom, Ewelina Wieczorek, and my sister, Patrycja Wieczorek. Their belief in me has kept my spirits and motivation high as I worked on the book.

Introduction In the West, we have become disconnected from our bodies, and our bodies are disconnected from nature. —​Mary Phillips, “Developing ecofeminist corporeality”

[Matter] is not little bits of nature, or a blank slate, surface, or site passively awaiting signification, nor is it an uncontested ground for scientific, feminist, or Marxist theories. Matter is not immutable or passive. Nor is it a fixed support, location, referent, or source of sustainability for discourse. —​Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway

Despite numerous warnings from scientists and scientific organizations concerning climate change, most industrialized nations have not put long-​term ecological sustainability ahead of short-​term corporate profits. Instead, like in Bill Peet’s 1970 children’s book, The Wump World, politicians, business leaders and global elites are behaving like “The Pollutians,” who travel from a continent to a continent, a planet to a planet, polluting and then moving on to other pristine habitats without changing their economic and ecological behaviours. The reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are no longer producing adequate growth in public awareness as well. Birgit Schneider points out that “people observe daily weather changes, but they do not perceive climate—​ something which is, according to its modern definition, a statistically created abstract object of investigation with a long-​term assessment period” (2010, 82). Karen Barad also draws our attention to the theoretical treatment of “matter” and “environment” in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Matter has been viewed in terms of manageable “bits” and turned into “blank slate” for human inscription. Thus, everything recognizable as “nature” has become an “uncontested ground” for human development (Alaimo 2010, 1). In her paper on “Developing ecofeminist corporeality,” Mary Phillips explains that the above-​mentioned problems result from disconnecting ourselves from our bodies and nature (2016, 57). Human beings physically separate themselves from the effects of the weather in their offices, cars, and homes; as a result, they cannot feel how weather patterns change. For ecofeminists, such an alienation

12

Introduction

and instrumental use of nature can be attributed to the “logic of patriarchy” (see, e.g. Plumwood 1993; Warren 2000; Kheel 2008). This logic is reinforced through sets of interrelated dualisms, such as man/​woman, culture/​nature, mind/​body, reason/​emotion, which can be understood as oppositional concepts that place a higher value on what is identified as “male,” “reason,” “mind,” than on “female,” “emotion,” “body.” In addition, as Phillips points out, “human authenticity is coterminous with idealized, hegemonic masculinity defined in opposition to what is taken to be natural, nature or the biological realm” (2016, 58). This creates a disembodied and disengaged subject “free and rational to the extent that he has fully distinguished himself from the natural and social worlds” such that the “subject withdraws from his own body, which he is able to look as an object” (Taylor 1995, 7). The above metaphysical assumptions have influenced the relationship between people and the non-​human environment1; privileging culture over nature resulted in the ecological devastation of the natural environment, including species extinction, climate change, deforestation and rising sea levels, to mention a few. Hence, in the 1980s limnologist Eugene F. Stoermer suggested the term “Anthropocene” to name the epoch in which the forces of human existence began to overwhelm all other geological, biological and meteorological forms and forces. The notion was popularized at the inception of the 21st century by Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen (Steffen, Crutzen, and McNeill 2007, 614). Although the term has not been officially recognized as a formal unit of geological timescale, it has adopted a variety of meanings in many other areas including philosophy, politics,

1 Following Lawrence Buell, I use the term “environment(al)” to refer to “natural” and “human-​built” dimensions of the palpable world. I also use the term “nature” although I am aware that it is a contested idea. Some environmentalists, including Bill McKibben, have proclaimed “the end of nature,” stating that the degree of modification in the last half-​century was so profound that it is impossible to encounter a pristine physical environment (see McKibben 1989). For such critics as Bruno Latour, Neil Smith, Andrew Ross or Timothy Morton what is called “nature” never existed in the first place. As Lawrence Buell observes in Writing for an Endangered World, the nature/​culture distinction itself is an anthropogenic product, which derives from the transition from nomadism to settlement that started thousands of years ago in south-​western Asia (2001, 3). Avoiding the notion of “nature” would mean, however, excluding some of the writings of various authors who attempt to preserve, modify or supersede “nature” and other keywords sharing some of its principal meanings. In this book, I also use the term “more-​than-​human,” which tends to emphasize the primacy of relations over entities.

Introduction

13

law or communication. What is more, since many scholars claim that the Anthropocene reinforces the human-​centric view of the world which has led to the despoliation of the Earth, several alternative terms to the Anthropocene have been introduced, including the term “Capitalocene” proposed by Jason Moore in his book Capitalism in the Web of Life (2015, 173). The scholar, along with others, such as Naomi Klein, Slavoj Žižek and Andreas Malm, argues that the blame for the ecological crisis should be put not on humanity in general, but at (predominantly white, western and male) capitalism. Robert Macfarlane (2016) points out that as a neologism, the Anthropocene, has already become another “anthropomeme” and spawned a number of other alternative designations, such as “Plastic-​ene” (The New York Times 2014), “Mis-​anthropocene” (Clover 2014), “Anthrobscene” (Parikka 2015), “Plantationocene” (Tsing 2015), “Chthulucene” (Haraway 2016).2 Environmental destruction is not the only consequence of dualistic thinking. Such thinking is also responsible for the oppression of women, Indigenous peoples, people of colour, queers, and the lower classes, since, in Western thought, they have been defined as creatures closer to “nature” and hence as being outside the domain of rationality, subjectivity, and agency. Many feminist researchers have attempted to separate woman from nature. Nevertheless, by working within the prevalent dualisms, many feminist arguments reinforce a rigid opposition between nature and culture. For instance, the concept of gender, as opposed to biological sex, is based on a stark contrast between nature and culture. What is more, human corporeality, particularly female corporeality, has always been identified with nature in Western thought. Therefore, feminism has been fighting not only essentialism but also biological determinism, which similarly uses the idea of some inherent characteristics to justify male superiority. Social and feminist studies attempt to escape the assumption that some aspects of biology are

2 In this book, I use the idea of the Anthropocene as the measure of human influence on the planet. The term is used to some extend metaphorically, which is also recommended by Earth system scientists themselves: “[T]he Anthropocene used as metaphor might help trigger new normative and ethical thinking. If humanity now has the power of being a ‘geological force’, it follows that such power should be used carefully and sparingly…. That, at least, might enable the Anthropocene to symbolize hope rather than despair” (Zalasiewicz et al. 2017, 98). This assumes that humanity has the capacity to act with care and responsibility. However, my use of the term “Anthropocene” does not imagine a homogeneous human race. I write in dialogue with scholars who discuss the unequal relations among humans and human insignificance in the web of life by writing instead of Capitalocene, Chthulucene or Plantationocene.

14

Introduction

fixed and thus tend to be used by some people to justify racist, sexist, and heterosexist norms. Stacy Alaimo, a researcher in environmental humanities, disadvises the flight from the concept of nature which is associated with corporeality, mindlessness, and passivity. Instead, the feminist theory should attempt to transform gendered dualisms, including nature/​culture, body/​mind, resource/​agency, and others, which have been used to marginalize and suppress certain humans and non-​humans (Alaimo 2000, 4–​14). The only way to overcome humans’ alienation and estrangement from nature is to acknowledge that we are organic beings embedded in nature. Thus, the body is of immense importance in challenging the ways that femininity, nature and emotionality are cast. As Alaimo points out, “human corporeality in all its material fleshiness is inseparable from ‘nature’ or ‘environment’ such that embracing the vulnerability of the body is a recognition of precarious, corporeal openness to the material world where the human is not in nature but of nature” (2008, 238). Therefore, the sensations and emotions experienced through our bodies need to be reaffirmed so that people begin to develop caring engagement with nature and, thus, of ourselves that might lead to more appropriate reactions to the environmental and social issues humanity faces. Alaimo suggests that the only way to deal with the fixed concept of biology and nature is, paradoxically, “to endow them with flesh, to allow them to materialize more fully, and to attend to their precise materializations” (2010, 6). It is noteworthy that numerous Indigenous3 scholars have critiqued the Euro-​ Western academy’s present approach to human-​environmental relationships and 3 Following the practice of many Native and non-​Native scholars, I use adjectives “Native American,” “Native,” “American Indian,” “Indian,” and “Indigenous” interchangeably, although I am aware that these umbrella categories remain problematic. As many Native and non-​Native scholars point out, these notions may obscure the fact of Indigenous diversity. Hence, I mention tribal affiliations as well as tribal names when referring to particular Indigenous groups. What is more, the term “Indian” can be considered a contentious notion as it has legal connotations in Canada but it has been also used colloquially and pejoratively for a long time. However, I decided to use it since many Native American scholars embrace it as a term of empowerment. As far as the term “Indigenous” is concerned, it refers to Indigenous peoples around the world rather than being country-​specific. It includes First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. In this book, I use the term “Indigenous” not only to refer to the works of scholars and artists who are Indigenous to North America but also to other countries throughout the world. Although there has never been one specific worldview that comprises all Indigenous cultures, many Indigenous peoples seem to share similar issues and agree upon specific ways of perceiving and experiencing the world, which

Introduction

15

current trends in the Euro-​Western humanities—​new materialism, posthumanism and the ontological turn, as Eurocentric. While the human/​non-​human dichotomy has been fundamental for European thought since the Enlightenment, many cultures worldwide do not adopt such a distinction (Descola 2009; 2013), which is reflected in the novels discussed in the following chapters. Hence, Zoe Todd, the Métis scholar, has criticized settler scholars for imagining that they have “discovered” the entanglements of “nature” and “culture,” which is what many Indigenous thinkers around the world have known for millennia. The Western division between mind and matter or matter and spirit is antithetical to Indigenous concepts of matter. Most Indigenous societies, including Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee people, believe that humans are made from the land and our flesh is an extension of soil. Remarkably, Indigenous writers attempt to write bodies and natures in ways that emphasize their interrelations. Native American writing is currently undergoing a new renaissance, including contributions from widely recognized authors and new Indigenous voices. In an interview with Tommy Orange, Louise Erdrich described this flourishing period for Native American literature as “the third wave” of Indigenous writing (Orange and Erdrich 2020). While Native American literature has been associated with poetry, plays, novels, and short stories dealing with the trauma of the colonial past, the perception of what Indigenous authors are capable of writing has recently changed (Taylor 2016). Numerous Indigenous writers have attempted to depart from the Indigenous realism and the traditional representations of the colonial past; instead, they turned to speculative fiction, including fantasy, murder mysteries, science fiction and magical realism, to refer to the colonial history, represent its influence on the present situation of Native Americans and depict decolonized visions of future. Thus, this new current in North American literature, which allows the writers to represent decolonized futures, can be situated within a movement called “Indigenous futurisms,” which encompasses not only literature but also video games, comics and other forms of media expressing



have been also shaped by the experience of colonization. Following Chelsea Vowel (2016), the term “First Nations” is used in this book to refer to a diverse group of Indigenous peoples. I also capitalize “Indigenous” and “Native” out of respect to peoples for whom it is important to emphasize their political situations that have been shaped by colonization. In this book, I refer to the non-​Indigenous peoples living in North America who form the European-​descended socio-​political majority as non-​Native, non-​Indigenous, settler or settler colonials.

16

Introduction

Indigenous perspectives of the future. Indigenous Futurisms challenge, subvert, or refuse to engage with colonial, oppressive genre tropes. They also engage with Indigenous knowledge systems, languages, and traditions. Anishinaabe professor Grace L. Dillon first coined the term in his book Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction (2012). The idea of Indigenous Futurism pays homage to Afrofuturism, another political and artistic movement that combines traditional knowledge and culture with futuristic settings. It is crucial to pay attention to Indigenous science fiction since, as Kyle Whyte notices, mainstream fiction often erases certain populations, such as Indigenous peoples, who approach climate change having already been through transformations of their societies induced by colonial violence. Mainstream fiction presents dystopian or post-​apocalyptic visions of climate crises that leave humans in horrific science fiction scenarios; however, these narratives do not include Indigenous peoples’ perspectives on the connections between climate change and colonial violence (Whyte 2018, 225). Native Americans are rarely the protagonists of mainstream science fiction and fantasy. Many science fiction tales imagine aliens invading planet Earth with the intention of replacing humans—​typically white people—​and bringing the end of the world as a result of devastating battles. In his book Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction (2008), professor John Rieder explains this phenomenon with the fact that Western science fiction began to become increasingly popular in the late 19th century, during a period of European colonial expansion. While European countries were forming new ideas on racial hierarchy, writers of science fiction were exploring futuristic wars and invasions, imitating the violence occurring in the real world. What is more, in mainstream Western culture, Indigenous artists are often considered either not to be interested in science fiction or unconcerned about the cosmos or cosmic travel since they are believed to be more concerned with the planet Earth, or “Mother Earth” (a term frequently associated with Indigenous cultures). In the introduction to the volume Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies: Conversations from Earth to Cosmos (2017), Joni Adamson points out that these kinds of stereotypical assumptions are, however, far from true. The short story by Simon Ortiz (Acoma Pueblo), “Men on the Moon,” which has been reprinted many times since its first publication in 1999, may serve as an example. In Ortiz’s short story, an Acoma grandfather receives his first television from his grandchildren, who want him to watch American astronauts landing on the moon for the first time. The grandfather does not understand why the astronauts are going to the moon to collect rocks. His grandsons explain that in this way, they are trying to gain knowledge about the creation of the universe. The old man laughs: “Hasn’t anyone told them?” (Ortiz 1999, 11). The grandfather is

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sceptical about science and its ability to make anything possible. He ridicules scientists’ attempt to “discover” what for many has already been found, just as in the case of the discovery of the “New World.” Ortiz’s story criticizes Euro-​American understandings of power as colonization of wilderness and outer space. Moreover, the story evokes the key concepts in the Indigenous understanding of Earth and the cosmos, which involve complex entanglements of the human with the more-​than-​human. In the introduction to the first-​ever anthology devoted to Indigenous science fiction, Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction (2012), the editor Grace L. Dillon points out that among Indigenous people, “it is almost commonplace to think that the Native Apocalypse, if contemplated seriously, has already taken place” (2012, 8). In fact, Indigenous communities have long perceived themselves as living in a “post-​Native Apocalypse” (10). Daniel H. Justice echoes this statement: [Apocalypse] is more than speculation –​it’s experimental, even in its most fantastical, because in a very real way it hasn’t ended. Our nations are still subjected to the terrible traumas of colonialism… Our apocalypse isn’t a singular event, it’s an ongoing and relentless process, not unlike settler colonialism itself. Our nations’ resistance continues, as does our hope that there’s a better world beyond the apocalypse. Our stories affirm this hope, most often by exploring kinship and its powerful capacity to strengthen us, our commitments, and our resolve… Indigenous writers confront the racial logics of the state and their effects, not just on the human world but the other-​than-​human as well. (2018, 168)

In response to this “apocalypse,” many Indigenous artists imagine worlds where characters help communities recover and survive for viable, healthy futures (168). Dillon distinguishes such “science fiction” from limited understandings of the genre focusing on modern or future technologies (2012, 3). The author of the anthology also points out that “Indigenous science fiction is not so new –​just overlooked, although largely accompanied by an emerging movement” (2). Dillon “opens up science fiction to reveal Native presence” (2), drawing attention to the works of well-​known authors such as Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Almanac of the Dead (1991) and long overlooked Indigenous writers of science fiction, such as Sherman Alexie, Gerry William or Gerald Vizenor. The author of the anthology argues that science fiction written by Natives has the “capacity to envision Native futures, Indigenous hopes, and dreams recovered by rethinking the past in a new framework. [...] Writers of Indigenous futurisms sometimes intentionally experiment with, sometimes intentionally dislodge, sometimes merely accompany, but inevitably change the parameters of science fiction” (2–​3). In the 2016 volume Love Beyond the Body, Space and Time: An Indigenous LGBT Sci-​Fi

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Anthology edited by Hope Nicholson, Grace Dillon, writing about Indigenous science fiction imaginations, concludes that these narratives are about “persistence, adaptation, and flourishing in the future, in sometimes subtle but always important contrast to mere survival” (9). While literary scholars have focused on the ecocritical analyses of science fiction written by mainstream writers, scant critical attention has been given to the genre of science fiction created by contemporary Indigenous writers and, in particular, Indigenous female writers. Although women, whether Indigenous or not, have been creating science fiction from its beginnings, the genre has been long identified mainly with male authors writing for male readers. It was not until the advent of second wave feminism in the 1960s that female science fiction writers have become more recognized and associated with the genre. At that time, such writers as Ursula K. Le Guin and Joanna Russ began to use science fiction themes to explore women’s issues and the problem of sexism. In “Marginalisation of the Other,” Anna Gilarek points out that contemporary feminist science fiction continues to challenge “the patriarchal status quo in which gender-​based discrimination against women [is] the norm” (2012, 21). One way to achieve this goal is by rejecting the androcentric tendencies of traditional science fiction, which tend to limit its female characters to one-​dimensional roles. In Alien Constructions:  Science Fiction and Feminist Thought, Patricia Melzer points out that the narrative mode of science fiction is particularly useful to feminists since it allows to “create the freedom to voice assumptions otherwise restricted by a realist narrative frame” (2006, 1–​2). While there are numerous studies on mainstream feminist science fiction, there is still not sufficient research done on Indigenous feminist science fiction. Few writers have been able to analyse the way Indigenous women writers are using this genre to explore (female) body and how they link the problems of the body with the environmental issues. It is also noteworthy that North American feminists have been struggling for a long time to redefine the prevalent Western understanding of nature. Among various North American female writers, theorists and activists from the early 19th century to the present, who have presented nature as a habitat for feminist subjects, a place of freedom from the restrictive gender norms of the household, one can enumerate Catherine Sedgwick, Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary Wilkins Freeman, the Darwinian feminists Antoinette Brown Blackwell and Eliza Burt Gamble, Mary Austin, the feminist theorists Mary Inman and Rebecca Pitts, Marian Engel, Octavia Butler, and Jane Rule. Those feminist writers depart from social representations of women as “unnatural” and prove that nature can be imagined in a way that it is no longer identified as the

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ground of essentialism but as a habitat for gender-​minimizing feminisms. In her 1875 The Sexes Throughout Nature, a feminist Antoinette Brown Blackwell refers to the “inorganic world” to refute the cultural importance of sexual difference, claiming that the matter is constantly changing, and it also reveals the stiffness of sexual oppositions within the reign of culture (1875 [1976, 44]). Likewise, the early-​20th-​century feminist writer Mary Austin thinks of the desert as “an undomesticated ground for feminist subjects,” an uncontrolled area where there are no boundaries and gender is unravelled. The science fiction novels written by North American Indigenous writers can also be situated within this tradition of redefining the prevalent Western understanding of nature. In his 2016 book The Great Derangement:  Climate Change and the Unthinkable, Amitav Ghosh, just like a number of literary scholars before him, excludes science fiction from serious considerations on climate change. Following Margaret Atwood, Ghosh argues that “the Anthropocene resists science fiction” since it concentrates on “an imagined other world located apart from ours” (2016, 72). What is more, the Indian writer claims that climate fiction, except for Barbara Kingsolver’s and Liz Jensen’s novels, fails at representing climate issues, as it is “made up of disaster stories set in the future” instead of focusing on the recent past and present (72). I would like to argue, however, that Indigenous people use speculative fiction genres to imagine futures that make the readers think critically about the present and the past, which also results from the fact that they have a circular perception of time. What is more, (Indigenous) literature might be a means to deal with ecological crisis. Different scholars, including the geographer Mike Hulme, state that environmental problems, particularly climate change issues, should not be discussed solely in scientific terms but ought to be approached with a perspective based on an understanding of human beings as being “firmly embedded within the physical climate system” (2010, 38). Hulme asserts that literary fiction has the potential to allow for the comprehension of the abstract future and the reconnection between the actions and impacts of an individual and a whole community. As Jennifer Rose White puts it, literature “can project our understanding and appreciation of invisible, slow, and slowly accelerating crisis into the future in a dramatic way that other forms of discourse lack” (2009, 240). In the book Being Ecological, Timothy Morton also emphasizes the importance of literature, as well as other forms of art, in altering the course humanity is taking and shaping new worldviews:

20

Introduction Art is important to understanding our relationship to nonhumans, to grasping an object-​ oriented ontological sense of our existence. […] The aesthetic experience is about solidarity with what is given. It’s a solidarity, a feeling of alreadiness, for no reason in particular, with no agenda in particular—​like evolution, like the biosphere. There is no good reason to distinguish between nonhumans that are “natural” and ones that are “artificial,” by which we mean made by humans. It just becomes too difficult to sustain such distinctions. Since, therefore, an artwork is itself a nonhuman being, this solidarity in the artistic realm is already solidarity with nonhumans, whether or not art is explicitly ecological. Ecologically explicit art is simply art that brings this solidarity with the nonhuman to the foreground. (2018,  72–​73)

Drawing on Mathias Mayer’s and Edgar Platen’s concept of “ethical text cultures,” Hubert Zapf discusses the role of fiction in providing the “specific means of communicating ethical issues in such a way that it simultaneously resists conventional moralizing” (2016, 5). Fiction can provide a nuanced way of depicting the socio-​ political ramifications and the ethical dimensions of a particular problem that society faces by going beyond the conventional good versus bad moral narrative. Furthermore, owing to the detailed depictions of personal experiences and community interactions in a climatically changed future, fiction is particularly adept at generating emotion and empathy. Greg Garrard adds that fiction devoted to climate change problem might have both conciliatory and consilient functions: “bringing into an imaginative relationship competing ‘warmist’ and ‘sceptic’ factions, and assembling scientific, social scientific and humanistic forms of knowledge around a transdisciplinary conception of climatic risk” (2016, 300). It is worth noting that in this book, both terms “science fiction” and “speculative fiction” are used, but the expression “speculative fiction”4 is chosen to

4 Although there are different approaches to defining speculative fiction (see, for instance, Atwood 2011; Le Guin 2012), I use this concept as an umbrella term for the supergenres of science fiction and fantasy, as well as other non-​mimetic genres, including (post)apocalyptic fiction, utopia, dystopia, the gothic, horror, ghost fiction, slipstream, alternative history, time slip, steampunk, cyberpunk, supernatural romance, magic(al) realism, weird fiction, the New Weird, legend, myth, folktale, New Wave fabulation, and other interstitial genres. The understanding of speculative fiction as a supergenre has become increasingly popular among young researchers since the 2000s, but it failed to gain seasoned scholars, who consider it too broad. Some critics noticed that the term might refer to the narratives that speculate politically, socially, and scientifically or to texts that do not employ any fantastic elements. The beginning of the 21st century marked a profound shift in attitudes towards genre taxonomies and different modes of narrative speculation. The critics began to recognize the expansion

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recognize a more expansive understanding of science and technology and more heterogeneous kinds of speculative writing. The growing recognition of the term “speculative fiction” can be attributed to its inherent valuing of diversity. As Marek Oziewicz points out: Unlike fantasy, science fiction, horror and other genre labels, which are culturally situated designations that arose to describe European and North American developments in the Western literature field, speculative fiction opens a new discursive space for the voice of minorities and ethnic others within non-​mimetic narrative forms without relegating them to the ghetto of “ethnic” literatures. (2017, 18)

Since speculative fiction arose in the modern multicultural world, it rejects the “science for the West, myth for the rest” mindset informing traditional Western non-​mimetic genres with their often colonialist visions of spiritual or technological (con)quests. These days, speculative fiction draws attention to the existence of ethnic traditions of science and spirituality and affirms the cognitive value of speculative visions of the world formulated from a postcolonial or minority perspective. All these works show different forms of ethnic and cultural expression and subvert the Western dichotomy between the natural and supernatural, scientific and unscientific. As Nalo Hopkinson argues in So Long Been Dreaming, speculative fiction written from the point of view of black people differs substantially from mainstream science fiction and fantasy in that it subverts these genres’ Westernized schemas. Speculative fiction also accommodates works written in languages other than English and speculative fiction informed by Indigenous, Latin, Asian American, and other non-​Western traditions, which share a legacy of marginalization. As Oziewicz points out, “speculative fiction today refers to a global phenomenon of non-​mimetic traditions from around the world, whose contemporary ethnic examples often articulate multicultural reality better than the historically white and predominantly Anglophone non-​ mimetic genres” (19). Speculative fiction also has some intersections with Darko Suvin’s influential definition of science fiction as conveying “cognitive estrangement”:  “S[cience] F[iction] is, then, a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author’s empirical environment” (1979, 7). Speculative fiction leads to cognitive estrangement,

of non-​mimetic genres, different storytelling modes, and their diverse cultural roots, which led to their new positioning within a larger field of speculative fiction genres.

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Introduction

which makes the audience question the dominant status quo and voice alternative views that can move society in the direction of gender equality. Although the definition of speculative fiction includes alternative environments and thus indicates the sense of estrangement that accompanies an encounter with the unknown, “estrangement” also has harmful connotations since some speculative fiction intends to bring understanding by engagement rather than by the distance caused by estranging. Aims, objectives and material selected for analysis The aim of this book is to discuss the way academic theory and selected North American Indigenous speculative fiction address the possibilities for more complex conceptions of the materiality of human bodies and the more-​than-​human world. It explores the interconnections, interchanges, and transits that occur between human bodies and non-​human natures. Imagining human corporeality as what Stacy Alaimo refers to as “trans-​corporeality,” in which the “human is always intermeshed with the more-​than-​human world,” emphasizes how the substance of the human is inseparable from “the environment” (2010, 2). In fact, thinking across bodies may help people realize that the environment consists of fleshy beings with their own needs and actions, rather than inert, empty space or as a resource for human exploitation. The movement across bodies also reveals and acknowledges the unpredictable and unwanted actions of human bodies, non-​humans, chemical agents, and other actors as well. These types of complex representations of materiality can be found in a number of Native American speculative fiction books and stories, which are now thriving and becoming more popular. I have devoted my analysis to selected speculative fiction novels written by contemporary North American Indigenous female authors. These works include African-​American/​Cherokee Zainab Amadahy’s Moons of Palmares (1997) and Resistance (2013), Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo/​African-​American Rebecca Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning (2018) and Mohegan Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s Oracles (2004), Georgian Bay Métis Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves (2017) and Anishinaabe Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God (2017). There are a number of reasons why I have chosen this specific material for analysis. Firstly, Indigenous science fiction has long been overlooked by literary scholars, and it is still insufficiently examined. What is more, it is also important to see how the Indigenous writers subvert Westernized schemas of science fiction. The works analysed in this book can be classified as science fiction because they deal not only with Western science but

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also with Native science (this term will be explained in detail in section 3.5.3 of this book). I have decided to focus on speculative fiction written by North American Indigenous women rather than men since the works written by North American Indigenous women have not received enough critical attention. As already mentioned, the science fiction genre has long been associated with male authors writing for male readers. Moreover, the above-​mentioned works provide a female perspective on feminist themes, including gender equality, reproduction and the environment, and put female Indigenous characters in the centre of attention. Hence, they can also be classified more specifically as feminist science fiction. The selected works provide a perspective on the relations between the body (of women and Indigenous people) and the environment. Although this list of North American Indigenous female speculative fiction writers is not exhaustive,5 the book concentrates solely on futuristic novels, which represent the visions of Indigenous communities in the future and can, therefore, be situated within the movement of Indigenous futurisms. It is important to examine how the selected narratives counter the mainstream Western science fiction schemas where Indigenous protagonists are often not included. Furthermore, the selected novels present a vision of the Native post-​Apocalypse. As previously mentioned, the Native Apocalypse is said to have already taken place; thus, Indigenous communities in the novels discussed are still subjected to the ongoing trauma of colonialism. The novels analysed in this book present an optimistic future in which the Natives constitute the centre of the narrative, and there is a possibility of reversing the status quo. In contrast to its associations with the biblical canon, Native apocalyptic storytelling envisions the state of imbalance, the ruptures and the trauma in its effort to provide healing. Some scholars might argue that the selected novels constitute a broad scope of study since their authors are Indigenous writers from the United States and Canada. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that the linear borders between Canada and the US are an artificial construct for the First Nations who have lived on the lands geographically referred to as Turtle Island or North America since time immemorial (Lischke 2008, 220). These political boundaries imposed

5 Among other contemporary North American speculative fiction writers one can enumerate: Canadian Métis writer Katherena Vermette (the author of The Break 2016), Lipan Apache writer Darcie Little Badger (Elatsoe 2020), Sto: lo writer Lee Maracle (Celia’s Song 2014); Haisla-​Heiltsuk Eden Robinson (Son of a Trickster 2017); Métis writer Catherine Knutsson (Shadows Cast by Stars 2012).

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by newcomers in the 19th century have divided Native American communities and stopped their free movement. Native Americans, in their literature, express their resistance to these borders throughout their territories. The short story “Borders” (1991) by Thomas King, the writer of Cherokee, Greek and German ancestry, may serve here as an example. It tells a story of an Indigenous mother and her son who attempt to cross the Canada–​U.S. border. When asked for citizenship, they state that they are Blackfoot people. Since they refuse to identify as either Canadians or Americans, the border guards do not allow them to enter the US; they cannot return to Canada either, thus, remaining stuck in no man’s land. The story illustrates the arbitrariness of the border. It is based on King’s experiences involving a lack of recognition of Indigenous nationhood. The first writer whose works will be discussed further on in this book is Zainab Amadahy. She is a writer of African-​American and Cherokee ancestry who was born in the United States in 1956 and moved to Canada in 1975. She is the author of two feminist science fiction novels, Moons of Palmares (1997) and Resistance (2013), analysed in Chapter 4 of this book. These novels have been overlooked by literary scholars and received little critical attention. Amadahy also authored a suspenseful science fiction tale, Rebellion: The Script, written in screenplay format, and two non-​fiction books Wielding the Force:  The Science of Social Justice and Ways of Wielding the Force: 13 Exercises in Collective Care and Effectiveness. Her literary works depict Native North Americans living in the cities or interacting with people on distant planets. Amadahy’s experiments with speculative fiction, or “spec fiction,” as she refers to it, are informed by her activist experience. Amadahy has been an activist, volunteering in women’s programming, immigrant services, and community development. Her fiction allows her to explore social issues like colonialism and racism and enables her to empower Indigenous and other racialized characters who are rarely protagonists in non-​Indigenous American science fiction. As Amadahy notices, Indigenous people seem to have been excluded “from the majority of spec fiction out there. When [they] do appear, [their] cultures, histories, and bodies are too often ‘othered’ and ‘alienized’, and we exist only to enable the protagonist’s transformation or provide contrast to the values and behaviours of other characters” (quoted in Dillon 2012, 172). Through her stories, Amadahy demonstrates the interdependence of humans and non-​humans and illustrates alternative futures and different ways of organizing communities. The next author whose novel is discussed in this book is Rebecca Roanhorse, an Indigenous American speculative fiction writer of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo and of African American descent living in Northern New Mexico. She was born in Conway, Arkansas, in 1971 and raised in Texas. She is the author of a Nebula

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and Hugo-​winning short story, “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience” (2017). Her debut novel, Trail of Lightning (2018), has also been praised in the literary world. It won the 2019 Locus Award for Best First Novel and was nominated for the 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Novel. The novel is set in the future after a flood destroys most of the United States. The author makes many references in the book to the stories of the Navajo people, who call themselves the Diné. Roanhorse decided to write a novel referring to Navajo culture because her daughter is Navajo on her father’s side. Moreover, she worked with Navajo cultural consultants, including her graduate student, who corrected the grammar of the Diné language in the book and made sure her depictions of Navajo culture were accurate. Her unpublished manuscript was also read and approved by several of her Diné friends. However, it seems vital to acknowledge that since Roanhorse herself does not come from the Navajo culture, and she is only Diné by marriage, the vision of the Navajo community and its future represented in her novel has been criticized by some members of the Diné community (Reese 2018). Some of them believe that, due to the lack of Diné ancestry, Roanhorse “does not have the authority or experience to write about [their] people and culture” (Diné Writers Collective 2018). In addition, some Navajo scholars and activists have argued that the novel can be seen as a form of cultural appropriation, and they accused Roanhorse of misusing sacred stories. Nonetheless, I have chosen to discuss the novel in this book as it seems to include a relevant commentary on decolonized Indigenous futures, and it also challenges conventions of Western science fiction stories. The novel also shows Native and non-​Native readers that the Indigenous cultures of North America are thriving. Another point worth mentioning is that in 2019 Roanhorse published a sequel to Trail of Lightning titled Storm of Locusts. Over the past 2 years, she has also written, among others, Race to the Sun (2020), a novel based on Diné stories designed for the Young Adult market and The Between Earth and Sky (2020–​2022) sequence. Roanhorse’s works written after 2018 are beyond the scope of this study as they were published during more advanced stages of writing this book. The critique of Roanhorse’s novel also draws attention to a conversation going well beyond literature concerning what it means to be Native in the 21st century. The critics of Roanhorse’s novel are primarily Native academics linked to Ivy League institutions and share a certain idea of what Native literature should be. However, the issue of self-​identification becomes even more complicated when considering the increasing number of interracial and intertribal marriages that have given rise to a generation of mixed-​blood Indians who live not only in rural

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areas but also in cities. The matter of Native American identity in the urban milieu will be addressed in more detail in section 3.7 of this book. Another author whose work will be analysed in this book is Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel (born Melissa Jayne Fawcett in 1960), who is an enrolled member of the Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut. She is a Mohegan historian, Medicine Woman and an Indigenous speculative fiction writer in New England, who has taken an active role in the cultural life of the Mohegan Tribe since her childhood in Connecticut. She was trained in her traditional lifeways by her great-​ aunt, Medicine Woman Dr Gladys Tantaquidgeon. Zobel is the author of several Native American novels and historical biography, Medicine Trail: The Life and Lessons of Gladys Tantaquidgeon (2000). As far as Zobel’s literary work is concerned, she published a speculative fiction novel Oracles (2004), a New England Gothic Fire Hollow (2012), the YA murder mystery Wabanaki Blues (2015), as well as a mystery novel called Snowy Strangeways (2018). She is also a recipient of an Emmy for her work on the documentary “The Mark of Uncas” and a winner of numerous film festival competitions for her screenplays. Within the scope of this book, the focus will be on Zobel’s speculative fiction novel Oracles (2004), which represents a speculative vision of the Mohegan tribe’s future. Oracles has received little critical attention. So far, it has been analysed by Professor of English Studies Mark Rifkin in his book Fictions of Land and Flesh in the context of Native self-​determination (see Rifkin 2019). Another author whose work is analysed in this book is Cherie Dimaline. She was born in 1975 and comes from the Georgian Bay Métis Community, a part of the Métis Nation of Ontario. Dimaline is the author of six books, which can be situated within the speculative fiction realm: Red Rooms (2007), The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy (2013), a collection of short stories A Gentle Habit (2016), The Marrow Thieves (2017), Empire of the Wild (2019) and a follow-​up to The Marrow Thieves, Hunting by Stars (2021). In 2014, Dimaline received the title of the Emerging Artist of the Year at the Ontario Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. She is most noted for The Marrow Thieves, a speculative fiction novel set in a dystopian future, which has earned her a number of literary awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Kirkus Prize in Young Readers’ Literature, the Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature, and was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award. While literary scholars have mainly discussed the concept of decolonization in The Marrow Thieves, my reading focuses on the exploitation of both the environment and the body of Indigenous people. The last novel discussed herein is authored by Louise Erdrich (born in 1954). She is an enrolled member of the  Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, a tribe of the Anishinaabe. Her fiction reflects on the issues connected to

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her mixed heritage as she is the daughter of a Chippewa Indian mother and a German-​American father. She is the author of seventeen novels as well as volumes of poetry, children’s books and short stories. Her first novel, Love Medicine (1984), won the National Book Critics Circle Award. As far as the speculative fiction genre is concerned, she received a World Fantasy Award for one of her Ojibwe tales, The Antelope Wife (1998). In 2017, Erdrich explored a new genre and published a science fiction novel, Future Home of the Living God  (2017), which is set in a dystopian future where fertile women are imprisoned and forced to give birth to babies. The novel has been critically acclaimed and received the 2017 Governor General’s Award for young people’s literature in Canada and the 2018 CODE Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature, to mention a few. Erdrich’s novel was frequently compared to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. It will be further discussed in Chapter 6 of this book with particular attention drawn to cross-​species connections and the embodied experience of a pregnant woman. The above-​mentioned selected works of North American Indigenous female writers will be analysed drawing on both Indigenous studies scholarship and Feminist New (or Neo-​) Materialism, in particular the theories on the materiality of body and non-​human agency. Indigenous thought around the assemblages of human and non-​human parallels current ontological concerns and has made an impact on the development of New Materialism, which promotes the interconnectedness of all living things. In an interview with Rick Dolphijn and Iris van der Tuin, Rosi Braidotti discusses “neo-​materialism” as “a method, a conceptual frame and a political stand, which refuses the linguistic paradigm, stressing instead the concrete yet complex materiality of bodies immersed in social relations of power” (2012, 21). Braidotti emphasizes that Neo-​materialism has a feminist grounding by claiming that “the emancipation of mat(t)er is also by nature a feminist project” (93).  As discussed in more detail in section 3.1 of this book, Indigenous scholars have criticized settler scholars for pretending to have “discovered” the nature-​culture entanglements, which many Indigenous thinkers have known for millennia. This book will focus on the intersections between Indigenous scholarship and feminist new materialism. It will be suggested that these knowledge traditions should be in a relationship rather than in conflict. Some scholars might argue here that by criticizing dualistic thinking, including the separation between nature and culture, mind and body, Indigenous and Western knowledge, one reinforces those divisions. It is worth noting that the idea of New Materialism is to rethink these oppositions and what they can do and, thus, create a new ontology (Dolphijn and van der Tuin 2012, 119). Deleuze

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and Guattari best captured this thought in the following lines of their book A Thousand Plateaus: “We invoke one dualism only to challenge another. We employ a dualism of models only in order to arrive at a process that challenges all models” (1987, 20). By pushing dualism to an extreme, “difference is pushed to the limit” (Deleuze 1994, 45). Therefore, by rewriting the dualisms of modernity, new materialism becomes a philosophy of difference that opens up a “new” ontology (Dolphijn and van der Tuin 2012, 119). Structure of the book The book consists of six chapters. The first three provide a theoretical framework for reading the novels. The first chapter traces the roots of dualistic thinking, which has led to the loathing of the body in Western thought and colonization, gendered development and violence towards Indigenous people. The chapter also provides some insights into selected federal policies and societal treatment of Indigenous people in North America, resulting from the conflict between Native American and Western worldviews. The second chapter looks at different philosophical attempts at challenging mind–​body dualisms. It introduces some of the theoretical models, questions, and arguments of the work, focusing on how philosophy, including feminist corporeal theory and environmental humanities, have engaged with the materiality of human bodies and non-​human natures. The theories introduced in this chapter will serve as lenses through which selected novels will be analysed in the following chapters. The third chapter provides the theoretical background for understanding the Native American Worldview. There are fundamental differences in the perception of the world between American Indians and non-​tribal cultures like the American mainstream. Whereas the Western tradition employs linear thinking, which is a process of thought following a step-​by-​step progression, Indian thinking is often argued to be visual and circular in philosophy. The place is another crucial factor in how Indigenous people see the world and the universe. According to traditional Indigenous beliefs, the relationship between people and the land is understood in terms of intimate kinship bonds. This chapter discusses other crucial concepts, such as Indigenous knowledge, relatedness, spirituality, oral tradition, and the expansive conception of persons, to mention a few. The significance of this relationship is emphasized in Indigenous novels and stories, which are also a source of traditional knowledge passed from generation to generation. The subsequent chapters provide analyses of selected works written by contemporary North American Indigenous female authors, including Zainab Amadahy’s Moons of Palmares (1997) and Resistance (2013), Rebecca Roanhorse’s

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Trail of Lightning (2018) and Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s  Oracles (2004), Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves (2017) and Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God (2017). The book explores how Indigenous writers challenge the separation of nature and culture. My reading also focuses on the way the Indigenous female writers conceptualize nature and whether they acknowledge the agency of the more-​than-​human world, which is crucial for environmental ethics. The book is concerned with the way the selected Indigenous authors represent the relationship of human bodies with the natural and cultural environments. I will look at the way the connection between women and nature is represented in the works. What is more, my reading will reveal the Indigenous writers’ perspectives on technology and science. It focuses on how the selected authors juxtapose western sciences with Indigenous knowledge (science) and on the way the authors represent their relevance to sustainable development. Chapter 4 discusses the works of African-​American/​Cherokee writer Zainab Amadahy, particularly Moons of Palmares (1997) and Resistance (2013). In her novels, Amadahy illustrates the connections between body, class, race and place-​ based injustices. Racism has been premised on the rational triumph of mind over body, and it also results from savage discourses based on a Cartesian dualism between the cerebral European and the physical savage. Following Stacy Alaimo, racism is also discussed as environmental, which allows to prove how socio-​political forces produce landscapes that affect human bodies. Instead of showing the human body as an enclosed entity, it demonstrates that the body is vulnerable to the substances and flows of its environments, including industrial environments and their social/​economic forces. Zainab Amadahy links landscape, labourers and women by portraying their parallel plights. Forced to constantly maximize its “efficiency,” the body of the worker is treated like other “natural resources.” The Moons of Palmares also draws attention to the still prevalent colonial assumptions about family life. The writer addresses the true causes of environmental damage and inequality in order to preserve both nature and vulnerable humans from exploitation and encourage the development of environmental practices that will foster the vital symbiosis of human beings and the non-​human world. The novels also touch upon the issue of technology and its impact on women. The chapter also delves into the ways Amadahy conceptualizes the environment and its agency. The next chapter focuses on Rebecca Roanhorse’s and Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s speculative fiction. The novels depart from what Donna Haraway refers to as “the Man-​making tales of action with only one real actor, who is the hero, the world-​maker,” which tend to defer “the suffering of earth-​rotted passivity beyond bearing”’” (2016, 118). The Indigenous artists narrate tales where the

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knowledge of multitudes of the living Earth is not scarce. The chapter examines the way the novels reimagine heroism through female Native American protagonists that differ from the oppressive Western ideal of a hero. It also discusses how rocks and plants exert material agency in the novels. Unlike in traditional literary depictions of botany, the writers present plants and rocks as living beings, thus challenging the perception of life and nonlife. The chapter also addresses the cultural violence and disregard that has dominated the Western perception of animistic cultures and expresses the need to rethink the theory of animism. Chapter 6 is entitled “Biopolitical futures: Indigenous bodies, Native American DNA and making kin in the Anthropocene.” The novels discussed in this chapter, Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves (2017) and Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God (2017), indicate the continuity between recent sites of extraction of biovalue and a longer history of dehumanizing and dispossessing Indigenous people. The exploitation of biovalue discussed in The Marrow Thieves has specific and important connections to Indigenous people, who have been objectified by colonial perspectives that conflate them with the natural world rather than see them as subjects in their own right. The chapter discusses the way Dimaline’s novel reflects on the relationship between genetics, Indigenous bodies and Indigenous ways of articulating kinship and belonging. In addition, this chapter interrogates practices of biotechnology related to pregnancy and reproduction, as illustrated in Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God. It discusses the relation between women’s bodies and control over social reproduction as a basis for the growth of capitalism. The chapter explores how the boundaries between science and religion are blurred in Erdrich’s speculative fiction. It will be emphasized that it is crucial to respect non-​human others and “make kin” outside of normative familial (or species-​bound) structures. I will also discuss the way the above-​mentioned authors explore the concept of time in their works. It will be argued that the Indigenous writers represent coalitional bonds with the human and more-​than-​human others in their environments and argue for an environmentally sustainable and healthy relationship between the body and the Earth.

Chapter 1. Dualistic thinking and its implications 1.1 Dichotomies: Form/​matter and mind/​body The metaphysical assumptions of Greek philosophers about the body have significantly impacted Western philosophy and science as well as the life of societies. They have mainly influenced the current perceptions of bodies, the relationship between people and the non-​human environment; privileging culture (over nature) consequently led to the ecological devastation of the natural environment. Although the philosopher Rene Descartes is frequently considered to be the father of dualistic thinking in philosophy, the origins of this division are already noticeable in the works of the pre-​Socratic thinkers, who discuss the distinction between appearance and reality. This trend in our culture was continued by Plato, who claimed that the word body (soma) was first used by Orphic priests believing that man was a spiritual being trapped in the body as in a cage (sema) (Plato 1973, 255c). In his doctrine of the Forms, Plato describes matter as an imperfect version of the Idea. The Forms or Ideas are the perfect non-​physical essences of all things, while the material bodies are just the “representations” or “reflections” of these Ideas. Generally, the body was, according to Plato, a prison for the soul, reason and the mind (Plato 1953, 66). The body for Plato, and subsequently for Augustine, is the locus of everything that threatens humans’ attempts at control. In Phaedo, the philosopher explains that it is the reason that should control the body and the irrational site of the soul (80d–​81a). Plato’s thoughts can be considered one of the earliest depictions of the body politic. Treating the body as an obstacle to the functioning of the soul became popularized in the Greek-​Christian tradition. Such an approach is presented in the Christian tradition (initially St. Augustine’s version) that developed on the basis of Neoplatonic tradition (Plotinus’ version). Within the Christian tradition, there has always been a distinction between the God-​given soul and the sinful carnality that together form a complete unity. This separation is embedded in the doctrine promoting the mortal/​immortal binary. It is exemplified in the figure of Christ, whose soul was immortal but whose body and mortality was human. Living in the body means suffering and overcoming mortal challenges to attain the spirit being; that is why, early in Christianity, moral characteristics were ascribed to physiological disorders, while punishments and rewards for one’s soul were executed through corporeal pleasures and punishments.

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It is worth noting that the perception of the body by the Greeks (e.g. Aristotle or Plato) was not as unfavourable as the views postulated by Rene Descartes. In Plato’s Symposium, for example, the love of the body is one of the first rungs on the “ladder of love” that needs to be reached in order to contemplate the eternal Form of Beauty (see Plato 1951). For Greek philosophers, the body does not always mean an obstacle to knowledge; it can also be a stimulus to spiritual development. What is more, for Plato (and Aristotle), the living body is permeated with the soul, which can only leave the body at death. In contrast, for Descartes, mind and body are two distinct substances, i.e. a thinking substance (res cogitans, mind) and an extended substance (res extensa, body) (see Descartes 2019). In Cartesian dualism, the thinking substance is separated from the natural world, whereas the body is a self-​moving machine that functions according to the laws of nature. Thus, the soul or consciousness is excluded from the world; this results in a conception of knowledge or science as rooted in the principles of nature and which is indifferent to considerations of the subject. Descartes managed to link the mind/​body opposition to the foundations of knowledge and consequently place the mind in a hierarchical superiority over nature, including the body (see Descartes 2019). Since that time, the subject of consciousness is separated from the world of the bodies and objects. Another variety of this tradition, materialism, applied in modern science, assumes that what is known as mind or consciousness (subjectivity) is the product of an internally inert, passive, devoid of intrinsic value and intentionality, “dead” matter. This paradigm established by Descartes, which was subsequently incorporated in modern science, had been already present in the concepts formed by Bacon and Galileo and continued its life in the views held by Newton, Laplace, and Darwin.

1.2 A woman as a body Numerous examples in the history of philosophy have shown that women’s bodies were treated as an impediment in the pursuit of philosophical and practical ideals. In the Book V of Republic, in Plato’s discussion of the philosopher kings, women are presented as equal in reaching the position of guardians in the state, which could suggest an egalitarian approach to gender in Plato’s work (Plato 2008). However, the participants in the dialogue further agree that the nature of a woman differs from that of a man, and women are inferior to men in all their endeavours. The weakness of women is described in the context of the theory of the soul. In Timeaus, Plato explains the creation of the human soul in terms of a “degree of purity” and maintains that female souls are imperfect

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because they are closer to the body. In other words, there are two types of human nature and the better one is assigned to man (see Plato 1949). Aristotle also defines women as corporal beings. He explains the differences between male and female contributions to human reproduction regarding the metaphysical difference between matter and form. The mother provides the child with formless, passive matter, which is given form and shape as well as the soul by the father. In The Generation of Animals, Aristotle claims that a woman is a sort of a deformed man and the menstrual discharge is also a seed, but in an unclean form, that is, it lacks one ingredient: the principle, the Soul. A woman does not create on her own; she needs a principle, a source (i.e. a man) to provide the material element of movement and determine its character (see Aristotle 1953). Emphasizing women’s corporality as the cause of her inferiority in the reproduction process also serves to justify the inferior status of women in politics. The so-​called “somatophobic (or rather gynephobic) tendencies” are also present in the Christian tradition. Rosemary Radford Ruether describes various ways of connecting the corporality of women to their “natural” subordination to men. An example of a philosophical authority in this regard may be St. Thomas, who believed that Adam was created from a male soul and a female body, and that Eve, as a corporeal aspect of a man, was only his assistant in the reproduction (Ruether 1983, 156). Cartesian thought contributed to the perception of the body as an object for the natural sciences, in particular for biology and medicine. In her paper “The Decline of the One-​Size-​Fits-​All Paradigm, or, How Reproductive Scientists Try to Cope with Postmodernity,” Nelly Oudshoorn points out that the identification of women as the other resulted in setting the female body apart in a separate branch of medicine. The scholar points out that until the late 18th century men and women were conceptualized as similar (1996, 153). Women were believed to have the same genitals as men but “turned inside herself,” which was intertwined with patriarchal thinking, reflecting the values of the world in which “man is the measure of all things and woman does not exist as an ontologically distinct category” (Laqueur 1992, 62). It was in the late 18th century that the biomedical discourse began to perceive the female body as “the other,” which is different from the male body. The anatomists started to focus on the bodily differences between the sexes. The first body part which was examined in terms of differences was the skeleton, but then the attention was paid to other imaginable parts of the body, including cells, blood vessels, hair and brain by the late 19th century. This shift was the result of socio-​political changes, which led to new ideas about social relations between men and women, in which the complementarity rather than competition between sexes was highlighted. Following this change, the female

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body became the medical object and, thus, scientists reduced woman to a specific organ, i.e. the uterus. In the middle of the 19th century, medical attention was drawn to ovaries, which were considered to be an autonomous centre of reproduction in female animals, and the essence of femininity itself for women. With the emergence of gynaecology in the late 19th century and then sex endocrinology, woman became set apart in the institutional practices of biomedicine. The male was not separated on the basis of his sex since he was considered the standard of the species. Oudshoorn also notices that as a result of othering of women in biomedical sciences, the development of contraception focused on women only and was based on the similarities among them. The construction of similarities between women’s reproductive functions created a specific regimen of medication. Women were subsequently supposed to adjust to the demands of the new technology. Oudshoorn believes that the concept of similarity functions as the basis for the “development of universal technologies, […] that can be used by all women all over the world” since “scientific knowledge is universal by nature” (1996, 160). Since the heterogeneity of personal, cultural and economic needs imposes various demands on technology, in the late 1970s, reproductive scientists acknowledged the differences and they expanded their research programme. As a result, a variety of new markets emerged. Although reproductive scientists suggest that taking contraception is an individual choice, simultaneously they emphasize the need to control population growth. Thus, individual control clashes with population control by the state. While the rhetoric of individual choice seems to be addressed to humans all over the world, the rhetoric of population control is mainly centred on the countries of the Global South6, where it is considered a solution for environmental problems. In the name of environment protection, wealthy nations have been imposing methods of birth control and involuntary sterilization on women of colour and occasionally men in the Global South and in the United States. However, population growth cannot be seen as the only factor driver contributing to environmental degradation. In their 2011 book entitled Too Many People: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis, Ian Angus and Simon Butler

6 The term “Global South” is used to denote the regions of Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania. It is one of a family of terms, including “Third World” and “Periphery,” which refer to regions outside Europe and North America, which are typically low-​ income and frequently politically or culturally marginalized. (Dados and Connell 2012, 223).

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prove that carbon emissions rise mostly in the countries with little or no population growth, rather than in the densely populated areas (2011, 300). In his book Peoplequake, Fred Pearce explains that the environmental degradation does not result from a large number of children in Africa or South America (2011, 242). Food shortages, according to Angus and Butler, are caused by overconsumption in wealthy countries rather than overpopulation. Population control policies are no longer as racist as they used to be. Nevertheless, women of colour and low-​ income women continue to be perceived as “too fertile.” The problem of overpopulation and women’s reproductive rights is further discussed in section 4.1 in the context of Zainab Amadahy’s novel The Moons of Palmares. In Caliban and the Witch (2004), feminist Marxist Silvia Federici explains the relation between women’s bodies and control over social reproduction as a basis for the growth of capitalism. The subjugation of women’s bodies and reproductive capacities can be thought of as primitive accumulation that paved the way for the rise of capitalism. Federici argues that the witch hunts of Early Modern Europe were indeed a deliberate policy of the ruling class rather than mass murderous psychosis. Although the executions of witches were not conducted at a massive scale, the witch hunt was used to scare women so that they accept a “new patriarchal order where women’s bodies, their labour, their sexual and reproductive powers were placed under the control of the state and transformed into economic resources” (Federici 2004, 170). Since women’s sexuality was perceived as a potential threat to men, new regulations were introduced to control reproduction. This included putting women’s knowledge practices under suspicion, prohibiting birth control and making abortion illegal. Although the witch hunts ended, women’s reproductive knowledge and autonomy has been under control of patriarchy. Federici adds that gynaecology and technological innovation are not only formed by but they also institutionalize such structures as racism, patriarchy, and accumulation via social reproduction. The scholar argues that the regulation of women’s bodies resulted in turning women’s bodies into machines “for the reproduction of labour” (144). What is more, the 17th century witch hunts coincided with the emergence of capitalism, colonial practices, and the transatlantic slave trade. Stripping women of their reproductive rights meant organizing social reproduction as labour and identifying women’s bodies as places for the production and reproduction of capital.

1.3 The nature of a woman and essentialist theories Until the second half of the 20th century, the ideas of the body and materiality were primarily shaped by essentialism. The body was viewed as a foundation

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upon which sex roles, social structures, and the nature of women and men were built. Instead of providing some possibilities for social change, the body legitimized women’s inferior status in society. Elizabeth Grosz describes different patriarchal strategies which legitimize woman’s subordination in her essay, “A Note on Essentialism and Difference” (1990). The scholar distinguishes between related but not identical terms: essentialism, biologism, naturalism and universalism. The lack of distinction between these ideas led to some attacks on the feminists referring to “woman’s nature.” According to Grosz, essentialism points to the general concept of the nature of women. In this case, women’s essence is considered universal, and it is not always equated with the biology of the female body but with the certain forms of behaviour observable in social practices, such as being intuitive, emotional openness, and commitment to helping others. Biologism, according to Grosz, is a particular form of essentialism in which the feminine essence is defined in terms of women’s biological capacities. The main danger of biologism is the justification of the limitations of women’s social and mental abilities with their biological limitations, such as physical weakness or excessive emotionality. Naturalism can also be described as “a form of essentialism in which a fixed nature is postulated for women” (Grosz 1990, 334). It is usually based not so much on biological but rather on theological or ontological grounds. For instance, the nature of women might be seen as derived from the God-​given attributes. Universalism, on the other hand, refers to the universal social or cultural activities, categories, or functions, including sexual division of labour, to which women in all cultures are ascribed. It tends to emphasize only similarities between women in all social contexts, and it ignores differences. Thus, essentialist feminist concepts appear to be very diverse. By arguing that women’s current social roles result from their essence, nature, biology, or universal social position, these theories contribute to making such positions unalterable and thus politically justify them. Essentialism is closely related to the theories of human “nature,” that is, to the attempts to grasp the universal characteristics of the human species. According to various philosophical positions, “woman’s nature” is either completely different from “human nature” (male), or, at best, men and women share the same kind of human nature, but they differ as far as rationality, and moral awareness is concerned. In the latter case, one can speak of a man as an individual of a particular sex within the human species. A woman can only be a woman because she remains an incomplete and inferior being. In practice, this view justified the refusal of education for women.

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1.4 Nature/​culture dualism Essentialism is also linked to the widely held view that a woman is connected to nature and a man is connected to culture in philosophy. Until the birth of modern science, i.e. until the 17th century, the implications of these links were ambivalent. Nature was understood in two ways: as life-​giving and caring, and, on the other hand, as wild, unpredictable and dangerous. The image of a woman as a being close to nature was, therefore, also ambiguous. Like nature, the woman was both worshipped and blameworthy. The situation changed dramatically in the Enlightenment. A radically different approach to the identification of nature with women was presented in the works of Francis Bacon. Nature was no longer treated as a caring mother but rather as a mechanism that must be explained and controlled; nature and the woman were to be subordinate to the man—​the scientist of the New Philosophy. Although the relationship between mind and nature was supposed to be beneficial, analysing the metaphors Bacon used, such as breaking, enslaving, tearing out, this relationship indicates a relationship of submission: “I am sending you (the scientist) a message, to bend Nature with all her children to serve you and make her your slave” (Bacon 1996, 131). The proposed new concept of nature changed researchers’ attitude towards nature in modern science as well as towards women themselves. A woman as unpredictable and hysterical should remain under the control of a man and his science (mainly medicine). Her values as a babysitter were relegated to the background. Descartes strengthened this mechanistic view of nature, and by emphasizing objectivity and rationality as the main attributes of the human mind (i.e. of a man), he contributed to sealing the image of a woman as an irrational and, above all, emotional being. As far as Kant’s work is concerned, both genders are complementary to each other (different but equal). However, the male intellect is sublime and capable of producing a moral subject, in contrast to the female intellect, which is the intellect of beauty, unable to obtain the independent judgment necessary for autonomy (Kant 1965, 229). In his book The Cabaret of Plants, writer Richard Mabey emphasizes that plants, in particular, are perceived as a passive backdrop for human existence and animal life (2018, 4). Already ancient philosophers have focused more on animals, including the study of human beings. Although Plato described plants as living beings possessing souls and minds (Skemp 1947), Aristotle developed the idea of “scala naturae,” also referred to as the “ladder of nature,” or the “great chain of being,” which ranked all things in the natural world. Humans were put on top of the hierarchy since Aristotle considered them to be unique animals having reason, speech and language (Aristotle 1932). Plants were placed above

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inanimate things as Aristotle believed they lack the characteristics making animals superior, i.e. intentionality or the ability to communicate. This idea was influential in the medieval and early modern periods in Europe as it formed a hierarchical universe where inanimate beings were placed at the lowest level of the scale, followed by plants, animals, humans, angels, and God. “The great chain of being” made a contribution to the separation of humans from nature. What is more, the Aristotelian taxonomy of animacy, which removes stones from the hierarchy of animate objects, appears to have led to the classification of rocks as insensate. According to Aristotle, stones are excluded from the hierarchical chain because they are unable to eat and reproduce, thus, it can be deduced that they do not possess a soul. Furthermore, rocks were also not deemed dead since death implied the ability to live. Rocks were perceived as inert and insensate, which Mel Y. Chen, Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, describes as an “ontological dismissal” of their vitality (2012, 4). In their paper “Stone Walks:  inhuman animacies and queer archives of feeling,” Stephanie Springgay and Sarah E. Truman have distinguished two more different tropes through which rocks are positioned in relation to humans, including rocks as personified; and rocks as transformative (2017, 1). As far as the second trope is concerned, rocks are personified as stoic, commanding and wise, embracing the traits linked to the superiority of some bodies over others. For instance, the comparison “solid as a rock” is used to indicate human qualities that are highly valued. As far as the third trope is concerned, Stephanie Springgay and Sarah E. Truman provide an example of the conception of rocks as the Philosopher’s Stone, which can transform base metals into gold. Although this view seems to suggest the agency of rocks, the stone serves and benefits humans. In all three tropes, rocks are seen as a resource for consumption and exploitation. In a similar manner to the tropes of stones, the idea of animacy itself has been constructed by means of human logic. The term animacy relates to the “quality of liveness, sentience, or humanness of a noun or a noun phrase” (Chen 2012, 24). These are usually individual, heteronormative, male-​able bodies that can be found at the top of the animacy hierarchy. The lower the hierarchy level, the less agentic and animate bodies and things become. In order to support their view of rocks as lively, Springgay and Truman refer to Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) writing on “pure immanence,” which helps understand rock’s vitality. Pure immanence can be described as “matter-​movement” or “matter-​energy,” which is not implied externally to a body but arises from within (Deleuze and Guattari 1987, 407). Thus, instead of concerning rocks to be lively due to human characteristics such as possessing a soul, rocks can be described as animate since matter-​movement exists in all things. These ideas

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seem to reflect the thoughts of some geologists who have long considered rocks to be lively and constantly changing. In fact, the way they are formed has led to rock classification. Igneous rocks consist of a small number of crystalline minerals that developed from the molten interior of the planet. Nevertheless, most rocks are classified as sedimentary, meaning that they are formed when water moves around composite pieces of eroded igneous material, carbonated animals, plant material, and pieces of marine microfauna, which are then slowly bonded together by gravity. Long after the Renaissance, rocks and plants remained to be marginalized in philosophy and considered to be of less importance than animals. The Aristotelian ranking system influenced Martin Heidegger’s hierarchy of Being, which states that “the stone is worldless [weltlos]; the animal is poor in world [weltarm]; man is world-​forming [weltbildend]” (2001, 177). Contemporary philosophy focuses more on animals as well. Such landmark works as 1975 book Animal Liberation by Peter Singer or Donna Haraway’s When Species Meet (2008) and Cynthia Willett’s Interspecies Ethics (2014) may serve here as an example. In comparison to philosophy and science, literature have been more attentive to the plant world, however, Western literature tends to represent plants as the backdrop for human actions (Gagliano, Ryan, and Vieira 2017, x). As the awareness of the environmental issues increases, artists and scholars become more interested in the vegetal world. More writers draw attention to the agency of plants. In the analytical chapters of this book, it will be argued that Zainab Amadahy’s Resistance, Rebecca Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning or Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s Oracles present plants and rocks as living and vibrant.

1.5 “We have never been human” In the introduction to The Posthuman (2013), Rosi Braidotti echoes Bruno Latour’s and Donna Haraway’s claims that we have never been actually human. The scholar begins her study with the deconstruction of Cartesian dualisms and the critique of the universal value of Eurocentric assumptions about “Man.” The allegedly universal model of ‘Man’, first formulated by Protagoras as “the measure of all things” and then figured in Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, is exposed as a male of the species: it is He. What is more, this male is assumed to be white, able-​bodied, European, and a head of a heterosexual family. Such self-​assurance has played a fundamental role in creating a civilization model that equated Europe with progress and reason. As Braidotti explains: This hegemonic cultural model was instrumental to the colonial ideology of European expansion: “white Man’s burden” as a tool of imperialist governance assumed that

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Dualistic thinking and its implications Europe is not just a geopolitical location but also a universal attribute of the human mind that can lend its quality to any suitable objects, provided they comply with the required discipline. (2017, 23)

Until the 1960s, the universality of human reason in philosophical discourse remained largely unchallenged. It was not until the publication of Foucault’s The Order of Things that intellectuals were made to rethink what was meant by “the human.” In response to the normative model, feminist, antiracist, environmental, peace, and other social movements have developed their own strands of activist anti-​humanism or radical neo-​humanism since the 1970s. Feminism and race or postcolonial theory criticize the Self-​Other dialectics and the notion of difference as pejoration. Subjectivity is equated with universal rationality, consciousness and self-​regulating ethical behaviour, whereas Otherness is perceived as its negative counterpart. The difference is inscribed in a hierarchical scale and means inferiority, “to be worth less than.” Such epistemic violence acquires lethal connotations for people who get branded as others and coincide with the category of negative difference:  women, Native, and earthly Others. These are the sexualized, racialized and naturalized “Others” whose existence is unprotected and disposable. The critique of humanism denoted “the empowerment of sexualized and racialized human others” in the process of emancipation from the dialectics of master and slave (Braidotti 2013, 66). This empowerment allowed for the emergence of a “critical post-​humanism,” which is discussed in the writings of Edward Said and Paul Gilroy and in the works of such authors as Achille Mbembe and Iain Chambers. Humanism’s restricted notion of what counts as the human is a key to understanding why and how we got to a posthuman turn. Braidotti postulates the return to the critical posthumanism of postcolonial and feminist theory and sees the potential of critical posthumanism in the way it displaces “the unitary subject of humanism,” allowing for the conceptualization of a “more complex and relational subject” (26). A more detailed account of a relational subject is given in section 2.8.8. Similarly, the work of a critic and writer, Sylvia Wynter, stresses the intersection of notions of the human with questions of economics, an idea of particular importance to the themes explored in Chapter 6. Wynter criticizes, in particular, the formulation of European representations of the human and its globalization as a “supracultural universal” (2001, 43), which has led to a disavowal of other “modes of being human” (da Silva 2015, 91). In “Unsettling? the Coloniality of Being/​Truth/​Power/​Freedom,” Wynter traces different conceptualizations of the human in the context of theological and political beliefs in the Western tradition. Wynter discusses the emergence of the concept of the human in the Renaissance

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as homo politicus (Man1). Then, Wynter tracks its reinvention to homo oeconomicus (Man2), which was formulated within Darwin’s idea of a biologized hierarchy mapped onto phases of geographical development. This revision of humanness presupposes a division between the naturally selected (Europeans) and the “dysselected” by evolution as inferior species. The concept of Man2 later gave rise to the contemporary figure of Man, the investor/​overconsumer who “overrepresents itself as if it were the human itself ” (Wynter 2003, 260). Wynter also points out that the idea of Otherness was first attributed to those who do not embrace Christianity and then attached to those “dysselected” by evolution and, thus, racialized as inferior human Other, or Other-​than-​Man. Not only the racialized but also a transracial collection of “the poor, the jobless, the homeless, the underdeveloped” are persistently reproduced as Other-​than-​human (Scott 2000, 201). Thus, Western modernity invents “the Indigenous peoples of the Americas as well as the transported enslaved Black Africans as the physical reference of the projected irrational/​subrational Human Other to its civic-​humanist, rational self-​conception” (Wynter 2003, 265). The human is subsequently recognized as a racialized category, however, as postcolonial and posthuman scholars may agree, there has never been any human characteristic that can be generalized. Instead, there are many peoples, cultures, and modes of living, both within the urban agglomerations and within forests, plains, or shores, where care fosters forms of development that are not destructive to ecological futures. Indeed, Wynter suggests that this perception of the Western bourgeois man as the exclusive holder of the human category is the root of our most serious social issues, ranging from climate change to forced displacement and racialized violence: these “are all differing facets of the central ethnoclass Man vs. Human struggle” (261). Furthermore, Wynter suggests that humanities knowledge needs a revolution in that the human stops being conceptualized as the Western ethnoclass iteration but as “a new mode of experiencing ourselves in which every mode of being human, every form of life that has ever been enacted, is part of us. We, a part of them” (an interview with David Scott). She postulates a “parallel knowledge with respect to ourselves and the natureculture laws that govern our modes of being, of behaving, of mind, or of minding” (317). Thus, Sylvia Wynter’s work can be seen as part of a larger posthumanist project which seeks to deconstruct the modern human. It will be shown in the analytical part of this book, in Chapter 6, how Cherie Dimaline’s and Louise Erdrich’s novels challenge their readers to think about the processes by which we institute ourselves as what we are, and move beyond this generalized idea of a human, which is the reason for the ills represented in the stories discussed, including the destructive impact of extractive industries on the

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environment and Indigenous communities. By representing the existing injustices and inequalities, speculative fiction discussed herein draws attention to the fact that we live in the age of a certain idea of the human, one enrolled within colonialism, capitalism, industrialization, systems of control, and patriarchy.

1.6 Dualism: The logic of colonization In his landmark book Orientalism, Edward Said elaborates on European colonial dominance over East Asian societies. The Palestinian American scholar relies heavily on Michel Foucault’s theory concerning the concept of discourse as well as the knowledge/​power equation. Through constructing a mixture of facts and utopian fantasies, European colonizers objectified East Asian societies, thus forming the concept of “the Orient.” Said reveals the mechanisms of power exercised by the West, which contributed to the creation of the discourse of “Orientalism” that can be described as “the corporate institution for dealing with ‘the Orient’ (…) by making statements about it [the colonized], authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, [and] settling it” (Said 1978, 13). According to him, millions of non-​white people in the world were subjected to the role of the Other through Western discourses, in which the power over “the Other” was executed. Thus, Orientalism functioned as a representation system that reinforced the West’s supremacy over the East and shaped the West’s sense of self by defining, representing, and exercising control over “the Other” (14). In his 2009 paper “Indigenous Existentialism and the Body,” Brendan Hokowhitu points out that the clash of “embodied Indigenous epistemologies with disembodied Enlightenment rationalism” led to an “inauthentic void” that the Europeans sought to chart through such disciplines as anthropology and archaeology (2009, 110). The embodied cultural concepts from “other” epistemologies were seen as “authentic” only if they were understandable to Western cognition. The embodied holistic practices of Indigenous epistemologies challenged the reason of Enlightenment rationalism. Cherokee writer and literary scholar Thomas King explains in his book The Inconvenient Indian that this conflict of worldviews has been the basis for federal policies and societal treatment of Indigenous people. Ignorance of Indian conditions or cultural values cannot be considered the underlying issue in this context; the problem is arrogance—​the “unexamined confidence in western civilization and the unwarranted certainty of Christianity” (King 2012, 165). Colonial governments attempted to destroy Indigenous communities, their diversity and their autonomy. Native Americans have identified colonialism as the most important determinant of their ill-​health. Owing to white people’s

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trespass on Indigenous lands, the relation between the land and Natives was violated, which resulted in the destruction of many Indigenous communities. In his book That the People Might Live, Cherokee critic Jace Weaver considers depriving American Indians of their spiritual homelands to be synonymous with “psychic homicide” on tribal communities that the federal government committed (1997, 38). The removal of Native Americans from their lands deeply affected their spiritual and cultural identity since the lost lands were “populated by their relations, ancestors, animals and beings both physical and mythological” (38). Subsequently, as Simon Ortiz claims, Native people “felt dissipated, vanished, and disappeared. And placeless. And homeless” (2007, 142). Colonialism has also negatively impacted Indigenous knowledge systems, their history and languages.

1.6.1 Indigenous nations’ critique of capitalism Since the 1500s, the growth of capitalism has fuelled colonial expansion around the world. Glen Coulthard’s Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (2014) reflects on Indigenous living under tremendous strain in the regions where capitalist economic activity has been heightened. Although decolonization took place after World War II, capitalist states reasserted economic dominance over formerly colonized countries. Most Indigenous peoples live in settler states such as Canada, the United States or Australia that attempted and still seek to replace Indigenous peoples through assimilation or genocide. Therefore, settler states dominate most Indigenous peoples and their homelands. During the 1970s and 1980s, Indigenous nations fought for rights of self-​determination which are now guaranteed by the UNDRIP. In the 1990s, Canada and Australia changed their former positions on Indigenous self-​determination and adopted capitalist resource extraction in such places as the Yukon and Australia’s northern territories. Industrial corporations and governments see unexploited Indigenous lands and sacred places as opportunities for economic growth. The activities of extractive industries, such as mining, clear-​cutting, and oil drilling, result in environmental degradation, forced displacement of Indigenous people, and human rights violations, which means the abuses of Indigenous peoples’ right to lands or the right to determine one’s economic, cultural and social development. American Indians are rarely included in decision-​making processes concerning the planning of extraction projects, which is also reminiscent of the overall marginalization of Indigenous communities across the country. Hence, Indigenous peoples resist industrial companies in different ways, which combine direct action, cultural practices and social media (Fiskio 2017, 101).

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Global Indigenous movements, such as the Indigenous Environmental Network and the Idle No More Movement, have drawn attention to the destruction of sentient lands. Idle No More began in late 2012 as a protest against the passage of Omnibus Bill C-​45, which excluded Canadian Indigenous nations from the discussion concerning the protection of their waters and lands. Notably, the Canadian government intended to continue mining tar sands in northern Alberta, which are the traditional lands of Mikisew Cree and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations. The inhabitants of these areas suffer from increased cancer rates due to consuming high levels of contaminants in their foods (McLachlan 2014). A plan to build Keystone XL Pipeline Project resulted in the ongoing battles in the United States and Canada; the project was, however, terminated in 2021. As Leanne Simpson (Anishinaabe) notices in her article “Anticolonial Strategies for the Recovery and Maintenance of Indigenous Knowledge,” many Indigenous peoples have been pressed to participate or sometimes have willingly embraced capitalist life in order to survive (2004, 377). Nevertheless, many of them have maintained anti-​capitalist Indigenous value systems. For instance, numerous Indigenous communities in the United States built casinos to fight economic poverty, but they also manage their sacred places within their territories relying on Indigenous principles of relation. This problem is illustrated in Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s novel Oracles and will be further discussed in Chapter 5.

1.6.2 Gendered development and violence The economic activities and colonial interventions in American Indian societies have also transformed Indigenous ideas of power relations. Jennifer Nez Denetdale, a Diné feminist, has discussed how Western gender hierarchies disrupted the place-​thought and changed gender and traditional governing principles. Denetdale criticizes her Indigenous government’s decision to deny marriage rights to Diné Two-​Spirit couples (2009, 131). Diné used to recognize gender variability as sacred, however, it adopted Western patriarchal values, which influenced contemporary gender roles (Denetdale 2017a, 153). Professor in Indigenous Studies Kim Anderson (Ojibwe) points out that “pre-​contact gender relations were based on equity and balance, and that male dominance in the areas of governance, social relations, economics, and spiritual practices were introduced by settler society as a way of breaking down Indigenous families and communities” (Anderson, Innes, and Swift 2012, 267). Indigenous peoples’ sense of non-​hierarchal genders and sexualities was considered an abnormality that needed to be eradicated through violence.

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In order to enhance settler economies, Western nation-​states have attempted to erase Indigenous peoples through culture-​genocidal practices. Indigenous peoples’ epistemologies and ontologies were seen as primitive due to their attempts to maintain their historical and ancestral relationship with place and matter. This type of thinking is also gendered and violent (Blaser, Feit, and McRae 2004). Implying that Indigenous are nonprogressive or infantile creates a primitive/​modern dichotomy, leading Western society to dismiss contemporary Indigenous political and social strategies. Western development practice reinforces this viewpoint in the notions of underdevelopment and undeveloped countries. What is more, sexual violence is an ongoing assault against Indigenous women and their nations. Professor in American Indian Studies Dian Million (Athabascan) considers domestic violence to be economic violence, which is part of violence directed against the Earth viewed as a female being (2013, 10). In their paper on Indigenous masculinities, Kim Anderson, Robert Alexander Innes, and John Swift point out that Indigenous men used to be responsible for protecting their families and communities from harm and providing them with food (2012, 271). What is more, Principles of non-​interference and non-​coercive relations meant that everyone was honoured for their responsibilities, and thus the role to “protect” and “provide” ensured a sense of purpose, belonging, and identity that did not involve having power over others human, animal, or environment. (271)

Western colonists attempted to destabilize this order by imposing coercive gender training that made Indigenous women submissive to men while destroying Indigenous economies that supported their egalitarian communities. Since “nature” was subjugated by “men” in Western thought, Indigenous men and women were to be submerged in Western hierarchies. As a result, the roles of Indigenous men often vanished in the new economies, while women were supposed to do household work. Ethnographer and historian of social movements, Scott Lauria Morgensen draws attention in his research to the close relationship between the sexual and gender colonization of Indigenous peoples. In “Theorising Gender, Sexuality and Settler Colonialism,” Morgensen asserts that “Gender and sexuality are intrinsic to the colonization of Indigenous peoples and the promulgation of European modernity by settlers... Theories of settler colonization will remain incomplete if they do not investigate how this political and economic formation is constituted by gendered and sexual power” (2012, 2). In 1995 Winona LaDuke, the founder of the Indigenous Women’s Network, explored the relationship between capitalist development and heightened violence against women. During her talk at the United Nations Fourth World

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Conference on Women in Beijing, China, LaDuke noted:  “The origins of this problem lie with the predator-​prey relationship industrial society has developed with the Earth, and subsequently, the people of the Earth. This same relationship exists vis a vis women” (1995, para. 10). Indigenous peoples perceive violence against the earth and women as interconnected and reflexive. The Native Youth Sexual Health Network website also emphasizes how Indigenous people understand the relationship between violence against their bodies and lands:  “Connected to Body, Connected to Land,” which means that what happens to the land also happens to our bodies and communities (“What We Believe In” n.d.). Thus, land degradation parallels the destruction of peoples, particularly Indigenous women. This problem is further explored in the analytical chapters of the book discussing selected Indigenous speculative fiction novels.

1.6.3 The traumatic legacy of Indian boarding schools Of all the policies that the colonial regime introduced, the policy regulating the school systems had, and continues to have, the most far-​reaching destructive effects on both Indians and non-​Indians in North America. The Indian boarding school era lasted from 1860 to 1978 and resulted from the U.S. Congress passing the Civilization Fund Act in 1819. The rule intensified the U.S. government’s campaign to assimilate Indigenous people to Western culture. These policies aimed to “kill the Indian,” as U.S. cavalry captain Richard Henry Pratt put it, “and save the man.” The act was an effort to erase America’s original cultural identity and replace it with the one Europeans had imported to America. Native American children were forbidden to use their own names and languages in boarding schools, and they were also punished for the practice of tribal culture and religion. They were given Anglo-​American names and haircuts. The federal government and the Catholic Church often forced Native families to send their kids to live at boarding schools through police seizures and threats. Indigenous children were forbidden to contact family and community members. The students were exposed to excessive discipline, humiliation as well as emotional, physical and sexual abuse. Medical attention and food were often scarce and, as a result, many students died. Sometimes children’s parents learned of their death only after they had been buried in cemeteries. It was in the late 1970s that Congress banned the forced removal of Indigenous children from their families. However, as the historian David Treuer notes in his book, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America From 1890 to the Present, “the full effect of the boarding school system wouldn’t be understood until decades after the agenda of ‘civilizing the savage’ ground down” (2020, 140).

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Canada operated hundreds of Indian residential schools with similar assimilationist agendas, which aimed to assimilate Indigenous children into the dominant culture and erase their epistemologies, practices, laws, and languages. Residential schools were introduced as an officially sanctioned program of schooling by the Canadian government in the 1870s (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015). The Residential School system was designed to separate the children from their families and to destroy the transmission of Indigenous stories, and languages from one generation to the next. It is estimated that over 150,000 Indigenous children were removed from their communities and forced to attend the residential schools run by the Catholic, Anglican, United and Presbyterian Churches across the country (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 2008). As a result of being denied access to the family and its support, Indigenous students developed self-​esteem problems, self-​destructive behaviours, depression, anxiety and substance use disorder. According to Daniel Schwartz, death rates at residential schools were comparable to Canadian soldiers in action in World War II. It was reported that the odds for children dying in Residential Schools was 1 in 25, while the odds of dying for Canadians serving in World War II was 1 in 26 (Schwartz 2015). Many former students revealed that school officials abused them culturally, emotionally, physically, sexually and spiritually. The problem of Indian residential schools is one of the issues raised by Cherie Dimaline in her novel The Marrow Thieves, which is discussed in section 6.1 of this book. The centuries of colonial policies aimed at undermining cultural identity and assimilating Indigenous peoples into Euro-​Western culture have led to trauma that is passed through the generations. A Métis writer, Jo-​Ann Episkenew explains, American Indians live with “intergenerational post-​traumatic stress disorder” (PTSD), which results from generations of colonial policies focusing on destroying Indigenous cultures (2009, 22). The symptoms include perpetuating anxiety and depression, but also violence against oneself, family or community (rather than against the settlers) and addiction as a way to ease the despair of political and personal powerlessness. Other effects of trauma include alterations in relations with others, e.g. withdrawal and isolation. What is more, Indigenous women are suffering from chronic low-​level depression resulting from living with colonial policies and historical trauma. The psychological stress of discrimination is often accompanied by physical harm, which involves higher rates of heart disease and other health problems, as well as alcohol and drug problems (22). Thus, colonization has a long-​term impact on Indigenous people.

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Although the colonized effort to educate the Native American children negatively impacted them, many of these students became prominent Indian leaders, like Charles Eastman. The government could not permanently transform the Indian mind as the students continued to think about concepts introduced to them from an indigenous perspective. Fixico points out that the Indigenous students subsequently saw things in a dual perspective, from their tribal view and from the white world view (2013, 101). It was not until the 1960s that mainstream America began to recognize and accept the Indian voice in academia.

1.6.4 Native American DNA The way Native American bodies have been marginalized historically continues to affect the way they are treated these days. In her book Native American DNA, Indigenous Studies scholar Kim TallBear draws attention to an increased interest in the extraction of DNA samples from Indigenous people, which resulted in the objectification of Indigenous bodies in the study of genes and redefining tribal sovereignties. During the 19th century, the American School of Anthropology examined Native American remains collected from battlefields or gravesites. Genetic scientists had to first rebury the bodies and then boil them so that clear bones could be sent to laboratories. Thus, rather than respecting human remains, the scientists perceived them as appropriate for inquiry. This mindset seems to be the same as the one seeing Indigenous people as “savages” (the idea of a “Noble Savage” will be discussed in section 3.6). With the discovery of DNA by Francis Crick and James Watson in 1953, the discourse of genes replaced the motif of blood as a determinant of Native American identity. As TallBear notices in her Native American DNA, the gene imagery has also influenced the language of Indigenous people. TallBear points out that, similarly to many Americans, North American Indigenous people are rarely using blood imagery and, instead, discuss what “is coded in [their] DNA” or [their] “genetic memory” (2013b, 4). The Indigenous scholar also explains the reasoning behind the employment of such imagery: Genetic memory refers to a sense of ancestral memory. That is, one might know a place or have knowledge of a place and the non-​humans found there that was not gained actively or personally. Rather, one somehow carries or embodies such knowledge or has a sense of having been in a place before because of ancestors’ historical experiences of that place. One often hears such accounts in relation to the idea that descendants continue to retain knowledge or a sense of deep familiarity with place in spite of their ancestors’ dispossession from the land and from tribal languages. Or descendants might have inherited “in our DNA” historical trauma from ancestors that continues to hamper individuals in their daily lives decades later. (8)

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This sense of inheritance used to be described as residing in the blood. TallBear argues that the ideas of blood and genes should be treated separately due to their complex historical and ideological meanings. Referring to the works of such Indigenous scholars as Jill Doerfler or David Treuer, TallBear concludes that linking the concept of blood to genes simplifies the complexity of the blood concept in historical and cultural contexts. This involves blood quantum policies that are used to determine an individual’s Indigenous status, and are considered to be a tool for controlling Indigenous peoples. In her insightful examination, TallBear describes the phenomenon of Native American DNA as a “research object and tool for categorizing molecules and humans” (7). The scholar also applies a concept of “coproduction,” which Sheila Jasanoff considers to rely on the idea that [k]nowledge and its material embodiments are at once products of social work and constitutive of forms of social life… [Scientific] knowledge both embeds and is embedded in social practices, identities, norms, conventions, discourses, instruments and institutions –​in short, in all the building blocks of what we term the social. (2004, 2–​3)

Therefore, the social and cultural contexts are inseparable from the processes of knowledge production. The beginnings of the Native American DNA idea date back to the 1960s, when new biochemical techniques were used to reveal ancient human migration patterns. The anthropological genetics allowed to study a set of markers or nucleotides in mitochondrial and chromosomal DNA, which provided a tool to “trace” the genes of “founder populations” (TallBear 2013b, 2–​3). These discoveries led to the emergence of such projects as, for instance, the Human Genome Diversity Project and the Genographic Project, which focus on gathering samples of communities, who are often on the verge of extinction, to create a map of the human genome and migratory history. These projects show how genetic technologies reinforce old understandings of biological race. To call attention to the harmful implications of genetic research, scholars apply such notions as “biocolonialism” and “bioprospecting,” which focus on connections “between exploitative capitalist practices and the emergence of biological (in particular, genetic) diversity as a site of informational and commercial value” (Reardon 2009, 15). As Native American Studies scholar Joanna Ziarkowska points out, the technologies connected to Native American DNA not only lead to the reproduction of colonialist discourses in biotechnology but also affect Native American sovereignty (2021, 146). The knowledge produced by genomic scientists from the Native American DNA does not reflect the Indigenous conception of Indigeneity. The development

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of the terms “Indigenous” and “Indigeneity” in the 20th century draws attention to the links between the histories of the oppressed people and the concept of decolonization. As Taiaiake Alfred and Jeff Corntassel point out: Indigenousness is an identity constructed, shaped and lived in the politicized context of contemporary colonialism. … It is this oppositional, place-​based existence, along with the consciousness of being in struggle against the dispossessing and demeaning fact of colonization by foreign peoples, that fundamentally distinguishes Indigenous peoples from other peoples of the world. (2005, 597)

Indigenous Studies emphasize the need to acknowledge and respect non-​Western ontologies and epistemologies which are fundamental to Indigenous people. Although Indigenous people around the world are culturally diverse, their cultures are often based on relatedness with their place and non-​humans they share the space with. In contrast, genomic scientists intend to determine who was first to appear in a particular place and the direction from which they came. TallBear clarifies that “Indigenous notions of peoplehood as emerging in relation with particular lands and waters and their nonhuman actors differ from the concept of genetic population, defined as moving upon or through landscape” (2013a, 514–​ 15; emphasis in original). Thus, Indigeneity understood in terms of relatedness, resists colonialist notions of “authentic” Indigeneity as existing “before” contact. Genomic conceptions of authentic Indigeneity refuse to include the vibrancies of Indigenous identities, but they are focused on biological descent and relations between various groups across time and space. As a result, Indigenous groups are seen as categories and their blood is used to discover ancient migratory patterns. This approach is based on the idea of what TallBear refers to as “disappearing indigene” which predicts the extinction of Indigenous peoples and, subsequently, places a priority on collecting their blood samples. TallBear also draws attention to the theory of “Mitochondrial Eve,” which suggests that the entire humanity has one genetic mother. This narrative, however, ignores the racialized colonial histories of America, Europe, and Africa. Black and Indigenous bodies were perceived as primordial and subjugated, which points to the inconsistencies of the “we-​are-​all-​related” narrative (513–​20). Furthermore, Indigenous peoples’ claims to self-​determination might be challenged by means of discourses of genomic Indigeneity, which seem to affect the way Native identities are understood in political and legal contexts. As TallBear notices, “The shortcomings of these tests are that they examine a very few lineages that comprise a very small percentage of one’s total ancestry, less than 1 percent of total DNA” (43). Thus, a person’s North American Indigenous ancestry may not be revealed

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on the test at all and, thus, the genetic testing should not be decisive in tribal enrolment cases (TallBear 2013b, 82–​83). What is more, genetic testing simplifies legal and cultural definitions of Native American identities, and creates “gene fetishism,” which assumes that DNA may provide a definitive answer to queries about one’s identity and lineage. Genetic ancestry tests misrepresent the complex cultural, and social interconnections. Furthermore, scientists have also been criticized for taking Indigenous DNA without fully informed consent. In certain cases, such as the Havasupai and Nuu-​chah-​nulth incidents, researchers mislead their subjects about the type of research that would be conducted using their samples. The Indigenous blood samples were used for three different studies, which were focused on diabetes, schizophrenia and historical patterns of consanguinity. Thus, researchers treated Indigenous samples as their property, which they can exploit according to their needs. What is more, TallBear emphasizes that the Havasupai case exemplifies the process through which Native American DNA … has emerged as a new natural resource that, like Native American land in the nineteenth century, can be appropriated by the modern subject –​the self-​identified European, both the scientist and the genealogical researcher –​to develop knowledge for the good of the greater society. Through the biotechnosciences, Native American biologies become part of the property inheritance of whites, including the right to use DNA to control the meaning of group identity, or race. (136)

Such efforts to form precise definitions of Native American identities by scientists are considered to be similar to abuses of tribal lands and cultures. As American Indian legal scholar Rebecca Tsosie explains, the Havasupai case indicates the legal system’s inability to acknowledge tribal claims of spiritual and material harm resulting from the extraction of biological materials from Indigenous bodies (Tsosie 2007, 396). In many Indigenous cultures, bodily substances preserve the essence of the individual, even after being removed from the body (405). While many Indigenous groups believe their rights are linked to responsibilities to protect the resource, Euro-​American courts value individual autonomy, focusing on resources as capable of being owned and exploited. They recognize property interests in objects or ideas, whereas DNA is seen as raw material. The issue of Native American DNA is further discussed in section 6.1 in the context of Cherie Dimaline’s novel.

Chapter 2. Attempts at overcoming mind–​ body dualisms 2.1 Challenging Cartesian dualism As it was discussed in Chapter 1, dualistic thinking has contributed to the perception of the body and natural environment as passive resources to be exploited. Privileging culture over nature has also had a negative impact on those perceived as closer to “nature,” i.e. women, Indigenous peoples, people of colour, and the lower classes. In the context of the views presented above, the rehabilitation of matter, nature and the body seems to be a task that, from the point of view of feminism, cannot be postponed any longer. This task is even more urgent as the “information culture” of the generation developing in the environment of various multifunctional computer devices and virtual reality is spreading today. Despite the impression of enormous diversity, this culture is still based on the traditional Cartesian view and even strengthens it. The primary distinguishing feature of a man in this culture is, above all, the human mind. Hence, this chapter focuses on different philosophical attempts at challenging mind–​body dualisms. It is worth pointing out that numerous philosophers, such as Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Vico, have rejected Cartesian dualism. The work of Spinoza is of particular importance here, as it has provided inspiration for many theorists, including Rosi Braidotti. Moira Gatens claims that Spinoza’s work offers a way to overcome the dualisms dominating traditional philosophy while allowing to comprehend a non-​oppositional concept of difference, which is necessary to restructure male and female relations (1996, 68). Spinoza’s fundamental presuppositions concern the absolute, infinite, non-​divisible substance, which cannot be reduced to finite things. In turn, finite things cannot be regarded as substances but as modifications or modes of one substance. Substance possesses infinite attributes to express its essence. Each attribute expresses substance as long as it is infinite; however, each attribute is considered incomplete when it expresses substance only in one form. According to Spinoza, extension and thought, or body and mind, are two such attributes. Therefore, while Descartes describes the body and mind as two different and incompatible substances, for Spinoza, these are different aspects of the same substance, inseparable from one another. God is also considered an infinite substance expressed in extension and thought, which means that God is corporeal and mental. The mind and body do not interact because they are like two sides of the same thing, of which they are equally dependent aspects.

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Spinoza also employs a machine metaphor to liberate conceptions of the body from the prevailing mechanistic models associated with Cartesian tradition. The machine metaphor is applicable only to the bodies of animals and is based on a system of moving components whose energy is supplied by the external power source. For Spinoza, metabolism is not simply the fuelling of a machine-​body but a constant process in the self-​constitution of the machine-​organism. In other words, the living organism exists as a continuous interchange of its own parts and has its permanence and identity rooted in this process. The identity is determined by the relations between a thing and co-​existing entities and temporal and historical continuity. As far as the soul is considered, Spinoza attributes it to human bodies and describes it as an expression of the organization of a particular kind of body. Animals, plants, and inorganic matter possess soul; however, the type and degree of the “soul” differ depending on the type and complexity of the body. According to Spinoza, the entire state of the body at a certain point is not only the effect of the body’s inner constitution and organization, but it is also constantly actualized as a result of its being affected by other bodies and “external” factors. Spinoza is unsettling the mind–​body opposition as well as nature/​culture, essence/​social construction dualisms. In other words, bodies are biological, historical, cultural and social weavings. The body is not a state of being but a series of processes of becoming. The Cartesian model was also challenged in the 20th century by Einstein’s theory of relativity and by quantum theory. In philosophy, the most important breakthrough was made by Alfred North Whitehead, who introduced a philosophy of organism, also called process philosophy. Exceptions to Cartesian dualism can also be found much earlier in the history of philosophy (and science). Apart from Anaximander, Heraclitus and, to some extent, Aristotle, Giordano Bruno proposed a theory different from the mechanistic one and described it in the dialogues published in 1584, that is before Descartes’s Meditations. According to Giordano Bruno, the cosmos is built of self-​organizing animate “intelligent matter.” Although Bruno had a chance to disseminate his theory and his view of the relationship between matter and mind would help to base modern science on a non-​mechanistic philosophical foundation, Cartesianism gained wider attention. In her 1987 Flight to Objectivity, Susan Bordo sheds light on the effects of Descartes’ philosophy. The book was written under the influence of Evelyn Fox Keller’s research, while the title of Bordo’s book refers to the work by Karl Stern, Flight from Woman (1965). According to Bordo, Descartes aims at “the liberation of res cogitans from the confusion and obscurity of its bodily swamp” (Bordo

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1987, 108). By referring to pure reason as a method allowing for a “re-​birth” of science and turn to objectivity, Descartes masculinized science. His theory of knowledge was a psychological reaction to the anxiety caused by the loss of mother nature. The pain of separation turned into a persistent insistence on the autonomy of reason. Departure from femininity was a flight towards the universe of scientific purity, clarity and objectivity—​masculinity. Nature, now identified with the body, is inactive, inferior, mindless, impure and monstrous matter to be opposed to.

2.2 Early feminists and the body In response, feminist philosophers have attempted to overcome challenges raised by an essentialist definition of the body and find a ground for liberation, such as in the ability of women’s minds to transcend their bodies. Early Western feminists chose to stress the rational thinking of the female mind; since, as François Poullain de la Barre stated, “the mind has no sex” (Poullain de la Barre 1673 [1990, 87]). This theoretical approach meant endorsing a dualism between mind and body. It was crucial for the early and later feminists to dismantle any deterministic relation between corporeality, mental abilities, and social role. Such feminists as Wollstonecraft, Mill and Taylor Mill considered reason to be a universal human capacity separate from and independent of physical characteristics. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the bodies of middle-​class women were seen as commodities to be maintained in order to enable them to tempt men into marriage so that they would have the financial resources to survive. Women’s bodies were treated as objects for others’ appraisal. Mill and Taylor Mill described the body as a source of vulnerability, which was visible in their proneness to illness resulting in interruption to their philosophical work and life plans. What is more, the female body could not be seen as a source of sensual pleasure because of the possibility of conception. The issue of the body also became prominent in 19th-​century Britain owing to Josephine Butler’s fight against the Contagious Diseases Act (Jordan 2001). This legislation permitted for women to be exposed to forced medical checks for venereal diseases. Butler’s movement marked the beginning of arguments used in further campaigns against sexual violence, as well as in the battles for access to birth control and abortion, which stress women’s rights to have control over their bodies. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the movement for women’s suffrage influenced feminist activity in the West. For example, Cady Stanton, chief philosopher of the woman’s rights, looks in her writings at the way bodily markers are implied to reinforce racial and sexual oppression.

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Following the First World War, right-​wing and left-​wing politics addressed the issue of reproduction. Due to the loss of human lives in the war and concerns over racial purity, motherhood became a concern of the state. Hence, political rights began to control the reproduction of society. At the same time, women in the United Kingdom formed the Abortion Reform Association, which echoed feminists’ earlier demands for women’s rights to decide over their own bodies. The implicit dualism still remained an issue since the body was considered to be something over which the self had rights, thus, something owned by and separate from the self. (see Lennon 2019) With the advent of psychoanalysis at the beginning of the 20th century, a new model of the relationship to bodies emerged, which later became significant to feminist philosophers. The ego, or the conscious sense of self, was first and foremost “a bodily ego” to Freud (1923 [1962, 26]). In other words, the sense of self involves an awareness of the body as being shaped or formed in a particular way, which is determined not only by anatomy but also by the affective and sensory importance. Some areas of the body tend to be more significant than others, as they are connected to the feelings of pleasure and pain or the possibility of agency (the hands), whereas other anatomical parts do not reveal themselves unless they are painful. These observations of Freud and others had an impact on the subsequent critical theories on the body.

2.3 Social constructionism Various critical analyses of essentialism have made many feminists believe that the categories of “man” or “woman” are not universal concepts, but they have been socially constructed, always depending on the interests and views of their current users. The first to criticize essentialism were women of colour; then, the concept was disapproved of by the Third World women and lesbians. They claimed that there are no references to their situation in the feminist discourse focusing solely on the “heterosexual mother from Western society,” on whose situation the category of gender was built. Elizabeth Spelman adds that “insisting on” the category of a “woman” and the “nature of a woman” as something unchangeable is just another way to make privileged women, i.e. white, educated, middle-​class women, the paradigm of the “woman” category (2002, 306). It means that these women should be treated as more representative than others under the pretence that white and economically advantaged women are not defined by race or class. Adrienne Rich coined the term “white solipsism” to name the situation where white women tend to universalize their oppression by ignoring non-​white experiences (1979, 306). Essentialism was then criticized

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by different poststructuralist and postmodern theorists, who frequently raised accusations against essentialism, which concerned its (unintended) complicity in sustaining patriarchy, as well as naive realism, metaphysicality and universalism. Social constructionism as a theoretical tendency does not constitute a coherent whole and offers various ways of understanding subjectivity and agency. Generally speaking, constructionists analyse the systems of representation, social and material practices, discourses, and ideological effects, and they reject the idea that any essential or biological data precede the processes of subject formation. One of the postulates of constructionism is the “deconstruction of women.” Poststructuralist theories reject the concept of a humanistic subject that would be repressed by society. Instead of perceiving the subject as a manifestation of the essence, the subject is thought of as being “in motion,” “in the process of change,” never closed. Rather than searching for universal characteristics, such as reproductive abilities, attention is drawn to the reality of the symbolic and the language, which is considered the most crucial tool in the construction of men and women. This is mainly reflected in Julia Kristeva’s concept of “speaking abject.” Language is not the expression of some pre-​existential subjectivity; on the contrary, subjectivity is constructed through language. According to Kristeva, femininity is not the property of the subject but the language; therefore, its importance cannot be permanent (1984, 25–​26). Although some 20th-​century feminist scholars were attempting to overcome the essentialist perception of the body, they have been actually considered as somatophobic as ancient thinkers. In her book Volatile Bodies, Elizabeth Grosz discusses the category of egalitarian feminists, including such figures as Simone de Beauvoir, Mary Wollstonecraft, Shulamith Firestone, and other humanist, liberal, conservative feminists. They characterized the female body, in particular its nature, including menstruation, pregnancy, lactation, as a limitation on women’s access to equality and the rights patriarchal culture grants to men; while, on the other hand, for feminist epistemologists and ecofeminists, the body provided women with the access to knowledge and ways of living, something that men do not possess. They all, however, accepted misogynist assumptions about women’s bodies as being more natural than male bodies. The publication of The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir sparked a discussion between feminists about the body–​self relationship. Like other phenomenologists, particularly Merleau-​Ponty and Sartre, Beauvoir believes that “to be present in the world implies strictly that there exists a body which is at once a material thing in the world and a point of view towards the world” (Beauvoir 1949 [1982, 39]). For phenomenologists, the self is corporeal; the body is not separated from the self. They perceive the body as “lived” and producing sensory

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experiences. According to Beauvoir, such bodily existence is different for men and women in terms of the perspective it offers and the response it elicits. Her work offers a complex and non-​reductive image of how the material and the culture interact to form the embodied self (Kruks 2010; Sandford 2006; Moi 1999). In The Second Sex, Beauvoir maintains that biological characteristics should not determine individual characteristics or social life. The differences in reproductive role and the fact that “woman is weaker than man, she has less muscular strength, … can lift less heavy weights” has no significance (1949 [1982, 66]). Humans impose meaning on these physiological facts concerning the female and the male of the human species. As a result of her comments, Beauvoir began to be known as the founder of the sex/​gender divide, which became fundamental to feminist theory in the 1970s. While sex was considered to be biologically determined, gender was thought to be socially constructed; it is the meaning given to biological characteristics. Beauvoir’s claims that “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” is often cited in this context (295). Nevertheless, Beauvoir does not discuss sex/​gender distinction in a straightforward way. She seems to be aware of the way certain cultural myths impact the perception of the body and its biology. Furthermore, she draws attention to the alternatives to heterosexual reproduction, i.e. the case of hermaphrodism in humans and other animals, and focuses on the instances where both male and female animals care for the eggs. As a result, the biology of sexual difference cannot be determined. Beauvoir’s phenomenology of the maternal body has caused particular controversy. Beauvoir presents menstruation and other biological functions and processes as burdensome, weighing down a woman’s existence by linking her to nature. These accounts have been criticized, especially by later feminists portraying the female body as a source of pleasure and empowerment. Beauvoir’s phenomenology of women’s experience influenced the work of later feminists, including Bartky and Young, as well as the philosophers of raced embodiment. However, some scholars have criticized Beauvoir’s work, as she did not recognize how race and gender intersect in presenting a phenomenology of lived corporeality (see Gines 2017).

2.4 Sexual difference In the late 1980s, the problem of the essence and “nature of a woman” shifted into a different conceptual area and turned into a discussion between sexual difference theorists and socio-​cultural gender scholars. The question of women’s subjectivity has not been resolved, and the linguistic trend in feminist theory has also become the subject of criticism.

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Sexual difference theorists include Luce Irigaray, Helene Cixous, Gayatri Spivak, Moira Gatens, Vicki Kirby, Judith Butler, Naomi Schor, and many others. They are interested in the lived body, which is vital to comprehend woman’s psychical and social existence, however, the body is no longer perceived as a biologically determined, acultural object. For sexual difference theorists, the body consists of and is intertwined with systems of meaning, signification, and representation. They also reject the mind/​body dualism, which could be substituted with monism or a noncontradictory relationship between the polarized concepts. The body is considered to be a political, social, and cultural object. It also constitutes a cultural intertwining with nature. The sexual difference theorists also insist on the specificity of female embodiment. The differences between the sexes are regarded to be fundamental and irreducible, as Braidotti argues: “being a woman is always already there as the ontological precondition for my existential becoming as a subject” (1994, 187). It does not indicate essentialism, but the acknowledgement of differences between members of the same sex. As Braidotti explains, “what is at stake in the debate … is the positive project of turning difference into a strength, of affirming its positivity” (187). Furthermore, rather than perceiving sex as an essentialist and gender as a constructionist category, sexual difference theorists intend to dismantle this dichotomy. In order to achieve that goal, they introduce the concept of the social body, which evokes a body as a social and discursive object, intertwined in the order of desire, signification, and power. Engaging female embodiment with the purpose of giving positive accounts of it can be found in different strands of feminist thought:  Anglo-​ American radical feminism (of the late 1970s and 80s) and psychoanalytic feminism based on the works of Freud and Lacan. Although Luce Irigaray, a Belgian-​ born linguist, philosopher, and feminist, understands the links between woman and nature in Western thought are harmful, unlike many feminist theorists, she does not separate women from nature. Irigaray is referred to as a feminist of sexual difference, and her theory is called a feminism of difference. Irigaray proves that the concept of sexual difference implied in philosophy means, in fact, the erasure of difference. Women and men are described as oppositions, but, at the same time, the woman is seen as complementary and subordinate (Irigaray 1977 [1985, 25]). According to Irigaray, philosophical theories seek to erase the concept of difference in order to create a homogenous, holistic view of the world that Irigaray refers to as the “economy of the same.” In such a symbolic economy, equality is perceived as becoming equivalent to a man, while a woman’s difference is portrayed as a defective version of the same. In this symbolic order, women have no rights to their own genealogy or culture, and they are unable to enter into civil society

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as women. The philosophers who intended to erase sexual difference and thus create the neutral (in terms of sex) notions of the man, science, and politics were, in fact, conceptually preserving female subordination (Irigaray 1984 [1993], 5). Irigaray’s philosophical mission would be then to reclaim sexual difference and to grasp its meaning. What is more, Irigaray discusses how phallogocentrism (male domination and concentration on phallus as a sign of male dominance) and language influence the symbolic order, the reality, political structures and the concept of material bodies. The (maternal) body is marginalized, fragmented, banned, and substituted with fatherly language and culture. Maternity bodily encounters with the mother “remain in the shadows of our culture” (Irigaray 1991, 35). In order to reconceptualize the body, the power structures of phallogocentrism and language need to be rethought. In Irigaray’s later work, “woman” and the “earth” have transitioned ontologically from discursive constructions to “the real.” Instead of undermining the traditional male–​female oppositions, she reinforces them. Due to their understanding of “rhythms of nature,” women are placed in an area outside of culture, which is at the same time the men’s world. This seems to reinforce traditional gender roles and deepen the nature/​culture divide. Hence, Irigaray has long been criticized for essentialism (Moi 2002) since she presents the female body as biologically given and an unchangeable fact. From the essentialist view, matter is passive, impermeable and unaffected by mind, culture, or society. On the contrary, some scholars argued that Irigaray’s concept of the body is linguistically, socially, and historically defined. As Grosz points out, Irigaray depicts the body as a “social body” influenced by the “social and psychical meaning of the body” (Grosz 1989, 111). In this context, materiality remains passive but can be ascribed to different meanings. Irigaray accepts the phallocentric image of woman as ‘not one’ but reverses its meaning: “if a woman is ‘not one’, she is more than one” (Irigaray 1977 [1985, 118]).

2.5 Ecofeminism Luce Irigaray’s work contrasts Beauvoir’s and presents an opposite direction for feminism’s relation to nature. Although most feminist theories have followed Beauvoir and separated themselves from the category of nature, some radical feminists, such as Adrienne Rich or Mary Daly, promote feminist possibilities by portraying nature as a sphere unaffected by patriarchal culture. Women’s maternal bodies and their capacity to give birth are perceived as a ground for affirming the power and positive values, stressing care as opposed to autonomy and duty (Rich 1979). Ecofeminism pays even more attention to the links between

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nature and feminism. It derives from the second wave of feminism, which began in the 1960s. Ecofeminist scholars emphasize the link between the exploitation of the natural environment and domination over women in patriarchal societies. Furthermore, all ecofeminists seem to oppose technology. In their book Ecofeminism, Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva claim that “technology... cannot claim to be neutral; nor is it free from sexist, racist and ultimately fascist biases in our society. These biases are built into the technology itself, they are not merely a matter of its application” (Mies and Shiva 1993, 195). Though most ecofeminists share these assumptions, various approaches within ecofeminism can be distinguished, which reflect different conceptualizations of the relationship between women and nature. Spiritualist or cultural ecofeminists, such as Susan Griffin and Charlene Spretnak, consider women to be spiritually closer to nature because of their biological functions (i.e. mothering) and sensitivity to the ecological damages. Spiritualist ecofeminists believe in “femininity of nature” and often refer to it as “Mother Earth.” Vandana Shiva (1989) claims that ecofeminism reasserts an earth-​ orientated religion of pagan goddess worship. According to Shiva, patriarchy and human domination over the natural environment emerged with a pre-​historic shift from Goddess worshipping animism, towards male-​dominated hierarchal religions. In Goddess worshipping communities, animals, women, and sexuality were considered sacred, which was visible in the absence of gender categorization. In Woman and Nature, Susan Griffin blurs the division between an animal and a woman, and subsequently gives women the earth as a comrade, creates an alliance between them, which seems to strengthen the feminist struggle (see Griffin 2016). The spiritual ecofeminism has been, however, dismissed by feminist theorists and labelled as essentialist since it restricts females to the realm of home by presenting women and nature as interconnected. The dismissal of this wing emerges from feminist theory’s long “flight from nature” (Alaimo 2000). Nevertheless, ecofeminism can be interpreted from a different viewpoint, analysing how some ecofeminist notions of nature challenge the foundations of essentialism. In her book Undomesticated Ground, Stacy Alaimo claims that ecofeminism should not be dismissed; instead, it should be taken into consideration while discussing strategic essentialism, postmodern feminism, performative identities, and difference. Another strand of ecofeminism moves beyond female images of God. The constructivist ecofeminists, including Sherry B. Ortner, disregard the relationship between women and nature, claiming it to be a social construction. Ortner believes that in order to achieve equality, women should distance themselves from the representations and practices that portray them as “closer” to nature

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(1974, 79). In contrast, Nancy Hartsock founds her ecofeminist epistemology on the “natural” tasks of nurturing and mothering that Ortner considers devaluating women. According to Hartsock, women’s relationship with the natural environment and the relation of mind with body create the foundation for developing a society that does not work through “the denial of the body, the attack on nature, or the death struggle between self and other” (2020, 159). Although Hartsock proposes an intriguing link between feminism and environmentalism, her account has also been criticized. Her epistemology can be undermined due to the fact that fewer women identify themselves with traditionally female work. What is more, Hartsock’s portrayal of traditionally female work overlooks race and class differences while promoting a female realm that was created by the system of gender oppression. Meanwhile, socialist ecofeminists such as Carolyn Merchant, Maria Mies or Karen J. Warren are neutral about the connection between women and the natural environment. It means that they neither reject nor accept the relationship between women and nature. Socialist ecofeminists consider capitalist patriarchy to be a significant factor in the oppression of women and the natural world, and examine how patriarchal dominance has shaped women’s interactions with nature in capitalist societies. As agriculture became mechanized, men assumed women’s traditional work as producers of food and clothes. According to socialist ecofeminists, in a capitalist society, women are responsible for the biological reproduction and the reproduction of work force through unpaid domestic labour, while men are in charge of manufacturing commodities. Under capitalism, production takes precedence over reproduction. Furthermore, biological reproduction impacts local ecology through production, which means that when people interact with nature, they are forced to produce enough goods to maintain themselves. Since capitalism is based on economic growth and rivalry, it leads to environmental damage. According to socialist ecofeminists, humans should focus on creating sustainable relations with the natural environment. They suggest that new types of socialist ecology could make production subjugated to reproduction and ecology since socialism is built on meeting people’s needs rather than greed. It is also noteworthy that socialist ecofeminists resist male-​designed technologies ignoring the impact of pesticides and hazardous wastes on the ecosystem and women’s reproductive health. Although it is impossible to discuss in detail the different forms of ecofeminism in this book, it is important to stress why ecofeminism has been often dismissed. The above-​mentioned strands of ecofeminism seem to be most relevant to my considerations in this book, as they will be referred to further on.

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2.6 Judith Butler and performativity The central theme in the 1970s feminist writing concerned society’s role in creating norms that impact the ways subjects control their bodies and those of others. As Susan Bordo notices, “our bodies are trained, shaped and impressed with the prevailing historical forms of… masculinity and femininity” (1993, 91). Through dieting, dress, or cosmetic surgeries, women, as well as men, attempt to shape their bodies so that they fit the social norms. Such practices contribute to forming gendered bodies as well as identities that are subjected to social ideals. From the 1990s, feminists have been drawing attention to power and body relations (Foucault 1975; Bartky 1990; Bordo 1993). Michel Foucault’s insights concerning disciplinary practices of the body expressed, among others, in Discipline and Punish (1975) have become extensively used by feminist scholars, who applied his work to the disciplining of the gendered, and particularly the female body. Such feminist accounts explore how women discipline their bodies to escape social punishments and experience certain types of pleasure. They examine how the bodies change their shapes through such practices and what kinds of meanings such bodily modifications of bodies might carry (Davis 1995; Alsop and Lennon 2018). In this context, for instance, Susan Bordo (1993) shared her interpretation of the anorexic body: “female slenderness… has a wide range of sometimes contradictory meanings… suggesting powerlessness… in one context, autonomy and freedom in the next” (1993, 26). In her 1990 landmark book, Gender Trouble, Judith Butler reflects on the category of a “woman,” criticizing some feminist theories for their approach to the issue of subject identity and to gender politics. Precisely, Butler believes that feminists should take into consideration Foucault’s view that all subjects are produced by juridical systems of power, as well as the voices of women of colour, who claim that the category of “women” should not be based exclusively on the model of a white, middle-​class, heterosexual woman, thus, excluding all other groups of women. According to Butler, women have a genealogy, which means that they are placed within a history of various reinterpretations of femininity. Referring to the works of Monique Wittig and Anne Fausto-​Sterling, Butler claims that both sex and gender are culturally constructed and naturalized: “[…] ‘sex’ not only functions as a norm, but is part of a regulatory practice that produces the bodies it governs” (Butler 1993, 1). According to Butler (1990, 1993, 2004), due to the subjection of female bodies to normalizing practices, the sexed bodies not only strive to become an ideal but come into being in the first place. Thus, Butler agrees with Beauvoir’s argument that humans “become” women and men, rather than were born as such. In

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Gender Trouble, Butler introduces her influential account of performative subjectivity, which means rejecting the idea that gender differences and the presumption of heterosexuality are the results of biological or natural differences. The concept of performativity suggests that the materiality of the body is not gender or race-​specific. Instead, the material body performs gender (or race) rather than having them. Following Foucault, Butler emphasizes the role of discourses in the production of the identities they seem to describe. When a baby is born, and the nurse says “it’s a girl,” he or she is not stating a fact but participating in a creation of a state of affairs. Repeated actions of this kind give the impression  that there are two separate natures, male and female. These gendered performances are acted out according to social scripts which involve unattainable ideals and provide the basis for human behaviour. These ideals perpetuate the dominance and power of some groups, including men and heterosexuals, over others, for instance:  women, disabled bodies, homosexuals, and gender non-​conforming people, all of whom seem to face social punishments. Butler explains that gender is a matter of performance; hence, there is no  necessary  link between gender and a particular body shape. The scholar believes same-​sex practices and various trans performances challenge the normative links of gender, heterosexuality and anatomical shape. For Butler, the trans community seems to be critical in the process of undermining gender binaries developed owing to social norms and practices. This raises questions about the way Indigenous female writers challenge the category of a woman and normative links between gender and heterosexuality. This issue will be further addressed in Chapter 4. Some scholars believe that the concept of performative subjectivity fails to explain how the materiality of the body aligns with the sense of self. In Bodies that Matter, however, Butler describes the body’s materiality in the context of materialisation. The feminist argues that what is considered the material, nature, the given is not something to which unmediated access is possible. Instead, it results from certain types of conceptualizing, which are not immune to the workings of power. “Sex posited as prior to construction will, by virtue of being posited, become the effect of that very positing” (1993, 5). According to Butler, matter can be described as “a process of materialisation that stabilises over time to produce the effect of boundary, fixity… we call matter” (9). Butler emphasizes that any effort to capture the body in discourse is futile as it “exceeds” such an attempt. Such excessiveness makes any alternative formations of the body possible, as the body does not conform to any preconceived notions of it. In her 1997 book Excitable Speech, Butler also draws attention to the metaphorical relationship between the body and the language, especially when

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discussing physical and linguistic injuries. A living language remains open to reinterpretation and unexpected response, but it may also involve linguistic vulnerability, as, for instance, vulnerability to being named (Butler 1997, 30). The material body allows for one’s exposure to others, and the words uttered by material bodies become “bodily offerings” (Butler 2004, 172). In a similar way to languages, bodies transcend the individual and remain unbound, open to injuries, interdependent, and they respond to the social context that forms them. Butler presents “a new bodily ontology” that discusses “precariousness, vulnerability, injurability, interdependency, exposure, bodily persistence, desire, work and the claims of language and social belonging” (2009, 2). The body shows its vulnerability, but it is also capable of resistance, as Butler claims: “The body is that which can occupy the norm in myriad ways, exceed the norm, rework the norm, and expose realities to which we thought we were confined as open to transformation” (2004, 217). Bodily linguistic vulnerability makes living beings susceptible to aggression and violence, and, at the same time, it gives them tools to fight back.

2.7 Monique Wittig: Unsettling the oppositions through the lesbian body Monique Wittig, a French writer and feminist theorist, also contributed to the development of the discourse on the body and extended the idea of social constructionism. She is well-​known for her unconventional novels, such as The Opoponax (1964) and The Lesbian Body (1973), as well as the essays collected in The Straight Mind and Other Essays (1992), in which the writer outlines the mechanisms that have led to the existing inequalities. Wittig believes that the categories such as sex or race are naturalized, i.e. they are considered to be self-​apparent and have a natural source that no one would question. In this way, nature seems to justify social relations and inequalities. Wittig argues that the category of sex is “political and economic” rather than natural (1992, 15). According to the feminist, women’s bodies and their minds can be described as the products of (hetero) sexist ideology:  “We have been compelled in our bodies and in our minds to correspond, feature by feature, with the idea of nature that has been established for us” (9). She maintains that a woman’s body is marked by gender and used as a sexual object that is supposed to be sexually arousing and available. It can be seen as a reproduction machine maintaining the heterosexual contract, which defines sexual relations between women and men. Thus, Wittig criticizes heterosexist regimes for inventing “biology” as means of enforcing destiny.

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According to Wittig, social systems recognizing sexual differences, such as patriarchy or matriarchy, are founded on domination. Therefore, in order to escape the power relations, one needs to look for a society beyond or without sex. Consequently, the concept of a woman (a synonym for sex and enslavement) should be avoided (59). In order to reclaim the body and imagine its outside power dynamics, one must turn to the idea of a free, lesbian body. Wittig claims that lesbians are not women since there is “no nature within society” and “what makes a woman is a specific social relation to a man” rather than something biological (20). The lesbian is illustrated as “a not-​woman, a not-​man, […] located philosophically (politically) beyond the categories of sex” (47). As a result, a lesbian is synonymous with freedom:  “Lesbianism provides for the moment the only social form in which we can live freely” (20). Wittig proves that the lesbian body unsettles different kinds of gender oppositions. The feminist describes a subject as not self-​centred but as the one “whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere” (62). Thus, the body unsettles the opposition between the centre and peripheries as well as between oneself and the other. The body is not opposed to another body; instead, the two bodies merge, which is, for instance, illustrated in the following sentence: “You mingle with m/​e m/​y mouth fastened on your mouth your neck squeezed by m/​ y arms, I feel our intestines uncoiling gliding among themselves” (Wittig 1975, 51–​52). Furthermore, Wittig’s lesbian body defies the essentialist conception of the female body as naturally passive. The body overcomes the subject-​object distinction. It is both objectified and felt subjectively: the “I” notices how the body is engulfed and simultaneously experiences tenderness or pain. Moreover, Wittig does not present the material body as having the characteristics of one species only. It is both diverse and heterogeneous. As a result, the lesbian body challenges all possible categorizations. Nevertheless, as Stacy Alaimo notices, although the figure of a lesbian is neither a man nor a woman and any feminist who refers to “nature” must be aware of its crucial role in heterosexism, Wittig’s denial of nature and its exclusion from culture may result in the return of the repressed. What is more, Wittig’s account makes the readers question why only a lesbian body can escape power relations and whether it is possible to escape them. Wittig also does not explain whether homosexuals are liberated from sexual difference and oppression and if they can oppose power structures.

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2.8 The material turn in feminist theory, environmental humanities and science studies The works of Simone de Beauvoir, Sherry Ortner, Monique Wittig, and Judith Butler have been criticized for moving the concept of “woman” from the realm of nature to the culture. In Undomesticated Ground: Recasting Nature as Feminist Space (2000), Stacy Alaimo explains that many feminist scholars have attempted to separate “woman” from the category of “nature” due to the fact that “woman” has been long understood in Western thought to be immersed in “nature,” and, consequently, she was excluded from the domain of rationality, subjectivity, and agency. Thus, instead of working against prevalent dualisms, many feminist conceptions maintain a division between nature and culture. The concept of gender as different from biological sex can serve here as an example since it is also based on a rigid nature/​culture opposition. Furthermore, feminist theories of social construction are driven by the harmful conceptions of nature, which is seen as removed from culture and the repository of essentialism (Alaimo 2000, 4–​14). According to Alaimo and Hekman, such a “flight from the material” propelled by the devotion to social constructionism and a goal to eradicate all types of essentialism has diminished the significance of materiality, including “lived material bodies and evolving corporeal practices” (2008, 3). It is noteworthy that predominant paradigms do not dismiss the materiality of the body. However, they mainly concentrate on how different bodies have been discursively formed, portraying the body as a passive matter. Elizabeth A. Wilson points out that “the body at the centre of these projects is curiously abiological—​its social, cultural, experiential, or psychical construction having been posited against or beyond any putative biological claims” (1998, 15). Disentangling the body from its evolutionary, historical, and ongoing ties with the material world might not be ethically or theoretically desirable. The new materialist scholars stress that the language might structure how we understand the ontological, but it does not constitute it (Alaimo and Hekman 2008, 98). Alaimo suggests that instead of turning away from nature associated with passivity, feminist theory should strive to alter the gendered dualisms that have been used to denigrate and suppress certain groups of human and non-​human life. Dismantling the opposition between nature and culture makes room for feminisms that neither affirm nor deny difference. However, many attempts to redefine “nature” often result in returning to the notions that they were intended to alter. Rosi Braidotti claims that feminists who reject “all that is polarized around nature as an ideological trap... end up freezing the conflict between the sexes in a sealed world where there is no gap” (1991,

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128–​29). The scholar considers the categories of masculine and feminine, culture and nature, to be fixed ones. As Braidotti explains, the feminist flight from everything tainted by essentialism might result in reinforcing the very nature/​ culture dichotomy. Braidotti’s solution is to recognize that “nature is a cultural construction;” since “the notions of nature and culture can only be formulated inside an already established cultural order” (129). Alaimo is also critical of the concept of “nature” as “it has long been enlisted to support racism, sexism, colonialism, homophobia, and essentialisms” (Alaimo 2016, 11). Some environmentalists, including Bill McKibben, go so far as to proclaim “the end of nature,” stating that the degree of modification in the last half-​century was so profound that it is impossible to encounter a pristine physical environment (McKibben 1989). For such critics as Bruno Latour, Neil Smith, Andrew Ross or Timothy Morton, what is called “nature” never existed in the first place. As Lawrence Buell observes in Writing for an Endangered World, nature/​culture distinction itself is an anthropogenic product, which derives from the transition from nomadism to a settlement that started thousands of years ago in south-​western Asia (Buell 2001, 3). Although Alaimo and Morton are not the first philosophers to challenge the Cartesian divide between nature and culture, they perceive nature and culture as not only interconnected but inextricably enmeshed: we humans are in “a vast, sprawling mesh” with viruses, bacteria, pollution and waste, on nano and hyper scales (Morton 2010a, 8). Lynda Birke points out that scholars not only attempt to escape from nature as the repository of essentialism but also from “the ghost of biology” and the belief that some elements of ‘biology’ are unchangeable (1999, 44) and thus tend to justify racist, sexist, and heterosexist norms. Birke suggests that the biological body needs to be understood as “changing and changeable, as transformable,” which is visible in the way cells continue to regenerate themselves, bones tend to remodel, and “bodily interiors” respond to changes on the inside and exterior (45). Feminists believe that the notion of “biology as destiny” needs to be replaced by other models. After a period of dismissal of materiality as the result of “linguistic turn” associated with the structuralism of Ferdinand de Saussure, i.e. the idea that language constructs reality, there emerged the intellectual movement known as the “new materialisms,” which appeared in various disciplines ranging from science studies, corporeal feminism to animal studies, anthropology and environmental philosophies. Overthrowing all kinds of dualisms that have informed Western thought, new materialisms bring innovative ways of considering the matter and stress the entanglements between humans and the non-​human world, conceiving matter as agential, active, expressive, vibrant, and having “emergent generative

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powers (or agentic capacities)” (Coole and Frost 2010b, 9). Such scholars as Donna Haraway, Elizabeth Wilson, Vicki Kirby, and Karen Barad have elaborated on the new understandings of materiality by expanding the frameworks of poststructuralism, postmodernism, and cultural studies in ways that draw attention to the agency and interactions between bodies and natures. Some feminist theorists, including Moira Gatens, Claire Colebrook, and Elizabeth Bray, have been inspired by the works of Spinoza and Deleuze and applied them as counter-​arguments against the linguistic turn. Elizabeth Wilson, Vicki Kirby, Ladelle McWhorter and Karen Barad have referred to the works of poststructuralists such as Jacques Derrida or Michel Foucault. The theorists mentioned above formed the “material turn” in feminist theory, which treats matter seriously. The material turn in feminist theory introduces questions about epistemology, ontology, ethics, and politics. These theories are redefining the understanding of the relationships among the natural, the human, and the non-​human. Whereas most postmodern and poststructuralist feminisms have sought to disentangle “woman” from “nature”—​for significant reasons, material feminism seeks a thorough redefinition of nature, which is not a passive social construction but is an agentic force that interacts with and changes the other elements, including the human. This sort of nature is emerging from the overlapping fields of material feminism, environmental feminism, green cultural studies, and environmental philosophy. Edited by Stacy Alaimo and Susan Hekman, Material Feminisms (2008) implies the proximity between the new debate on materiality and the field of ecocriticism. Building on the insights of earlier forms of feminism, material feminists express the need for a culture that would “radically rethink materiality, the very ‘stuff ’ of bodies and natures” (Alaimo and Hekman 2008, 6). Their main concern is overcoming the schism between matter and its cultural constructions and reconciling the “material” and the “discursive” from a non-​dualistic perspective. Despite its primary focus on matter, material feminisms cannot be considered essentialist since they redefine the foundations of essentialism. They do not relate to nature or the human body as existing prior to discourse, but they attempt to comprehend materiality as formed by different sorts of power and knowledge. The new branch of ecocriticism referred to as material ecocriticism, “examines matter both in texts and as a text trying to shed light on the way bodily natures and discursive forces express their interaction whether in representations or in their concrete reality” (Iovino and Oppermann 2014, 2, emphasis in the original). According to material ecocritical scholars, the matter is endowed with innate meanings, creative agentic expressions, performative enactments and stories, manifesting as “storied matter.” In other words, there are multiple

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stories of cosmology, history, ecology, geology, and life embodied in every form of materiality. Material ecocriticism has developed its own interpretive practice, which treats the agentic matter as a narrative agency creating its own stories and considers the representations of agentic matter’s expressive power in cultural, literary, and visual texts. In her paper “How the material world communicates,” Serpil Oppermann explains that literary texts open up the vitality inherent in matter and extend it over time, endlessly producing a performative mirror that does not just reflect the world, but creates worlds. Like the stories of matter, literary stories shed light on the intra-​action of human creativity and the creative expressions of material agencies. In this co-​emergence, literature can be said to amplify reality, also affecting our cognitive response to this reality as embodied creatures of both the world and the word. (2019, 111)

Literature, as Serenella Iovino suggests, “is helping reality to perform itself and its interconnectedness via the story, the stage, and the audience” (2016, 75). As a result, our stories are never disconnected from the stories of matter. The matter is storying itself through biological and material forms as well as the new biotech forms and other techno-​scientifically engineered entities, such as machines or robots.

2.8.1 Agency without subjects Within the new materialist paradigm, conceptions of the agency are considered to be the basis for the reconsideration of problematic dualisms that portray nature, the non-​human, and matter as “unable to convey any independent expression of meaning” apart from human intention (Iovino and Oppermann 2014, 2). Diana Coole, a leading theorist of the new materialism, claims that the perception of matter as passive and inert in modern Western culture is the reason for the assumption that humans have the right to use and transform all nature to their will (2010, 92). Against this presumption, matter is viewed as “possessing its own modes of self-​transformation, self-​organisation, and directedness, and thus no longer simply passive or inert” (Coole and Frost 2010, 10). Matter is seen as alive with built-​in “trajectories, propensities, and tendencies of their own,” as opposed to “the image of dead or thoroughly instrumentalized matter” (Bennett 2010, viii–​ix). Hence, if we wish to appreciate our worldly embodiment, we need to be more alert to the material world and reconceptualize bodies and natures in ways that acknowledge their actions. Lynda Birke claims that in order to stop perceiving the body as a blank canvas awaiting to be inscribed by culture, it is crucial for feminists to “insist on more complex, nuanced ways of interpreting biological processes” and to “rename nature through complexity and transformation,” thus,

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challenging the dualisms propelling the existing injustices (Birke 1999, 48). The idea of the agency of biological bodies is essential for comprehending biological entities as exhibiting an “active response to change and contingency” (45). It is not easy, however, to imagine nature’s agency in ways that are not anthropomorphic. Environmental philosophy and science studies provide extensive and illuminating debates on the agency that corporeal theorists may find useful. American ecofeminist philosopher, Carolyn Merchant has long argued that environmental historians need to consider the agency of nature. In her Ecological Revolutions:  Nature, Gender, and Science in New England, Merchant discusses the concept of nature as a “historical actor” that seems to challenge the discursive constructions that define it (1989a, 7). The scholar describes the relationship between humans and non-​humans on the historical stage as reciprocal: “Humans adapt to nature’s environmental conditions; but when humans alter their surroundings, nature responds through ecological changes” (8). In Earthcare: Women and the Environment (1996), Merchant encourages to think of nature as a “free autonomous actor” who should be respected and treated as an equal partner just as humans (1996, 221). The scholar discusses the agency of nature by using, among others the examples of floods and hurricanes. Although the concept of the “free autonomous actor” may seem to encourage relations of equality between humans and nature, it also implies a distinct, humanist subject who is not enmeshed with or shaped by discourses or ecological systems. Consequently, the idea of independence, which cannot thrive within relations of interdependency or ecological systems, may isolate non-​humans from humans. As Alaimo notices, some poststructuralist theories of subjectivity provide a significant reconceptualization of nature’s agency. For instance, in “Contingent Foundations” (1992), Judith Butler describes a subject in a similar way to different actors inhabiting the more-​than-​human world. According to Butler, agency is the outcome of the way the subject is influenced by “matrices of power and discourse” (1992, 9). This model of subjectivity seems to parallel an ecological model in which non-​humans are entangled within complex systems and the “environment,” which they affect and change. Nevertheless, Butler’s idea of agency would have to be reconsidered so that it works for the non-​humans since she defines agency in terms of “purposive and significant reconfiguration of cultural and political relations” (1992, 12). Donna Haraway’s work has been essential for the development of the idea of agency. The scholar proposes comprehensive transformations of the category of nature. According to Haraway, the universe is replete with “material-​semiotic actors” and such figures as the cyborg, the trickster coyote, and the OncoMouse, which represent demarcation and continuity among human and non-​human,

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organic and inorganic actors. Haraway’s trickster coyote recognizes “the world as a witty agent” with an “independent sense of humour” (Haraway 1991, 199). The practice of “otherworldly conversations,” in which non-​human entities participate as subjects rather than objects, provides a model for ethical relations that respect difference and allow for mutual transformation. While Haraway’s work discusses agency in more-​than-​human terms, Barad’s work elaborates on material agency in the context of physics. According to Barad, “agency is not an attribute” but a “doing/​being in its intra-​activity” (2003, 826). In “Posthumanist Performativity:  Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter,” Barad describes matter “as an active participant in the world’s becoming, in its ongoing intra-​activity.” According to Barad, the agency “is cut loose from its traditional humanist orbit”: Agency is not aligned with human intentionality or subjectivity. Nor does it merely entail resignification or other specific kinds of moves within a social geometry of antihumanism. Agency is a matter of intra-​acting; it is an enactment, not something that someone or something has agency is not an attribute whatsoever—​it is “doing”/​“being” in its intra-​activity. (826)

Barad’s version of Bohr’s “intra-​activity” opposes an ontology in which “things” precede their relations:  “relata” (as opposed to “things”) “do not preexist relations; rather, relata-​within-​phenomena emerge through specific intra-​actions” (815). According to Karen Barad, the agency is also “not an attribute but the ongoing configuration of the world. The universe is agential intra-​activity in its becoming” (2007, 141). Recognizing the agency of the non-​human world is critical for environmental ethics since it opposes the widespread practice of what Barad refers to as “thingification,” or the reduction of lively, intra-​acting phenomena into passive resources for human control. Furthermore, respecting the more-​than-​human agency reveals the need for urban, suburban places as well as “wilderness,” where various living forms can thrive. It is worth mentioning that wildness can be seen as a type of material agency and nature’s perpetual, material-​semiotic intra-​actions. Agency is also not confined by human cognitive abilities that generate agentic capacities, such as intentionality, personhood, and conscious action. British sociologist Anthony Giddens suggests that “we have to separate out the question of what an agent ‘does’ from what is ‘intended’ or the intentional aspects of what is done. Agency refers to doing” (1985, 10). “Materiality” should be conceived as a type of relational force, something that acts on other things. When intentionality remains conceptually separated from the consequences of action, the agency can be redefined in Jane Bennett’s words as an “actant, which has efficacy, can do

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things, has sufficient coherence to make a difference, produce effects, alter the course of events” (2010, viii). Jane Bennett perceives this productive agency not only as a located in a human being, but as “differentially distributed across a wider range of ontological types” (2010, 9). The scholar further explains: What this suggests for the concept of agency is that the efficacy or effectivity to which that term has traditionally referred becomes distributed across an ontologically heterogeneous field, rather than being a capacity localized in a human body or in a collective produced (only) by human efforts. (23)

In her book, Bennett also discusses the significance of the affect that is intrinsic to non-​human forms. According to the scholar, both organic and inorganic bodies, natural and cultural objects are affective, which means that they produce effects in human and other bodies. Bennett draws on a Spinozist definition of affect, which indicates the ability of anybody to be active and responsive. Deleuze and Guattari explain it in the following way: “We know nothing about a body until we know what it can do, in other words, what its affects are, how they can or cannot enter into composition with other affects, with the affects of another body,... to destroy that body or to be destroyed by it,... to exchange actions and passions with it or to join with in composing a more powerful body” (1987, 11). Thus, affects can be seen as collision of particle-​forces, which show the impact of one body on another. Bennet emphasizes that impersonal affect or material vibrancy should not be equated with spirituality or separate “life force” which can enter and animate a physical body; instead, affect relates to materiality. She attempts to discuss a vitality intrinsic to materiality, which is not passive or mechanistic. What Bennet considers crucial to her research on agency and affect is the concept of assemblages discussed by Deleuze and Guattari. Assemblages refer to “ad hoc groupings of diverse elements, of vibrant materials of all sorts […],” these are “living, throbbing confederations that are able to function despite the persistent presence of energies that confound them from within” (Bennet 2010, 23–​24). Assemblages  of relations develop in chaotic ways around actions and events. They also resemble “machines” because they always do something or produce something (Deleuze and Guattari 1987, 4). Assemblages can also be thought of as “territories,” created and maintained by the affects between relations (Guattari 1995, 28). Affective flows within assemblages keep them in flux and constant becoming. In Influx and Efflux, Bennett continues her project  on the role of human agency in the world of agential non-​human forces. The book revolves around practices of coming-​into-​being and a process that Bennett refers to as influx

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and efflux, the name of which is inspired by the lines from Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself.” As the scholar explains, “influx and efflux invokes that ubiquitous tendency for outsides to come in, muddy the waters, and exit to partake in new (lively/​deathly) waves of encounter” (Bennett 2020, x). Influx and efflux is the process whereby something exterior is interiorized and transformed before being exposed again in a different form. As far as an organism is concerned, this process can be illustrated with consumed, digested, and defecated food. When it comes to a human being, the influx and efflux may also refer to an experience that is reflected upon and then expressed in words. Bennett also discusses the “and,” i.e. the interval between influx and efflux, which is the transitional phase between receiving an influence (influx) and returning it to the world (efflux). The scholar also discusses the importance of affect in terms of politics these days. She demonstrates how we are constantly impacted by non-​human forces that shape our decision-​making. At the same time, learning to pay attention to the body and the forces inside it which transcend cognition could lead to a more ecological form of democracy (46–​7). Thus, Influx and Efflux deals with the experience of being continuously subject to influence. It is noteworthy that there are several related threads in the affective turn and the material turn, as defined in material ecocriticism. Kyle Bladow and Jennifer Ladino claim that “while affect theorists have tended to prioritize affect within and in relation to bodies and to overlook the environment’s role in shaping it, ecocritics have too often neglected the affectivity of human bodies in their eagerness to champion greater attention to the more-​than-​human world” (2018, 3–​4). Like affect theory, material ecocriticism emphasizes the processual character of objects and environments, which are considered to be “agents in generating and shaping affect”; these theories also tend to disrupt “discrete notions of embodied selfhood and static notions of environment” (8). Despite being linked to Raymond Williams’s (1977) idea of “structures of feeling,” the term affect is now frequently used to address “those intensities that pass body to body (human, nonhuman, part-​body, and otherwise), [...] those resonances that circulate about, between, and sometimes stick to bodies and worlds, and [...] the very passages or variations between these intensities and resonances themselves” (Gregg and Seigworth 2010, 1). In the Spinozist–​Deleuzian approach developed by Brian Massumi, it is believed that affect should not be reduced to “discourse” or “emotion” (cf. Massumi 2002). Instead, affect involves bodily movement, interaction and processes of becoming. However, Massumi’s work has been criticized for the binary understanding of the relationship between affect/​emotion and thought/​cognition.

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Alexa Weik von Mossner’s Affective Ecologies (2017) constitutes a significant contribution to affect studies and is relevant to ecocritical thinking. Her theorization of affect is based on cognitive narratology and neuroscience. In her book, she explores the sensorial, emotional, and cognitive implications of environmental narratives in American literature and film. Her work proves that people interact with environmental narratives in ways that seem biologically universal and culturally specific. She argues that our minds are both embodied (in a physical body) and embedded (in a physical environment) when we interact with the real world and in our engagement with imaginary worlds. This perception of the mind points to the first two of the so-​called “Es” of embodied cognition, suggesting that the mind is embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended (cf. Mossner 2017). Similarly, in her book Material Cultures, Material Minds, Nicole Boivin claims that “the workings of the mind cannot be understood independently of the environment” because our bodies are in a physical exchange with our environment which influences the way we think (2008, 75). Another point worth mentioning is that most feminist writing fails to fully confront the “experience of the negative body,” i.e. the body signalling disappointment, illness, or anxiety (Wendell 1996, 167). Disability studies attempt to demonstrate different types of corporeal agency, for instance, bodies failing or resisting to act in an undesirable manner for those inhabiting them or to others. Although people inhabiting painful or disabled bodies might yearn for transcendence of corporeal and participate in some disengagement tactics, the stubbornness of the disabled body demands the acceptance of corporeal agency and its unpredictability. As Wendell maintains, “the body may have a complex life of its own, much of which we cannot interpret” (175). Chronic diseases, such as lupus, illustrate the “negative” agency of the body because their symptoms and accompanying pain may change daily or within the day. In addition, auto-​ immune diseases also exemplify Barad’s material agency as “‘doing’/​‘being’ in its intra-​activity,” as these illnesses are impacted by numerous factors, including diet, stress, or the weather. As a result, it is impossible to fully comprehend the way they work since they are formed by a multitude of forces continually intra-​ acting. Therefore, all embodied beings experience corporeal agencies, which can be positive, negative, or neutral. In section 4.2, it will be discussed how the idea of “the experience of negative body” is illustrated in Zainab Amadahy’s novel Resistance.

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2.8.2 Elizabeth Grosz and corporeal feminism The notion of the body and its affective potentials was developed by Australian philosopher Elizabeth Grosz, who introduced her concept of corporeal feminism in the paper “Notes towards a Corporeal Feminism” (1987) and later developed it in the book Volatile Bodies (1994). According to Grosz, subjectivity can be considered in non-​dualistic terms, which differs from the traditional understanding of corporeality, sexuality and sexual difference. Grosz believes that the human body cannot be reduced to a natural or to a cultural entity. The scholar explores the interaction of the two notions in human bodies, “the production of the natural in the (specific) terms of the cultural, the cultural as the (reverse) precondition of the natural” (Grosz 1994, 21), which is supposed to serve as a destabilization of nature/​culture binary: It is not adequate to simply dismiss the category of nature outright, to completely transcribe it without residue into the cultural: this itself is the monist, logocentric, gesture par excellence. Instead, the inter implication of the natural and the social or cultural needs further investigation -​the hole in nature which allows cultural seepage or production must provide something like a natural condition for cultural production; but in turn, the cultural too must be seen in its limitations, as a kind of insufficiency that requires natural supplementation. […]. (21)

The body is both an object and subject, the natural and cultural. The material body is never precultural, determined, or unchangeable. The body is “the result of more than biology” (Grosz 1987, 7); it is also shaped by social, psychical, and cultural factors. Grosz defines the material body as a “threshold between nature and culture” (8), which indicates that humans ascribe meaning to their biological bodies and form according to cultural and social norms. Thus, the body does not fit into the frames of essentialist reductionism. What is more, the concept of the body should not be limited to one model of a particular body (male, able, middle class, white, heterosexual), as there is no “representative of all bodies” (9). Grosz (1994) employs the metaphor of a Möbius strip to demonstrate how the body can be approached from “the inside” as a lived body and from “the outside” as a surface that is shaped by cultural norms and meanings. For Grosz, the Möbius strip presents a logic of subversion. It is a three-​dimensional figure whose twisting structure forms a connection of the inside and the outside. The Möbius strip signals “the inflection of mind into body and body into mind, the ways in which, through a kind of twisting or inversion, one side becomes another” (qxii). According to Grosz, bodies are formed this way through the systems of meaning and, consequently, power. In contrast to the Cartesian legacy, bodies

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should be perceived as ontologically “incomplete,” requiring social structuring and organization. Grosz discusses the ontological structure of sexually different bodies in the context of the work of Julia Kristeva, Mary Douglas, and Luce Irigaray. Grosz founded her argument on Julia Kristeva’s essay Powers of Horror, which looks at the closed modern body and of body fluids through the concept of abjection (Kristeva 1982). Grosz perceives abjection as essentially the “refusal of the defiling, impure, uncontrollable materiality of a subject’s embodied existence” (Grosz 1989, 72). The scholar elaborates on sexual differences in terms of the “dirt” of bodies, in other words, flowing and seeping bodily fluids, which indicate the permeability of the body. Bodily fluids thus restrain the ability of self-​control and challenge the traditional concept of autonomy and the supremacy of consciousness over the body. Although the excretion of bodily fluids seems to be a universal characteristic of all humans, the cultural meanings of pollution associated with bodily fluids are sexually differentiated owing to the patriarchal relation between sexual bodies. Particularly, female bodies are depicted as causing contamination for men, which is not the case as far as male bodies are concerned. Since the seminal fluid is transmitted through ejaculation, it is perceived as an active agent as well as a causal agent in terms of its purpose. Female bodily fluids, on the other hand, are portrayed as passive, seeping, leaking and uncontrollable hormonal side effects. The woman’s body is believed to lack self-​containment, control, and autonomy. Women’s bodies are consequently categorized as both distinct from and inferior to male bodies. Grosz thus puts emphasis on the significance of cultural representations structured as differences in forming subjectivity. Sexual difference appears to be a preontological foundation for making sexual identities and their external relations possible. The model of corporeality proposed by Grosz departs from the metaphors of biological bedrock. The scholar presents a more complex concept of corporeality, subjectivity, and cultural meanings, which are all being continuously constituted and reconstructed. She refers to this process as “open materiality,” i.e. “a set of (possibly infinite) tendencies and potentialities which may be developed, yet whose development will necessarily hinder or induce other developments and other trajectories” (1994, 191). The body is involved in the process of active “becoming.” According to Grosz, the body is both permeable, biologically constrained and susceptible to cultural inscriptions. In The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely (2004), Grosz identifies a weak point in her own concept of corporeality: “What I did not adequately realize... is that without some reconfigured concept of the biological body,

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models of subject-​inscription, production, or constitution lack material force; paradoxically, they lack corporeality” (2004, 3–​4). Grosz examines the relationship between the biology and evolution of material bodies. In particular, she investigates the materiality of the body by considering how biology can be understood outside essentialist and misogynist positions. The body is “a system, or series of open-​ended systems, functioning within other huge systems it cannot control, through which it can access and acquire its abilities and capacities” (3). The body as corporeal and material is irreversibly linked to the materiality of the world—​it is of the world. Referring to Darwin, Grosz focuses on evolution, which is supposed to help understand corporeality from a biological viewpoint. Evolution is viewed here as an open process: “related species in the past prefigure and provide the raw material for present and future species but in no way contain or limit them” (8). Hence, evolution aims to create new bodily forms and behaviours that are unforeseen and undetermined. Indeed, nature offers a wide range of material bodies and ways of being in the world, whereas culture favours a single development path. For instance, there are many notions of sexual differences as far as insects or fungi are concerned, which might challenge the patriarchal definition of sex difference that pits male against female. Drawing on the principles of evolution, one may influence the culture as given. Thus, evolution is described as “deconstruction itself ” (81). Due to sexual selection, evolution provides countless possibilities, bodily forms, behaviours, as well as queerness. Furthermore, the sexual difference can be described as the inscribed ontological mechanism involved in any transformation and shaping material bodies. Thus, the concept of material bodies developed by Grosz is affected by evolution, which includes environmental factors (such as natural selection) and the unpredictability of sexual selection. As a result, bodies are open to changes beyond what is considered as given. They are also shaped by the inhuman in a human, what connects them to beyond the animal: “the origin and the end of humanity” (Grosz 2011, 12). In her latest work, however, Grosz presents a more detailed account of sexual difference and differentiation. For instance, in Becoming Undone (2011), she points out that Darwin does not discuss sex as the binary distinction between male and female, but, instead, Darwin explores different forms of sexual difference observable in animal and plant species, which cannot be seen in terms of only two (2011, 122). Grosz also emphasizes the importance of excessive and nonreproductive traits in the evolution of species. In contrast to the common belief in evolutionary biology that fitness and survival are the main goals of evolution, Grosz explains that Darwin’s theory of sexual selection also involves aesthetic inutility. This component serves to complicate the force of natural

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selection by forming variations that do not necessarily lead to the creation of offspring, which is better fit to survive. Thus, Grosz’s work has had a crucial impact on the materialist feminists attempting to explain the significance of the matter and the body in producing cultural, social, and sexual differences. Nevertheless, Grosz’s work has also been criticized for prioritizing sexual difference over other types of differences, such as racial or class differences. The scholar has also been chastised for stating that transsexual bodies are incapable of acquiring the features of the other sex since the sexual difference cannot be reduced to genetics or physiology (Grosz 1994, 2014). Brian Massumi elaborates on Grosz’s claims on sexual selection and points out that Grosz “leaves by the wayside the majority of life-​forms populating the earth. It leapfrogs over more ‘primitive’, less ostentatiously coupling creatures, not to mention ‘lower’ animals that persist in multiplying asexually” (Grosz 2014, 23).

2.8.3 Elizabeth Wilson and gut feminism Elizabeth Wilson also discusses the de(re)construction of mind–​body dualism in her 2004 book Psychosomatic:  Feminism and the Neurological Body.  Wilson elaborates on how feminist work has historically devalued biological processes. She claims that our perception of “soma’s compliant nature” needs to be rethought but not at the cost of “critical innovation and political efficacy” (2004, 11–​16). What needs to be seen in biology is “a complexity usually attributed only to nonbiological domains” (13). The scholar attempts to illustrate that nature is involved in the complex activities associated with culture. In this way, “figuration of channelling and control” (28) could be displaced. She points to Darwin’s experiment in 1872, which concerned a beheaded frog that lost cerebral control of its body, but its muscular and peripheral nervous system continued to function normally. When the frog’s thigh was stimulated and irritated by a drop of acid, the frog responded by moving its limbs in a manner like that of a normally functioning frog, i.e. it wiped the acid away with the foot on the injured leg. The frog’s peripheral nervous system proves that it is thoughtful and is capable of responding inventively even in the decerebrated state. A vast behavioural and psychic world is revealed within this simple neurophysiological action. In 2015 Elizabeth A. Wilson published Gut Feminism, which evolved from a paper that Wilson thought would serve as the conclusion of her 2004 book, Psychosomatic: Feminism and the Neurological Body. In Gut Feminism, Wilson attempts to develop a conceptual toolkit for reading biology, emphasizing the entanglements of melancholy and pharmaceutical events in the human body. The scholar examines the organicity of the body, exemplified by the gut, like

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writing and rewriting itself without a pre-​existing distinction between psyche and soma, mood and gut. She argues that the gut is an organ of the mind, as “it ruminates, deliberates, comprehends” (Wilson 2015, 5). Her work is a response to feminist tendencies of antibiologism and contests a neurological Cartesian split that assumes the neurological is synonymous with the cerebral. Despite an increasing interest in feminist science studies and feminist new materialisms, Wilson believes that there is still “something about biology that remains troublesome for feminist theory” (3). These reconceptualizations of body–​mind dualism come with significant political implications. The way we think about the world, how we make distinctions, and how we evaluate them have political meaning: they sustain power relations, challenge status quos, and transform the world.

2.8.4 Donna Haraway: Cyberfeminism, cyborg and the body Donna Haraway also offers a radical rethinking of materiality. As a zoologist and science historian, she invented the figures of cyborgs, trickster coyotes, and “artifactual” natures that blur the boundaries between nature and culture as they insist on nature’s agency. In 1985 Donna Haraway published her landmark “Cyborg Manifesto” (1985 [1991]), which is often associated with the beginning of cyberfeminism defined as a new wave of (post)feminist thinking and practice. Haraway’s project overlaps to some extent with Judith Butler’s views presented in Gender Trouble. The science historian draws attention to the dangers of the attempts to “reinvent” nature and intends to overcome the binary opposition between nature and culture by substituting the two notions with nature/​culture, in which various elements are entangled. The scholar argues that the boundaries between human and animal as well between animal and machine need to be blurred. Thus, she introduces the figure of the cyborg or a cybernetic creature that is at once “animal and machine” living in a world “ambiguously natural and crafted” (1985 [1991, 149]). The ontological status of the cyborg in Haraway is not entirely clear. The author uses the term “cyborg” both literally as well as metaphorically, referring to a machine–​human or animal hybrid. The author also states that everyone is a cyborg in terms of relying on the most diverse types of prosthetic devices, ranging from dental fillings or a cane for walking, and therefore a cyborg is not something new. According to Haraway, the cyborg seems to be the right proposal in view of the fact that “[…] late-​twentieth-​century machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference between natural and artificial, mind and body, self-​ developing and externally designed, and many other distinctions that used to

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apply to organisms and machines. Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert” (152). The cyborg figure captures the “bodily reality” and resists any appeal to a pure nature which is meant to form our bodies. It is an intriguing metaphor for the embodiment in the technological age, because “we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs” (581). As Haraway maintains, “nature” is not subordinate to culture, but it is its active partner, the cyborg is not an appeal to a purely natural body, but neither it is a manifestation of total trust in technology. The boundaries between the natural and the constructed are, thus, eradicated. According to Haraway, the body and the natural world has “a trickster quality that resists categories and projects of all kinds” (1997, 128). In her later work, Haraway’s account of the quirkiness and agency is represented as a feature of nature, in contrast to Butler, who discussed agency as a characteristic of discursive practices (Haraway 2003; 2008). Nature is perceived as an agent, contributing to the entangled nature/​culture. Instead of linking the relationship to nature to “reification, possession, appropriation and nostalgia” (2008, 158), nature ought to be seen as “a partner in the potent conversation” (158). Feminist scholars have interpreted the cyborg figure in manifold ways. Haraway faced allegations that the cyborg is propagating what it is trying to reject, and therefore it presents a logocentric, rational system that excludes the emotionality, pain and experience of a woman. It has been also said to promote phallocentrism and technological domination, as it is dualistic since it separates technological agency and matter. Haraway’s cyborg, however, can be seen as an attempt to escape the established categories:  “Why should our bodies end at the skin, or include at best other beings encapsulated by skin?” (Haraway 1985 [1991, 220]). In Bodily Natures, Stacy Alaimo also notices that feminist cultural studies, influenced by theories of discursive construction, have acknowledged the cyborg as a social and technological construct but have neglected the matter of the cyborg. In this vein, a cyborg’s materiality is biological and technological, fleshy and wired, since the cyborg promotes human “kinship with animals” and machines (Haraway 1991, 154). In her 2016 book Staying with the Trouble, Haraway reminds the readers that human beings are not singular beings but limbs in a complex, multispecies network of entwined ways of existing. In order to convey this idea, Haraway implements the metaphor of the spider’s web that illustrates a world in which all lives are interwoven: The tentacular are not disembodied figures; they are cnidarians, spiders, fingery beings like humans and raccoons, squid, jellyfish, neural extravaganzas, fibrous entities,

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Attempts at overcoming mind–​body dualisms flagellated beings, myofibril braids, matted and felted microbial and fungal tangles, probing creepers, swelling roots, reaching and climbing tendrilled ones. The tentacular are also nets and networks, it critters, in and out of clouds. Tentacularity is about life lived along lines—​and such a wealth of lines—​not at points, not in spheres. “The inhabitants of the world, creatures of all kinds, human and non-​human, are wayfarers”; generations are like “a series of interlaced trails.” (Haraway 2016, 32)

The scholar emphasizes that our bodies and minds are made of billions of bacteria inhabiting our guts. In this sense, thinking is always “thinking-​with,” i.e. an ecological act: “thinking-​with that is becoming-​with is in itself a way of relaying... But knowing that what you take has been held out entails a particular thinking ‘between’” (2016, 34). Thus, Haraway’s idea of “tentacular thinking” constitutes a metaphor for a non-​linear, multiple, networked existence. Tentacularity is both a mode of being and of representation: “myriad tentacles will be needed to tell the story of the Chthulucene.” In her book, Haraway also imagines a multifaceted sympoiesis, i.e. complex, dynamic, responsive, situated, historical systems that will challenge the anthropocentric autopoiesis (self-​creation) of the Capitalocene and the fatalism of the Anthropocene. What is more, the scholar encourages to “make kin” outside of normative familial (or species-​bound) structures by stating, “My purpose is to make ‘kin’ mean something other/​more than entities tied by ancestry or genealogy” (2016, 161). All critters share a common “flesh,” laterally, semiotically, and genealogically. In this way, Haraway underlines the queer quality of human/​non-​human encounters and extends the notion of kinship beyond patriarchal heteronormativity and the species divides. Furthermore, due to her earlier reflection on the entanglement of animals and humans in The Companion Species Manifesto (2003), Haraway suggests a praxis of care and response, expressed in the hyphenated term of “response-​ability,” which means avoiding an “unprecedented looking away” (2016, 35). Care indicates here an open-​ended practice that dismantles hierarchies between humans and the environment.

2.8.5 Mapping (trans)corporeal transits The movement between bodies and nature can be best illustrated by means of food, where plants or animals become part of the human. Growing a tomato by Ladelle McWhorter results in an excellent appreciation for dirt and a sense of kinship to this matter. When she is about to throw the crumbs of Doritos in her composting trench, she realizes that she “can’t feed that crap to [her] dirt,” then she reports that “suddenly it occurred to [her] that, for all their differences, these two things [she] was looking at were cousins—​not close cousins, but cousins,

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several deviations once removed” (1999, 167). The dirt becomes flesh, through the tomato, which then is consumed by animals, including humans. It is incorporated into the human body and transforms us. Thus, the woman changes her perception of the dirt into something that makes the essence of oneself and deserves care. McWhorter’s story extends her own flesh to the dirt, rather than just absorbing the fruits of the dirt into herself. Consequently, McWhorter thoroughly redefines the stuff of matter. An Australian feminist philosopher, Moria Gatens, similarly portrays human bodies in the context of Spinoza’s work as spreading into the more-​than-​human world. The identity of the human body should not be regarded as a finished product since the body is in constant interchange with its environment and “is radically open to its surroundings and can be composed, recomposed and decomposed by other bodies” (1996, 110). In Gatens’s interpretation of Spinoza, the human body is never static because it is constantly altered due to encounters with other bodies that may be harmful or helpful (110). It seems to align with some 21st-​century theories of corporeality, such as the environmental health movement, which makes precautions that some “interchange[s] with [the] environment” might lead to sickness and death. Protests against genetically modified food may serve here as an example. These engineered foods may have unintended impacts on various living creatures. In her book Telling Flesh: The Substance of the Corporeal, Vicki Kirby explores how human corporeality opens into the more-​than-​human world. Kirby draws on the works of such feminist theorists like Luce Irigaray and Jane Gallop to further discuss the relationship between body and language. She postulates that the faculty of languaging should no longer be perceived as an exclusively human function; otherwise, nature/​culture and mind/​body schisms are to remain in place. She suggests that “re-​thinking ‘language’ and ‘textuality’ can materially effect/​rewrite the notions ‘essence’, ‘origin’, and ‘body’” (1997, 83–​84). Kirby offers a challenging interpretation of Jacques Derrida’s famous statement that “there is no outside of text.” She responds: “It is as if the very tissue of substance, the ground of Being, is this mutable intertext—​a ‘writing’ that both circumscribes and exceeds the conventional divisions of nature and culture” (61). Kirby introduces the idea of “whole writing,” a becoming world of emerging identities, a system of generative contamination in which atoms, cells, organs, electrical pulses, skin, and texts are all enclosed within one another as the required circumstances for forming entities. Thus, Kirby describes the world as a process of “languaging” in which every entity is “engorged with the whole” (46). What is more, Kirby suggests “that nature scribbles or that flesh reads” (127) and reconceptualizes the basic terms of the poststructuralist model of textuality:

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Attempts at overcoming mind–​body dualisms What I am trying to conjure here is some “sense” that word and flesh are utterly implicated, not because “flesh” is actually a word that mediates the fact of what is being referred to, but because the entity of a word, the identity of a sign, the system of language, and the domain of culture—​none of these are autonomously enclosed upon themselves. Rather they are all emergent within a force field of differentiations that has no exteriority in any final sense. (127)

Kirby declines to distinguish between the human, the cultural, or the linguistic against the matter. Nature, culture, bodies, and texts form a limitless “force field of differentiation.” Furthermore, the scholar also notices that feminist scholars have confused biology and essence, and as a result, they have repeated what they want to prevent, i.e. the inscribing of language on the body “as such.” Hence, Kirby defines the biological body in the following way: We might think the body as myriad interfacings, infinite partitionings—​as a field of transformational, regenerative splittings, and differings that are never not pensive. Flesh, blood, and bone—​literate matter—​never ceases to reread and rewrite itself through endless incarnations. (148)

According to Kirby, the substance of human corporeality, including human linguistic systems, is not separable from the substance of “nature.” For McWhorter, Gatens, and Kirby, the boundaries that separate humans from nature do not exist, as human corporeality and textuality extend into the more-​than-​human world. In her 2008 paper “Natural convers(at)ions: Or what if culture was really nature all along?,” Kirby maintains, however, that there is a certain Cartesian dualism in which human intellect and intentionality are distinct from the matter: “[…] it goes without saying that nature/​the body/​materiality preexist culture/​intellect/​ abstraction, and furthermore, that the thinking self is not an articulation of matter’s intentions” (2008, 216). Indeed, there is some sort of dependence between the intellect and the corporeality. If humans had no flesh and thus no body, it would be impossible for them to intellectualize. Nevertheless, Kirby contends that intellect/​culture exists beyond the body and is distinct from the primordial. This conceptualization of nature and culture is problematic as it reinforces the idea that humans differ from nature in terms of their capacities. There seems to be an interconnection between them only when there is a clear boundary between the thinking human and the acting natural world. Thus, the human is still put in the centre and defines the limits of capacity and action. It is also noteworthy that from the environmental ethics’ viewpoint, it may be problematic to compare human corporeality and non-​human nature since, in some ways, this perpetuates the dualisms. Nature is inhabited by a plethora of non-​human minds as well as matter. Val Plumwood argues that to overcome

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nature/​culture, body/​mind Western dualisms, we need to “reconceive of ourselves as more animal and embodied, more ‘natural’, and that we reconceive of nature as more mindlike than in Cartesian conceptions” (1993, 124). Although Carolyn Merchant claims that women become activists “because their bodies, or the bodies of those with whom they have a caring relationship, are threatened by toxic or radioactive substances,” she also emphasizes that nature should be “elevated” to a political “subject” (1996, xviii). Stacy Alaimo similarly states that environmental politics must express clear understanding of nature as “mindlike,” such as the language of dolphins or the cultures of elephants, which seems to be often denied.

2.8.6 Nancy Tuana and viscous porosity Nancy Tuana’s concept of “viscous porosity” addresses the paradoxical nature of bodies and the bodily, simultaneously “viscous” (in wanted or unwanted states of interconnectedness) and “porous” (having openings that enable flows). In her landmark essay “Viscous Porosity: Witnessing Katrina,” Tuana argues that feminists need to avoid the distinction between realism and social constructivism, as both are based on nature/​culture dualism. Instead, the scholar proposes interactionism, which allows to blur the boundaries between these two poles and recognizes the agency of materiality as well as the porosity of entities. Tuana admits that she was inspired by a Whiteheadian process metaphysic when thinking of the term “interactionism.” The above-​mentioned process refers to the emergence of the basic units of existence (phenomena) from interactions. Donna Haraway’s idea of material-​semiotic is also rooted in the Whiteheadian foundation (see Haraway 1997). Interactionism presents the world as a “complex phenomena in dynamic relationality” (Tuana 2001, 238–​39). Interactionism recognizes the porosity between phenomena which undermines any attempts to address a nature/​culture binary. In order to illustrate an interactionist ontology, Tuana discusses the interweaving of material and semiotic elements that became Hurricane Katrina. The scholar considers these phenomena symbolic of “the viscous porosity between humans and our environment, between social practices and natural phenomena” (2008, 193). The conceptual metaphor of viscous porosity demonstrates the complex interactions between beings through which subjects are formed. However, the distinctions between nature and culture sometimes need to be made, but these boundaries should not be interpreted as of “natural kind” or reflecting a dualism. It is noteworthy that Tuana’s concept of viscosity enables her to emphasize “distinctions” as ethical and political matters. “Viscosity” implies

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resistance to the change of form and, thus, seems to be a more useful metaphor than “fluidity,” which may foster open possibilities and ignore sites of resistance or the complexity of material agency and its involvement in interactions. Tuana contends that Katrina illustrates “no sharp ontological divide” between the natural and social factors that triggered the hurricane, “but rather a complex interaction of phenomena of both social practices and natural phenomena” (193). The interaction of agency between human and non-​human agents also occurs at a more intimate level. Tuana discusses the issue of the PVC manufacturers along the Mississippi river, which can be read through their molecular porosities. The viscous porosity of human bodies and of PVC enables molecular exchange, where PVC permeate the porosity of skin and flesh. Consequently, plastic becomes flesh. This type of interaction might result in cancer. In her essay “Viscous Porosity: Witnessing Hurricane Katrina,” Nancy Tuana also draws attention to a similar situation when one drinks coke. Namely, the components of the plastic bottle possess an agency that alters the flesh of one’s body into a material or structure which is not found in nature. The parts of the plastic become a part of the flesh. When the interaction happens, nature/​culture distinction is eradicated. The viscous porosity of bodies belies any attempt to delineate a “natural” boundary between nature and culture. Tuana emphasizes that there is a viscous porosity of flesh—​my flesh and the flesh of the world. This porosity is a hinge through which we are of and in the world. I refer to it as viscous for there are membranes that effect the interactions. These membranes are of various types—​skin and flesh, prejudgments and symbolic imaginaries, habits and embodiments (2008, 199–​200).

In her 2001 paper “Material Locations,” Tuana refers to Haraway’s figure of OncoMouse as symbolic of a culturally constructed natural being, which seems to illustrate the dissolving of nature/​culture divide (Haraway 1997; Tuana 2001). OncoMouse is a transgenic mouse developed for use in cancer research. It has been fundamentally transformed by technology to contain an oncogene, i.e. a human tumour and gene producing breast cancer. While the OncoMouse was reconfigured on purpose, it mirrors the flesh of workers in the PVC factories along the Mississippi river. The bodies of the plastics industry workers, and generally human bodies, similarly present a porous divide. Viscous porosity, then, is a valuable model for conceptualizing material interactions in scientific, ethical and political terms.

2.8.7 Stacy Alaimo and transcorporeality Viscous porosity and material interactions in scientific/​ethical/​political context exemplify the concept of transcorporeality developed by Stacy Alaimo in

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Material Feminisms (2008) and while writing Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self (2010). Alaimo defines trans-​corporeality in Posthuman Glossary as “a posthumanist mode of new materialism and material feminism. Transcorporeality means that all creatures, as embodied beings, are intermeshed with the dynamic, material world, which crosses through them, transforms them, and is transformed by them” (2020, 435). The concept of transcorporeality is supposed to disrupt Western human exceptionalism and challenges the subject of Western humanist individualism, who considers himself transcendent and disembodied. Instead, the trans-​corporeal subject is traversed by substantial material interchanges; it is formed through and entwined with biological, technological, social, economic, political systems, as well as processes at different scales. Transcorporeality exists within capitalism but resists the appeal of glittering objects, focusing on the agency they have and the impact of their production and disposal. Instead of contemplating discrete objects as separate from the self, it thinks as the very stuff of the world (Alaimo 2016). Such a mode of thought “embeds theorists, activists, and artists within material substances, flows, and systems” (Alaimo 2014, 13). It rejects thinking under the Cartesian cogito ergo sum formulae, in which rationality recognizes one’s existence, but it means thinking as a body that is part of the substantial interchanges and substances of the co-​extensive world. It also involves acknowledging the agencies of ordinary objects that are already part of ourselves and pondering what it implies for other creatures to deal with their habitats. It is important to emphasize that trans-​corporeality does not indicate a spiritual, experiential, or phenomenological interconnection (Alaimo 2010). It involves a rethinking of ontologies and epistemologies and engaging with scientific findings, even if the data is “mangled” by social and economic forces. Stacy Alaimo also admits that her concept of transcorporeality was inspired by various feminist theories of corporeality. One of them is the concept of “intercorporeality” of Gail Weiss, which highlights “the experience of being embodied [as] mediated by our continual interactions with other human and non-​human bodies” (1999, 158). In her book Bodily Natures, Alaimo also argues that environmental health and environmental justice movements and modes of analysis have given rise to the trans-​corporeal subject, as these movements detect and negotiate the erratic substances moving across bodies and places. They also trace the unequal distribution of environmental harms and benefits, demonstrating that race, class and gender impact material inequities. Trans-​corporeality considers the far-​reaching effects of seemingly harmless consumerist practices as well as the consequences of industrial agriculture, animal experimentation and dumping toxic waste from the global north in the global south. One of the best

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examples of immersion in material agencies is the idea that all bodies, human and non-​human, are to greater or lesser degrees toxic. As Stacy Alaimo explains in her chapter of Bodily Natures, “Transcorporeal Feminisms and the Ethical Space of Nature,” since billions of pounds of toxic chemicals are emitted each year, a considerable number of chemical interactions and intra-​actions may occur in bodies and environments. Similarly, consumer goods, which are designed to taste a certain way, may cause cancer or pollute the planet. Even animals and humans living far away from the most polluted areas carry chemical substances in their blood and tissues. The problem of toxicity is further discussed in section 4.1 in the context of Zainab Amadahy’s novel The Moons of Palmares. Alaimo also draws attention to the ethical impact of epistemological paradigms and practices that has been long recognized by feminist epistemology and environmental philosophy (see Alaimo 2010). Environmental feminism promotes more cautious ways of knowing, which do not dismiss the actions and importance of the more-​than-​human world. For instance, Donna Haraway, in “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of the Partial Perspective,” proposes an epistemological model which demands that “the object of knowledge be pictured as an actor and agent, not a screen or ground or a resource, never finally as a slave to the master that closes off the dialectic in his unique agency and authorship of objective knowledge” (Haraway 1988). Situated knowledges are active instruments that produce knowledge, but they are also “the apparatus of bodily production” (595), which leads to the discussion on the way vision is productive of bodies-​meaning. The concept of situated knowledges is further explored in section 5.2 of this book, which discusses the novel by Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s Oracles.

2.8.8 Rosi Braidotti and the posthuman Trans-​corporeality and other theoretical concepts within feminist posthumanities propose a new figuration of the human after the Human that is not based on dualisms, hierarchies or exceptionalism. Alaimo’s concept of transcorporeality is in tune with Rosi Braidotti’s “posthuman relational subject acknowledging the transversal micro-​political connections while aiming at affirmative ethics” (2019, 78). Like transversal subjects discussed by Rosi Braidotti in The Posthuman (2013) or Posthuman Knowledge (2019) and other works, the ‘trans’ of transcorporeality points to different transits and transformations. According to Braidotti, “The challenge for critical theory is momentous: we need to visualize the subject as a transversal entity encompassing the human, our genetic neighbours the animals and the earth as a whole” (2013, 82).

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Braidotti refers to contemporary ecology and environmentalism as other sources of a reconfiguration of the posthuman subject, with a particular emphasis on relating to all “earth-​others” (48). Environmentalism resituates humanity within nature and values generic life force over the self-​centred human subject. “It produces a new way of combining self-​interests with the well-​being of an enlarged community, based on environmental inter-​connections” (48). Critical posthumanism then stresses the importance of complex environmental relations and social-​ecological-​scientific networks within which humans and non-​humans, material phenomena, and knowledge practices are deeply enmeshed. Braidotti states that feminist anti-​humanism or postmodern feminism can also be considered a kind of critical posthumanism in as much as it claims that “it is impossible to speak in one unified voice about woman/​Natives and other marginal subjects” (2017, 27). The primary goal of critical posthumanism is to reject individualism and replace the humanist ideals “with a more complex and relational subject framed by embodiment, sexuality, affectivity, empathy, and desire as core qualities” (Braidotti 2013, 26). The scholar calls for a “post-​anthropological exodus” which would free the “demonic forces of naturalized others,” including animals, insects, viruses (65). Rather than be restricted to individuals, subjectivity should be seen as a cooperative trans-​species effort that takes place transversally, in-​between male/​female; nature/​technology; black/​white; local/​global; present/​past, i.e. in assemblages that displace the binaries. These in-​between states defy the logic of the excluded and aim at the production of affirmative values and projects. Poststructuralism gave rise to this approach, but the posthuman turn composes a new ontological framework of becoming-​subjects. Understood this way, posthumanism endorses the new materialist complicity of nature and culture or the mutual involvement of discursive practices and the material world. It can be illustrated with Serenella Iovino’s words: “Our world is pervious and fluid, and so must be the notions that help us to read and to describe its ecologies of ideas and bodies” (2016, 2). Braidotti’s project is defined by feminist, anti-​racial and postcolonial cultural politics as well as vital-​materialist ontology. Displacing the nature/​culture dualism through the “natureculture continuum” (Haraway 1997, 2003), the scholar calls for a return to Spinoza’s monism: My monistic philosophy of becomings rests on the idea that matter, including the specific slice of matter that is human embodiment, is intelligent and self-​organizing. This means that matter is not dialectically opposed to culture, nor to technological mediation, but continuous with them. This produces a different scheme of emancipation and a non-​dialectical politics of human liberation. This position has another important corollary, namely that political agency need not be critical in the negative sense

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The emergence of a posthuman subjectivity lies at the heart of enmeshment with the material, and the cultural, a human–​non-​human intermingle. What constitutes a posthuman subject is a relational capacity and ability to extend towards others. Relational beings can affect and be affected by others, which is not to be confused with individualized emotions. An immanent project indicates that all matter is immanent to itself, which means that the subject asserts “the material totality of and interconnection with all living things” (47). The posthuman subject is embodied and embedded, which means that we are “deeply steeped in the material world” (Braidotti 2019, 45). It is firmly located somewhere, according to the radical immanence of the “politics of location.” The subject is transversal since it relates to non-​human agents, including the Earth and technological agents, but it also indicates that we are all internally differentiated, constituted by multiplicity. It means that the subject works across differences but is still grounded. Hence, the subject is based on a strong sense of collectivity and community building. The posthuman subject is also a nomadic entity, thus opposing humanism and its variations. It is also animated by affirmative ethics, which function through the transformation of negative into positive passions; affirmation is a way of working the negativity, activating it and extracting knowledge from it. It implies an ethical drive to enter into a relationship that improves one’s ability to broaden the boundaries of what transversal subjects can become. It is also noteworthy that the posthuman is not a vision of the future, but it is an empirical, historically located indicator of our historical condition and a figuration or a navigational tool. The posthuman condition is defined as the convergence of posthumanism and post-​anthropocentrism within an economy of advanced capitalism (Braidotti 2013, 2017). While posthumanism criticizes the Humanist ideal of ‘Man’, post-​anthropocentrism critiques species hierarchy. Although they overlap, they are distinct notions and have different intellectual genealogies. As a theoretical figuration, the posthuman allows studying “the material and the discursive manifestations of the mutations that are engendered by advanced technological developments, climate change, and capitalism” (Braidotti 2019, 1–​2). The posthuman can also be described as a working hypothesis regarding the types of subjects we are becoming.

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Braidotti points out that the posthuman turn marks “the end of the opposition between humanism and anti-​humanism and traces different discursive focus on the idea of Europe as the cradle of Humanism, driven by a form of universalism that endows with a unique sense of historical purpose” (2013, 53). The decentering of Anthropos also brings an end to the distinction between bios, as human life, and zoe, the life of animals and non-​humans. Instead, there emerges a new human–​non-​human continuum and complex media-​technological interfaces in the context of the Anthropocene. The posthuman predicament is framed by the commodification of all that lives, which is the political economy of advanced capitalism. Braidotti advocates for radical posthuman subjectivity based on the ethics of becoming. The scholar describes the processes of transforming subjectivity, referring to the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. She distinguishes three types:  becoming-​animal, becoming-​earth, and becoming-​machine. Becoming an animal means recognizing transspecies solidarity based on our environmental embeddedness. The scholar first presents the discursive practices that enable Anthropos to separate itself from the rest of the animal kingdom. In order to demonstrate these relationships between the human and the non-​human animal, Braidotti refers to the mock taxonomy of Louis Borges, who divided animals into three categories. Thus, the relationship between humans and other animals can be characterized as an oedipalized (“you and me together on the same sofa”); an instrumental (animals that we consume) and a fantasmatic one (animals as “exotic, extinct infotainment objects of titillation”) (Braidotti 2013, 68). As far as the Oedipal relationship between human and non-​human animals is concerned, it is based on the anthropocentric belief that other animals exist solely to serve humans. In order to change this projection of human characteristics on other animals, it is necessary to introduce a “system of representation that matches the complexity of contemporary non-​human animals and their proximity to humans” (70). Non-​human animals must be seen as independent entities. When it comes to the animals “we eat” and “those we are scared of,” they are perceived through their instrumental value to humans. Braidotti explains that this category is related to the market economy. The animals are embedded within capitalist structures as products. Braidotti postulates a turn to zoe-​centric ethics, in which the aim is to preserve generic life, and therefore living things are not valued based on their market value but are perceived as distinct entities. Furthermore, becoming-​earth brings environmental, ecological and climate change issues to the fore. Braidotti criticizes in this context James Lovelock’s “Gaia” hypothesis, which postulates “a return to holism and to the notion of the whole earth as a single, sacred organism,” which is contrasted with industrialism

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(84). Thus, Lovelock reimagines technological development as a negative enterprise and reinstates the nature and culture, earth and industrialization dichotomy. Lovelock refers to Spinoza’s monism, but discusses it from a humanist lens, which means that the earth is regarded as a sort of deity in its relationship with human beings. Braidotti proposes a new interpretation of Spinoza, inspired by the Deleuze and Guattari’s re-​readings: “[c]ontemporary monism implies a notion of vital and self-​organizing matter, […] as well as a non-​human definition of Life as zoe, or a dynamic and generative force” (86). Spinoza refers to his infinite substance as “God” since it is the vital and animating force of the universe. Deleuze also describes this vital energy as the great animal, the cosmic “machine” so as to escape biological determinism. Following Deluze and Guattari (1987), Braidotti refers to this cosmic energy “Chaos” as “roar,” since it encompasses the infinite range of virtual forces. Therefore, a posthuman subjectivity indicates empathetic recognition of an interspecies aim of keeping the planet, as the environment for iterations of zoe, alive. Finally, Braidotti discusses the process of becoming-​machine, which dismantles the barriers between people and technology, and considers biotechnologically mediated relationships to be fundamental to the constitution of a subject. Contemporary machines are devices that process forces, which facilitate interrelations and assemblages. For instance, the human nervous system is biopolitically impacted and electronically duplicated by contemporary information technologies they intersect with. Thus, cyborgs might indicate the bodies of high-​tech, but also the “digital proletariat” who propels the high-​tech industries without even having access to them (Braidotti 2006). The scholar suggests a vitalist perspective on the technologically bio-​mediated other, which is concerned with becoming and transformation. Braidotti proposes a model of becoming-​ machine influenced by Deleuze and Guattari as one of a “playful and pleasure-​ prone relationship to technology that is not based on functionalism” (2013, 91). This technologically bio-​mediated process allows us to perceive ourselves as “bodies without organs,” that is, a complex assemblage of elements arranged into a long-​term pattern of relationship. From this point of view, the body can be described as any form of stable organization or being. Thus, the relation between humans and machines is reimaged as two nonhierarchically ordered species seeking shared ethics. Braidotti encourages us to rethink human bodies as part of a nature–​culture continuum. What is more, in blurring the distinction between Man and his naturalized others, Braidotti points to the dynamics of power existing in society. Power, in the Foucauldian sense, operates on a grid that the posthuman subject can resist. As Braidotti notices: “power is not a static

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given, but a complex strategic flow of effects which call for pragmatic politics of intervention and the quest for sustainable alternatives” (99). The postanthropocentric turn from the hierarchical relations favouring ‘Man’ demands a form of estrangement and the practice of defamiliarization as a fundamental methodological tool. It is a process of dis-​identification from anthropocentric values, which entails the loss of familiar ways of thinking and representation in order to make room for creative alternatives. It leads to a transition to a new frame of reference, which involves becoming relational in a multidirectional way. Deleuze would refer to such a process as an active “deterritorialization.” Disengagement from a dominant normative vision of the self has been postulated by feminist theorists, who attempted to disconnect from the dominant representations of femininity and masculinity (Braidotti 1991). Race and postcolonial theories, including Sylvia Wynter’s theories described in section 1.5, have contributed to the methodology of de-​familiarization, as they also contest white privilege and other racialized conceptions of a human subject. The aim of defamiliarization is to decolonize our imagination through disengagement from the institutions of power. One of the methods to aid in this process is monism, since It implies the open-​ended, interrelational, multi-​sexed and trans-​species flows of becoming through interaction with multiple others. A posthuman subject thus constituted exceeds the boundaries of both anthropocentrism and of compensatory humanism, to acquire a planetary dimension. (Braidotti 2013, 89)

For Deleuze, art seems to be an intensive practice aiming at inventing new ways of thinking and experiencing Life’s possibilities (Deleuze and Guattari 1994). By allowing us to move beyond the confines of our identities, art becomes inhuman in the sense of non-​human in that it bonds us with the animal, earthy and planetary forces surrounding us (Braidotti 2013, 107). Art also stretches the boundaries of representation and carries us to the edge of what our embodied selves are capable of. The expression of alternative representations of the subject as a non-​unitary entity is referred to as a figuration. Braidotti provides examples of such figurations as the feminist/​the queer/​the cyborgs/​the diasporic/​Dolly the sheep, which serve not only as metaphors but markers for distinct geopolitical and historical locations and express complex singularities. Furthermore, Braidotti emphasizes the importance of “not-​One-​ness” of the material field, which allows for the celebration of diversity. Posthuman ethics encourages us to preserve the principle of not-​One at our subjectivity’s deepest structures by recognizing the bonds with the many ‘others’ in a web of complex interrelations. This ethical principle shatters the myth of unity and one-​ness,

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emphasizing the importance of the relation and the recognition that one is the result of uncontrollable flows of interactions, affectivity and desire. It is noteworthy that contemporary biogenetic capitalism creates a global form of reciprocal inter-​dependence of all living organisms, including non-​humans. However, this type of unity seems to be of the negative kind, as a global interconnection between humans and the non-​humans facing common risks. Braidotti proposes, instead, an affirmative bond that situates the subject in the flow of numerous relations with others (see Braidotti 2019). Thus, interlinked posthuman and new materialist theories delegitimize human exceptionalism by acknowledging the interconnections between species and recognizing permeable boundaries of different forms of life in the naturalcultural continuum.

2.9 A return to phenomenology There has been a recent resurgence of interest in the influential feminist ideas of Simone de Beauvoir, particularly in the lived experience of the body. The writings of Sandra Bartky and Iris Young sparked this interest in the late 1970s, and it grew significantly in the 1990s. Young describes the notion of embodiment as a way of “being-​in-​the-​world” (2005, 9). The concept of “experience” is understood as an experience of the body in certain situations, in which the “natural” and “social” elements are impossible to be separated. Feminist writers also draw attention to the experiences of gendered, raced, differently abled and aged bodies, to reveal how such experiences affect social positionality and shape one’s sense of self. It further explores Sigmund Freud’s thesis that “the ego is a bodily ego” (Freud 1923 [1962]) and captures how the corporeal features manifest themselves in the experiences of oneself and others. Thus, feminist thought is related to phenomenology defined as “a matter of describing, not of explaining or analysing” that is achieved through “a direct description of our experience as it is” (Merleau-​Ponty 1962, viii). The French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-​Ponty presents in his work a philosophical attempt to comprehend what it means to be embodied in the shared environment. Merleau-​Ponty (1968, 2003) rejects Cartesian dualisms and illustrates a body that is connected to other bodies that are entangled with the world. What is known about things emerges in the unavoidable interconnections between the body and world in a lived experience that occurs at someplace, time. According to Merleau-​Ponty’s theory of embodiment, the body is not something one possesses, but it is something we “are” (1962, 198). Moreover, the scholar

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points out that “we are in the world through our body,” which means that we know the world as an extension of the body (203). As Merleau-​Ponty notices, everything is both manufactured and natural in man, as it were, in the sense that there is not a word, not a form of behaviour which does not owe something to purely biological being—​and which at the same time does not elude the simplicity of animal life. (189)

In the passage mentioned above, Merleau-​Ponty emphasizes the interconnectedness of nature/​culture, matter and meaning, which seems to parallel the views expressed by Donna Haraway and Karen Barad discussed in section 2.8. According to Merleau-​Ponty, the phenomenological body is “always something other than what it is;” it is “never hermetically sealed” (198). The processes that lead to an embodied consciousness also ensure that the body is not static but in constant change, open and permeable. Merleau-​Ponty expresses this view in his concept called “the flesh of the world” discussed in his text The Visible and the Invisible (1969). The flesh can be defined as a “mesh” of elemental beings in which all beings are entangled (1968, 149). As the philosopher explains: We must not think the flesh starting from substances, from body and spirit—​for then it would be the union of contradictories—​but we must think it, as we said, as an element, as the concrete emblem of a general manner of being. (147)

“Element” is used here in the Greek sense. Therefore “flesh” refers to a way of “being” that is not co-​extensive with mind or matter. It is also noteworthy that Merleau-​Ponty introduces the term “chiasm” to name this intertwining of bodies or an “overlapping or encroachment” such that “things pass into us, as well as we into the things” (123). According to Merleau-​Ponty, one’s extension into the environment and the micromodalities allowing to become subjects constitute the lived embodiment that acts as a lens for knowing the world (1962, 82). Merleau-​Ponty emphasizes that consciousness is always embodied and capable of understanding the world and everything encountered across different bodily modalities, including motor, perceptual, cognitive, affective (317). Otherwise, the experience of the world would be disorganized and incomprehensible. In this way, Merleau-​Ponty recognizes the body’s necessity and tendency towards organization. It is visible in the situations when a disorganized body attempts to “right” itself. For instance, an amputee has a persisting feeling that a missing body part is still present (Merleau-​Ponty 1962, 80–​89). The study also emphasizes that our bodies are disorganizing as well; otherwise, there would be no need to struggle for (relative) “rightness.” Merleau-​Ponty presents the body as the site of knowing the world. The perception is then not a channel filtering

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information from a distinct environment, but it becomes an interaction of body, object, and environment. David Abram continues Merleau-​Ponty’s work in bridging phenomenology with environmental thought. Abram additionally draws attention to the intersections between phenomenology and Indigenous studies. In Becoming an Animal: An Earthly Cosmology, Abram encourages us to practice a kind of thought that does not separate us from the world of direct experience but connects us more tightly to that world. It is “a way of thinking enacted by the body and the mind, informed by the humid air and the soil and the quality of our breathing, by the intensity of our contact with the other bodies that surround” (Abram 2010, 15). In a series of chapters, Abram situates the readers in the animal body as a primary source of knowing instead of the intellect. He describes a thought as “a creativity proper to the body as a whole, arising spontaneously from the slippage between an organism and the folding terrain that it wanders” (15). The scholar emphasizes that the body is vulnerable and embedded in the material world: The body is an imperfect and breakable entity vulnerable to a thousand and one insults—​ to scars and the scorn of others, to disease, decay, and death. And the material world that our body inhabits is hardly a gentle place. The shuddering beauty of this biosphere is bristling with thorns: generosity and abundance often seem scant ingredients compared with the prevalence of predation, sudden pain, and racking loss. (17)

The more time humans spend being “glued” to the screens, the more disconnected we become from the other beings around. Abram suggests that human beings should not separate themselves from the much-​needed nourishment of contact and interchange with other forms of life. We experience the sensuous world only if we make ourselves vulnerable to it. In the first chapters, the scholar reflects on several ordinary aspects of the perceived world, like shadows, gravity, stones, and illustrates how each of these phenomena engages with our sensing and sentient body rather than intellect. Sensory perception allows for this ongoing interconnection. The philosopher reminds us that each of us is gifted with animal senses that can nourish our spiritual and sensual engagement with the world. What is more, the self is an extension of the breathing flesh of the world, while the things around us constitute some echo of the pains and pleasures of our body (48). Abram presents the matter as a living being. While most people perceive a rock as utterly inanimate, to a person with animal senses, it seems to be “another body engaged in the world” (59). The animal senses allow us to perceive things only by interacting with them. The author’s encounters with sea creatures made him also realize that they communicate through movements and sounds. His

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recognition of more-​than-​human intelligence allows us to enter into reciprocal symbioses that can help to sustain the world. Strongly resonant with Indigenous ways of knowing, Abram’s work illustrates the porosity of the boundary between humans and the more-​than-​human world. Another scholar who returns to some extent to phenomenology is the French philosopher Catherine Malabou, who attempts to develop a new materialism functioning as the foundation of a new philosophy of spirit. Malabou deals mainly with the concept of “plasticity,” which indicates how forms of life previously conceived as rigid are, in fact, “plastic” and constantly transforming. The scholar refers to scientific discoveries such as the neuroplasticity of the brain and epigenetics, which prove that our DNA does not predetermine the organic materiality of our being, but it is subject to ongoing metamorphosis (see Malabou 2008; 2016). Furthermore, in a chapter co-​authored with Judith Butler, Malabou also elaborates on the plasticity in Hegel’s Phenomenology and comes to the conclusion that the body can be described as a vexed relation, which means that the structure of the body is outside of itself and an imperative—​“you be my body for me”—​can be only partially fulfilled (2011, 611). Although Hegel did not intend to provide the context for explosive plasticity, Malabou believes that the German philosopher anticipated this explosive side of subjectivity in some respects (2009, 9). Her work presents an interdisciplinary exploration of plasticity as “the style of an era.” The phenomenological works seem to intersect with new materialist scholarship in terms of its perception of the body as a relation rather than a separate unit. Phenomenologist also highlight the importance of the lived experience of the body in a way that is frequently missing in the new materialist writings (although it is present in the works of some trans theorists, as for instance Salamon 2010). In new materialist scholarship, the autonomous, individualized, separated, discrete concept of the body is no longer appropriate given how the world is made of complex entanglements. Consequently, the notion of the body is erased and replaced by other various concepts such as materiality, matter, the bodily, or (trans)corporeality, which emphasize that the body is not independent and discrete, but constitutes a part of open systems. Such perception of the body challenges the anthropocentric approach to more-​than-​humans and contributes to the new ways of thinking about the ethical and political concerns. Since the work aims to analyse the novels of North American Indigenous writers, the next chapter looks at the way North American Indigenous people conceptualize the human body. I will also refer to Indigenous scholars from other parts of the world since, as already mentioned in the introduction to this book, many Indigenous peoples seem to share similar issues and agree upon

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specific ways of perceiving and experiencing the world, which have been also shaped by the experience of colonization. In the next chapter, I will discuss the differences between Indigenous and Western ways of thinking. I will also elaborate on the stereotypical perception of North American Indigenous people and Native American identity in the urban milieu.

Chapter 3. “We Are the Land”: Toward understanding the Native American worldview 3.1 Feminist new materialism and Indigenous materialisms It is noteworthy that the human/​non-​human dichotomy has been fundamental for European thought since the Enlightenment. However, many cultures around the world do not adopt such a distinction (Descola 2009; 2013). The Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro argues that Indigenous perspectivism advocates a “multinatural” continuum across all species, who are seen as beings endowed with a soul (see Viveiros de Castro 1998). This places the human/​non-​ human divide not between organisms but as a difference functioning within each of these species. Viveiros de Castro emphasizes that in Indigenous epistemologies, each entity is differential and relational “each kind of being appears to other beings as it appears to itself –​as human –​even as it already acts by manifesting its distinct and definitive animal, plant, or spirit nature” (2009, 68). Numerous Indigenous scholars have critiqued the Euro-​Western academy’s present approach to human-​environmental relationships and current trends in the Euro-​Western humanities, new materialism, posthumanism and the ontological turn, as Eurocentric. For example, in his 2020 book chapter, “The Emperor’s ‘New’ Materialism,” Brendan Hokowhitu points out that the nomenclature of ‘new’ is “simply offensive in the broader realm of multiple realities because its claims to temporal ownership of ideas that already existed in multiple Indigenous philosophies reminds [him] of the doctrine of discovery where already discovered lands only became meaningful through a white captive narrative; terra nullius equivalent cōgitātiō nullius” (2020, 17). In a similar vein, Zoe Todd, the Métis scholar, has criticized settler scholars for imagining that they have “discovered” the entanglements of “nature” and “culture,” which is what many Indigenous thinkers around the world have known for millennia (Todd 2016). As Hokowhitu adds, the invisibility of Indigenous peoples in new materialisms points to another “pathogen of Western thought” which “preserve[s] the boundaries of sense for itself ” and excludes Indigenous scholars from discussion so that “the emperor’s clothing can appear afresh” (Hokowhitu et al. 2020, 174). Kim Tallbear concludes that “… previous Euro(American) thinkers erased Indigenous peoples/​thought as part of their de-​animation of the material. Today,

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Euro(American) thinkers erase Indigenous peoples/​thought again as they seek to re-​animate the material” (quoted in Hokowhitu et. al. 2020, 175). Indigenous scholars have criticized New Materialism in different aspects. For instance, in her paper “An Indigenous Feminist’s Take On The Ontological Turn” (2016), Zoe Todd condemned Bruno Latour for failing to recognize Indigenous philosophers for their “millennia of engagement with sentient environments, with cosmologies that enmesh people into complex relationships between themselves and all relations” (2016, 6). This failure is much more pervasive, despite the fact that a growing number of Indigenous scholars maintain that Indigenous knowledges play critical role in multispecies survivance. It is becoming more difficult for Euro-​Western researchers to ignore these vibrant traditions as well as the repressive academic politics in which Indigenous scholars are marginalized or their work is not taken into consideration. It is, thus, necessary to point out that Indigenous thinkers also make influential contributions to critical plant studies and write about Indigenous peoples’ dynamic relationships with plants. For example, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s books Gathering Moss (2003) and especially Braiding Sweetgrass (2013) have had a significant impact on plant studies. This criticism proposes a change of perception of human-​environmental relations and a move towards a practice that recognizes the fundamental value of land, bodies, race, movement, colonialism and sexuality. For instance, the geographer Juanita Sundberg disapproves of posthumanism due to its exclusion of non-​European ontologies. The scholar writes that “the literature continuously refers to a foundational ontological split between nature and culture as if it is universal,” and emphasizes that theories of posthumanism appear to marginalize Indigenous epistemologies. Building on Zapatista concepts of “walking the world into being,” Sundberg encourages scholars to incorporate the “pluriverse” as praxis to decolonize posthumanist research. As Sundberg observes, “the Zapatista movement theorizes walking as an important practice in building the pluriverse, a world in which many worlds fit.” For Sundberg, through walking and movement, humans “play, narrate with a multiplicity of beings in place, we enact historically contingent and radically distinct worlds/​ontologies” (2014, 35–​39). This decolonizing methodology matches the geographer Sarah Hunt’s (Kwakwaka’wakw, Kwagiulth) exploration of dance at a Potlatch as a way of bringing Indigenous ontologies to life (2014, 32). Hunt discusses the epistemic violence prevalent in Euro-​Western academic practices concerning Indigenous knowledge, primarily by examining the ways that Indigenous ontologies are distorted in the existing colonial European and North American academies. According to Hunt, “the potential for Indigenous ontologies to unsettle dominant ontologies

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can be easily neutralized as a triviality, as a case study or a trinket, as powerful institutions work as self-​legitimating systems that uphold broader dynamics of (neo)colonial power” (29–​30). The systems of knowledge production need to be reconfigured; Hunt sees dance as a tool to impact colonial academic institutions, for Indigenous ontologies can be brought to life through dance (31). The erasure of race from posthumanist studies is also challenged by Zakiyyah Jackson, who emphasizes the topics of “race, colonialism, and slavery” that are often bypassed by posthumanism (2013, 671). Jackson emphasizes the need to decentre the Eurocentric, heteropatriarchal focus the posthumanist studies maintain within the “order of rationality” inherent to Euro-​Western institutions by returning to decolonial scholars omitted by dominant posthumanist philosophers, including Aimé Césaire. In her 2013 paper “Indigenous Place-​Thought and Agency amongst Humans and Non-​humans (First Woman and Sky Woman Go on a European World Tour!),” the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe scholar Vanessa Watts draws attention to the concept of “Indigenous Place-​Thought” (2013, 20–​34), which could replace such theories as an “ontology of dwelling,” developed by the British anthropologist Tim Ingold (2006, 121), who based it to some extent on Irving Hallowell’s ethnographic work concerning Anishinaabe people (Hallowell 1960). Watts criticizes such Euro-​Western scholars, such as Bruno Latour and Donna Haraway, who conceptualize non-​human agency in a Eurocentric, colonial way. Watts claims that: Haraway resists essentialist notions of the earth as mother or matter and chooses instead to utilize products of localized knowledges (i.e. Coyote or the Trickster) as a process of boundary implosion: “I like to see feminist theory as a reinvented coyote discourse obligated to its sources in many heterogeneous accounts of the world” (Haraway 1988). This is a level of abstracted engagement once again. While it may serve to change the imperialistic tendencies in Euro-​Western knowledge production, Indigenous histories are still regarded as story and process—​an abstracted tool of the West. (Watts 2013, 28)

The scholar also discusses the Actor Network Theory and dismisses its perception of “hierarchies of agency” (28). Instead, Watts calls for the conception of non-​human agency that incorporates Indigenous Place-​Thought as well as the hierarchical distinction created by some Euro-​Western researchers between flesh and things. Watts encourages us to envisage the agency as being connected to spirit, and “spirit exists in all things, then all things possess agency,” rather than consider elements like soil as “actants,” who can only possess agency depending on the interactions with human beings and exist “where the plane of action is equalized amongst all elements” (29–​30). Through their criticism of agency, and

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by recentring spirit, bodies, race, and sexuality within the context of the posthumanism, Indigenous scholars, including Hunt, Sundberg, Jackson, and Watts, explicitly illustrate the threats of a Eurocentric definition of ontology and posthumanist theory. These critiques of posthumanism can also be related to the Anthropocene discourse (Hartigan 2014). John Hartigan noted the overlapping concerns explored by posthumanism, multispecies ethnographies in particular, and the Anthropocene. While posthumanism intends to decentre the human in Euro-​Western scholarship, the Anthropocene is concerned with the human’s impact on the planet. The differences between Indigenous and Western modes of thought on matter can be defined in terms of epistemology (ways of knowing) and ontology (the nature of being), and they have long-​term repercussions. Numerous Indigenous scholars consider these differences the leading cause of the colonization and ongoing destruction of Indigenous cultures (see, e.g. Coulthard 2014; Denetdale 2009). Therefore, it is necessary to explain the complexity of American Indian thinking and philosophy to understand Indigenous perceptions of the body and environment. While there has never been one specific worldview that comprises all Native American culture, many American Indians seem to agree upon specific ways of perceiving and experiencing the world. Therefore, in presenting an emerging picture of contemporary Native worldviews, it is also helpful to consider past Native worldviews.

3.2 We live in a cycle: American Indian thinking There is a fundamental difference in the perception of the world between American Indians and non-​tribal cultures like the American mainstream. Whereas the Western tradition employs linear thinking, which is a process of thought following a step-​by-​step progression, Indian thinking is often argued to be visual and circular in philosophy. Linear thinking manifests itself in the practices of Western culture in a number of ways. Firstly, it is visible in the way societies linearly progress over time from the primitive to the civilized. Similarly, the development of science and technology can also be seen in terms of linear progression since each scientific theory is closer to the truth than the preceding one. Moreover, like all forms of determinism, philosophical determinism assumes that a previously existing original cause determines a chain of events. Logical reasoning can be also described as a linear progression from premises to conclusions. Temperature and distance are understood and measured linearly as well. A linear ordering principle reinforces a linear conception of space, which is embodied in the geometry of dwellings,

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straight lines and right angles. American Indian Distinguished Professor of History, Donald Lee Fixico notices that the goal-​oriented structure of Western life is also the product of “a linear mind”: The linear person, who is goal oriented, is a part of the mainstream of looking ahead, keeping one’s head down and working hard, or not looking back for someone might be gaining on you. In such a view of only looking ahead, a person does not see what or who is either side of him or her. Perhaps this is why so many people experience stress in the modern American society. (2013, 174)

Whereas a linear ordering principle reinforces a linear conception of time and space, and is based on pursing empirical evidence to prove something is factual in the scientific sense, in Native traditions circularity orders both temporal and spatial sense experiences, as well as all other facets of American Indian life, including religion. Fixico explains that: “Indian Thinking” is “seeing” things from a perspective emphasizing that circles and cycles are central to the world and that all things are related within the universe. […] “Seeing” is visualizing the connection between two or more entities or beings, and trying to understand the relationship between them. (2013, 1–​2)

“Seeing” is how Indigenous traditionalists understand life, their environment, and the universe, and it is the basis of their logic. “Seeing” involves observing nature and watching for plants and animals’ instincts to receive information and learn about life. By studying the environment for many generations, American Indians developed tribal philosophies based on the circle. It is widely acknowledged that Indigenous peoples are close observers of all of the cycles in the workings of the natural world, i.e. seasonal cycles, animal migrations, lunar phases, and the growth of various plants. Indeed, in order to survive, hunter-​ gatherer societies had to observe and operate in accordance with seasonal and cyclical patterns, for example, late summer corn harvests or winter hunts. American Indians learned to live without the clock for many centuries; instead, they guided their lives according to nature. In the Indian mind, history appears to be a continuum without a beginning or an end; thus, the past is a part of the present. White man’s clock makes them feel strangled from being free, and, ironically, many non-​Indigenous Americans feel the same way. It is noteworthy that non-​Indigenous people were living without a clock for centuries as well. The mechanized clock time started to become adopted with the widespread mechanization of transportation and train schedules in the 19th century (Huebener 2020, 37). Thus, the rhythms of the earth and our bodies were rendered meaningless. With the widespread of telecommunication technologies and globalization, the patterns of daily life have become tied to the labour market.

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These changes have influenced the human experience of time, which shapes our relationships with the natural world. People are now unable to imagine the world far removed from the human moment and see themselves within a larger flow of time. Hence, we have problems reflecting differently on the priorities and wishes for the future that does not include us. In contrast, Indigenous nations, who have often been removed from the temporalities of modernity, have seen the necessity of observation and examination of everyday practices. The way Indigenous people perceive the concept of time and seeing is discussed further in section 5.2 in the context of Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s novel Oracles. Patterns and daily norms of American Indian groups involve the circle as a part of their many cultures, to the Muscogee Creek, Navajo and Crow traditions specifically, and Native folks in general. For centuries, American Indians have formed their societies in circles. For instance, eastern woodland Indians built their camps around a central fire for the worship of the Green Corn harvest (Fixico 2013, 43). Native people consider all natural processes to be circular. Cherokee elder Dhyani Ywahoo observed that “in Tsalagi (Cherokee) world view, life and death, manifestation and formlessness, are all within the circle, which spirals out through all dimensions. The teaching expresses the expansion of the spiral. The same story can be understood in various ways as one is exploring vaster dimensions of mind” (1987, xiii). This approach toward life is inherent in their cultures since time immemorial. Medicine makers, wise elders, and prophets studied the world of circularity. Black Elk of the Oglala Sioux stated, You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. […] Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round... and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood and so it is in everything where power moves (quoted in Hill 1994, xi).

It needs to be noticed that the circular ordering of the spatial is closely tied to the temporal (Norton-​Smith 2010, 121). For instance, harvests and hunts are events in both spatial and temporal in dimension. The Muscogee Creek often talk in this context about the “Circle of Life,” which includes all things consisting of spiritual energy in their cyclical, seasonal comings and goings, and “begins with the cardinal directions”—​a spatial ordering (Fixico 2013, 42–​46). It is widely held by Native Americans that the cardinal directions are connected to the powers of the seasons or parts of the day. Circularity as a principle shapes

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American Indian social life and practice as well. The cycle of the seasons determined important tribal activities, including ceremonies and rituals, like the Shawnee spring and fall Bread Dances, which are held out of gratitude to the Creator for agricultural bounty. Native people are morally obligated to return at specific times and places to perform specific rituals and ceremonies of gratitude for the good of human and non-​human persons alike. This means that in contrast to Western thinking, where place has only a spatial dimension, Indigenous sacred places have spatial and temporal dimensions, “based on the circle” (49). In circular philosophy, all things are related and Indian people view themselves as part of nature’s system called the “Natural Democracy” (70). This order of life is based on respect for all the things in the world and the universe and considering them equal. Onondaga scholar Oren Lyons mentions, “In our [Iroquois] perception, all life is equal, and that includes the birds, animals, things that grow, things that swim. All life is equal in our perception” (1980, 173). Plants and animals are an essential part of this Natural Democracy since each of them has a role and responsibility. Consequently, in such a community of togetherness, cooperation is highly desired. This broad perception makes them feel more responsible for taking care of and respecting their relationships with all things. Thus, Indian thinking is an inquiry into relationships and the community that extends beyond human relationships. Oglala spiritual leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM), Leonard Crow Dog, while discussing the nature of life during the 1970s, explained that: […] we live in a sacred cycle, the sacred hoop. We are born from Mother Earth and we return to Mother Earth. We feed on the deer who, in turn, feeds on the grass which, in turn, is fed by our bodies after we die. It’s the story of the biological cycle you learn in school. Everything is harmony and unity, and we fit within that harmony. And when our bodies die, our spirits are freed and will be here. You see, it’s not a religion in the white man’s sense, but a philosophy of living, a way of living. (quoted in Mencarelli and Severin 1975, 150–​51)

What is more, Brian Burkhart describes the principle of relatedness as a way American Indians organize and order sense experience (2019; 2004). All beings and their actions in the Indigenous world are interconnected and related. Therefore, knowing the world involves seeking connections between experiences. What is more, by considering all things to be related, Native people stress the importance of kinship for building positive relationships. It can be described as the bonding element that holds the Natural Democracy system together. Kinships are formed by symbolic relationships and by blood relationships. Thus, relationships are imperative to communal continuity as well as to the understanding

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of relationships between humans and non-​humans as well as the metaphysical entities of life. This inclusive kinship fundamentally differs from the mainstream linear way of thinking based on a human-​to-​human relationship. In the Western mainstream culture, one places personal needs first by prioritizing what is important to him or her as a person in the relationship to community and family. Late Muscogee elder Jean Hill Chaudhuri and Joyotpaul Chaudhuri, pointed out in the following passage how the Muscogee tradition of thinking conflicts with the linear way of thought: For instance, mainstream Christian thinking conceives of a bracketed, reified, individual self and soul. Fundamental Creek thought also eschews the existence of atomistic permanent souls, selves, and entities. The Creek entities—​‘all my relations’—​male, female, human and nonhuman, known and unknown, are all part of a continuum of energy that is at the heart of the universe. The continuum of energy and spirit, boea fikcha/​ puyvfekcv, and the ever-​present principles of transformation and synergy illuminate the meaning of all-​important entities in the Creek world. (2001, 2)

In the Muscogee Creek way of thinking, this type of “seeing” is understanding the totality of Ibofanga, i.e. the existence of spiritual energy within all things. As a result, all these entities constituting the order of the universe should be respected for their potential.

3.3 The Indigenous sense of place, body and spirituality It is important to note that place is another crucial factor in how Indigenous people see the world and the universe. According to traditional Indigenous beliefs, the relationship between people and the land is understood in terms of intimate kinship bonds. The importance of this relationship can be traced in the stories of the creation and emergence of the first people. The landscapes are viewed by many Native cultures as metaphoric extensions of their bodies. In numerous Native cosmologies, the body of the earth and sky metaphorically unite to form a cosmic couple, which creates life. The Earth Mother banding together with the Sky Father is an archetypal theme found in the creation myths of many cultures in the world. However, there is a profound difference in the way this cosmic coupling is perceived by Indo-​European cultures and Native Americans. Native perception of the land is mainly Earth-​centred rather than sky-​centred, as in many Indo-​European cultures. According to Indigenous traditions, the Earth is regarded as the mother in whose womb the first people were formed before they began the “spiritual pilgrimage” into the present world (see Bańka 2018). Thus, the Earth Mother has the most influential role in the creation of life on Earth. For instance, the Navajo, like many tribes, view themselves as the children

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of an Earth-​based mother named Changing Woman. This belief can be illustrated with the following example: The Navajo Earth is experienced as a living female entity, while the atmosphere and heavens are experienced as a living male entity. His male body lies atop her female body, the enormous weight of his being supported by the four corner posts of the sacred mountains, and by several other “invisible” pillars that the Holy People put in place when they created the present world... (Pine 1999, 25)

Changing Woman created the four Dine clans with her body. That is why all Navajos are said to have been descendent of the Earth Mother. Ultimately, in the traditional Native view, the place is a part of the order of the Earth. Native stories and rituals give meaning to Native Americans’ participation with their homelands. In her book of essays, Yellow Woman, Leslie Marmon Silko claims that Indigenous people’s respect for the land implies respect for “all living beings,” in particular for the plants and animals “co-​inhabiting” places with them (1996, 85–​86). Silko explains the difference between American Indian and Western understandings of the connection between people and place. While in Native American consciousness human beings are situated within the natural environment, founding their relations to the land on the idea of family bonds, in Western culture, man is separated from the natural world, and the Indigenous worldview is perceived as a “primitive” form of thinking (49). Paula Gunn Allen echoes Silko’s understanding of the relationship binding the land and Indigenous people of the American Southwest. In her landmark statement, Allen claims: We are the land. To the best of my understanding, that is the fundamental idea embedded in Native American life and culture in the Southwest. More than remembered, the Earth is the mind of the people as we are the mind of the earth. The land is not really the place (separate from ourselves) where we act out the drama of our isolate destinies… It is ourself… The land is not an image in our eyes but rather it is as truly an integral aspect of our being as we are of its being. (1979a, 191)

Therefore, according to Allen, describing a place is intimately connected to describing the self because the boundary between the person and the land is blurred. This spiritual relationship strengthens the unity between the land and the Native Americans and does meditation on “who we are, what our society is, where we come from, quite possibly where we are going, and what it all means” inseparable from reflection on the place itself (Deloria 1999a, 251). The contemplation of the land contributed to the creation of the tribal stories, which shaped traditional Indian identities and became a means of documenting historical and cultural heritage. Thus, the traditional American Indian understanding of reality

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was based on the idea that they continue to exist as a people through their relations with the land. As Acoma writer Simon J. Ortiz states: “Indigenous land, culture, and community equals Indigenous being and place. Or Indigenous being and place is land, culture and community” (2007, 141). The Western division between mind and matter or matter and spirit is antithetical to Indigenous concepts of matter. Drawing from Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe oral traditions, Vanessa Watts explains in “Indigenous Place-​Thought and Agency amongst Humans and Non-​humans” (2013) that Indigenous people understand the world through a physical embodiment—​ “Place-​Thought.” It is the non-​distinctive space where place and thought have never been separated since they never could and cannot be separated. In contrast to Western Cartesian dualistic thinking, in place-​thought, there is no separation of mind from matter. This Place-​Thought “is based upon the premise that land is alive and thinking, and that humans and non-​humans derive agency through the extensions of these thoughts” (Watts 2013, 21). Indigenous peoples see humans as part of this sentient matter: “we are extensions of the very land we walk upon, then we have an obligation to maintain communication with it” (23). Human beings and non-​humans, including trees, animals, insects, and rocks, are always related and relating. They all also manifest agency, thought, and will. Not only Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee people but most Indigenous societies believe that humans are made from the land, and our flesh is an extension of soil. In Indigenous thought, matter is inseparable from place and implies relations. In fact, according to Annette M. Jaimes (Yaqui and Juanen~o), the term Indigenous means “to be born of a place,” but it also means “to live in relationship with the place where one is born” as in the sense of an “Indigenous homeland” (2003, 66). Marie Battiste (Mi’kmaq) and James Sakej Youngblood Henderson (Choctaw) claim that “place” is an “expression of the vibrant relationships between people, their ecosystems, and other living beings and spirits that share their lands” (2000, 20). Indigenous knowledge is also inseparable from place. As Deborah McGregor (Anishinaabe) notices, “In conventional Eurocentric definitions of Indigenous Knowledge, it is presented as a noun, a thing, knowledge; but to Indigenous people, [it] cannot be separated from the people who hold and practice it, nor can it be separated from the land/​environment/​Creation” (2004, 390). Johanna Leinius points out in her 2021 paper “Articulating Body, Territory, and the Defence of Life” that Latin American, Indigenous, lesbian, and Black feminists have similarly presented a more collective and situated view of the body based on activist struggles in both urban and rural spaces (2021, 211). The body is seen as space situated in a specific place intersected by power relations

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which allows the experience of emotions and physical sensations. As a result, the body can be described as a territory inextricably tied to one’s historical territory, the land (211). It is influenced by its temporal, geographical and social context but also capable of affecting others. The body serves as anchoring point of a large network of connections and stands for the various processes between humans, non-​humans, spirits in a particular place and time. Ultimately, the body is an extension of the connections in which community, and thus life, is (re-​)created. Hence, Native cultures respect and care about the land. They have acquired vast knowledge related to the natural characteristics of their lands through direct experience. However, all Native cultures have used their land in ways that ensured their survival. Their care and responsibility towards the landscape are continually reaffirmed through the various expressions of Native technology. For example, American Indians have applied their technology to make roads, fish, cut timber, farm, and hunt to survive. The difference between Indigenous and non-​Indigenous use of the land is that Native cultures have aspired to live in harmony with nature and conform to an ideal of reciprocity with the landscape, guided by ethics, cultural values, and spiritual practice. Thus, the separation of nature and culture and the separation of humans from nature would be considered unnatural and arbitrary. In God Is Red, his prominent work concerning Native American religious traditions, Vine Deloria Jr. states: “American Indians hold their lands –​places –​ as having the highest possible meaning, and all their statements are made with this reference point in mind” (1973, 75). Unlike in the mainstream Western culture, where the land is perceived as a property and a resource, traditional Indian people view themselves as “spiritual owner[s]of the land” that was given to them by the spirits (89). While Western mainstream culture describes “places” in environmental science by their physical features, Native cultures describe the place as a creative living force in the context of its mythic and spiritual meaning. Indigenous people performed ceremonies so as to express their gratitude for the gift of dwelling in their sacred landscape. Deloria claims that the tribe’s responsibilities to the inhabited land were “part of [Indigenous people’s] understanding of the world… their view of life was grounded in the knowledge of these responsibilities” (1999, 245). Traditionally, land is treated as home to ancestral spirits, and is considered to be a source of a “moral code,” i.e. of mythological orders which inform people how to live in harmony with the environment (McPherson 1992, 3). Part of Native relations with the land is undoubtedly encapsulated in traditional spirituality. For many American Indians, spiritual practices constituted an ongoing dialogue with the world. Deloria describes it thus: “The task of tribal religion, if such a religion can be said to have a task, is to determine the proper

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relationship that the people of the tribe must have with other living beings” (1973, 102). Spiritual practices became a way of learning how to live well with the natural environment. Further, they help to reach an appropriate level of mindfulness and are also identified with the survival of the people. Native Americans recognized that all life around them was sacred, as they were all fragments of God, for “each form in the world around them bears such a host of precise values and meanings that taken all together they constitute what one would call their doctrine” (Brown 1985, 37). Native Americans saw themselves in terms of community, which included non-​human community as well. As Deloria points out, spirituality requires that humanity and “the rest of creation [be] cooperative and respectful of the task set for them by the Great Spirit” (1973, 96). In God Is Red, Vine Deloria draws close attention to the correlation between place and spirituality, contrasting it with Christian practice. Although Christianity originates in a particular land (the Holy Land), it exists almost anywhere without extensive modification of the central creed. Traditional American Indian spiritual practices, however, reflect and incorporate particular elements of the chosen landscape. Undoubtedly, sacred places to Native people of the Black Hills, Taos Blue Lake, Mount Rainier, Mackinac Island, Mount Taylor, Bear Butte, and other Indigenous sites significantly influence their process of perception. Kiowa N. Scott Momaday also identifies himself with the land by writing about giving himself to the “remembered earth” (1979, 164–​165). This sense of identification is also true to Lakota’s Black Elk and Standing Bear, who comment on the devastating loss of the Black Hills to gold miners (Standing Bear 1933; Black Elk and Neihardt 2000). The land affects Native Americans’ responses to the world. Ronald Goodman describes the American government’s attack on the spiritual integrity of Lakota in the following passage: Traditional Lakota believed that ceremonies done by them on earth were also being performed simultaneously in the spirit world. When what is happening in the stellar world is also being done on earth in the same way at the corresponding place at the same time, a hierophany can occur; sacred power can be drawn down; attunement to the will of Waken Tanka can be achieved. Our study of Lakota constellations and related matters has helped us appreciate that the need which the Lakota felt to move freely on the plains was primarily religious. (Goodman 1990, 1)

Deloria also asserts that it is possible for an Indigenous group to “consecrate” a particular land if they are capable of seeing themselves in terms of that landscape (1973, 295). Indian groups have been migrating across North America for at last 40,000 years. The Navajo migrated from Alaska and the Yukon into the American Southwest about 600 years ago. Although they are not thoroughly

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“Native” to the area, they have managed to reconstruct their religion to reflect the new land they inhabit, partly by borrowing from earlier dwellers such as the Hopi (Booth 2008, 809). The American Indians view all living things as a spiritual practice, while material possessions are seen as symbols of sacred relationships. Moccasins, for example, serve as a reminder of one’s connection to the earth. A pipe is thought to be a teaching tool, a record of people’s past, and a reminder of how everything is interconnected (Lame Deer and Erdoes 1972, 12; 150–​253). Every act necessary to sustain life is considered by a Native American as a part of the ongoing sacred process; for instance, going on a hunt or building a house are religious activities. American Indians hardly ever distinguish between their secular and religious lives; they regard every activity, from hunting to healing, as sacred. Life is never detached from the Earth, as Matthiessen observes: ... [T]he whole universe is sacred, man is the whole universe, and the religious ceremony is life itself, the miraculous common acts of every day. Respect for nature is respect for oneself; to revere it is self-​respecting, since man and nature, though not the same thing, are not different... (1981, 12)

In all traditional Indian spiritual practices, the earth is perceived as alive, viable, and subject to change. According to Allen, an Indian assumes that the earth is alive in the same sense that he is alive. He sees this aliveness in nonphysical terms, in terms that are familiar to the mystic or the psychic, and this gives rise to a mystical sense of reality that is an ineradicable part of his being. (Allen 1979b, 233)

However, some anthropologists, including Ake Hultkrantz (1981) and Howard Harrod (1987), notice tension in the issue of having to kill animals with whom one had a deep relationship, which is apparent in creation myths of the Plains Indians. For example, the Blackfoot tells of a time when humans were hunted by the buffalo. In order to change the situation, the god taught Native Americans to create bows and arrows and to hunt. In compensation for becoming food, the buffalo and other animals became spiritual helpers. In this way, the tension inherent in eating animals was partially resolved (Harrod 1987, 44–​45, 53–​54). Most American Indian legends claim that certain animals can remove their fur masks and start to resemble humans. They also shared a common language with human beings and were often the descendants of the powerful beings that had lived on the earth before humans. Cultural anthropologist Richard Nelson points out that “an animal was a personage and a personality with a lineage far older than humanity’s” (1983, 31). As American ethnographer Carobeth Laird explained:

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It is to be remembered that the pre-​human Immortals (the gods, if you will) were Animals Who Were People. These Forerunners, these Ancient Ones whose bodies shimmered as it were between animal and human forms, these denizens of the elder dreamworld, have long since taken their final departure; yet they remain as the visible animals of this everyday world... Mythic Coyote, supertrickster and pattern-​setter for mankind, is not [coyote], raiding fields and howling on the hills before dawn –​and yet in a certain mystical sense, he is. (1976, 110)

It can be concluded that animals are of great importance in Native American traditions. The legends show the boundaries between the human and animal to be permeable. Animals are part of the kinship system and are portrayed as thinking, living and talking as much as humans do. Such a perception of animals contributes to Indigenous people showing respect toward them.

3.4 An American Indian expansive conception of persons Thomas Norton-​Smith notices that another recurring theme in the American Indian worldview is the expansive conception of persons. It is a deeply ingrained Western conviction reinforced by religion that human beings are different from other non-​human animals by virtue of ensoulment, and it is also a widely held Western scientific view that human beings differ from animals by virtue of highly advanced evolution. Since Western academic disciplines and religious doctrine assume that being human is necessary for personhood, it is unsurprising that a list of characteristics constituting a person has never included anything but human characteristics. However, cultural anthropologists and ethnographers have observed that American Indian traditions consider human beings and animals to be in some sense equal. As J. W. Powell points out They [American Indians] do not separate man from the beast by any broad line of demarkation [sic]. Mankind is supposed simply to be one of the many races of animals; in some respects superior, in many others inferior, to those races. So the Indian speaks of “our race” as of the same rank with the bear race, the wolf race or the rattlesnake race. (1877, 10)

In his interpretation of American Indian philosophy, Norton-​Smith argues that human beings are not lowered to the status of other non-​human animals as Powell, and other scholars suggest; instead, non-​human beings are raised to the ontological and moral status of a person (2010, 78). Norton-​Smith refers to this Native conception as “expansive,” for all kinds of non-​human beings, animals and plants, are members of the American Indian kinship group and thus can be recognized as persons. In this way, the value of a human being is not diminished, but the value of other sorts of entities is enhanced. In other words, Indians do

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not regard mankind to be one of the races of animals, but in Native worldviews, animals are considered to be people like humankind: Behind the apparent kinship between animals, reptiles, birds, and human beings in the Indian way stands a great conception shared by a great majority of the tribes. Other living things are not regarded as insensitive species. Rather they are “people” in the same manner as the various tribes of human beings are people. The reason why the Hopi use live reptiles in their ceremony goes back to one of their folk heroes who lived with the snake people for a while and learned from them the secret of making rain for the crops.... In the same manner the Plains Indians considered the buffalo as a distinct people, the Northwest Coast Indians regarded the salmon as a people. (Deloria 1973, 89–​90)

This Native expansive conception of persons clearly differs from various Western conceptions of persons in which being human is a necessary condition for personhood. Indeed, a person in common sense is often described as “a human being, whether man, woman, or child … as distinguished from an animal or a thing” (Norton-​Smith 2010, 78). As far as an American Indian conception is concerned, personhood is not what is essential to being human. According to Norton-​Smith, “human beings are, instead, ‘spirit beings’—​manitouki—​who just happen to have a human form” (2010, 86). What is more, not only do human beings exhibit the kinds of behaviours typical for animation; animals, plants and places, physical force, and cardinal directions, the Earth, the Sun are “experienced to be or to act as animate beings; they have manitouki, too” (87). J. Baird Callicott echoes and embraces this argument from his Western philosophical perspective: The Indian attitude... apparently was based upon the consideration that since human beings have a physical body and an associated consciousness (conceptually hypostatized or reified as “spirit”), all other bodily things, animals, plants, and, yes, even stones, were also similar in this respect. Indeed, this strikes me as an eminently reasonable assumption. I can no more directly perceive another human being’s consciousness than I can that of an animal or plant. I assume that another human being is conscious since he or she is perceptibly very like me (in other respects) and I am conscious. To anyone not hopelessly prejudiced... human beings closely resemble in anatomy, physiology, and behavior other forms of life.... Virtually all things might be supposed, without the least strain upon credence, like ourselves, to be “alive,” that is, conscious, aware, or possessed of spirit. (1989, 185–​86)

Although the category manitou is crucial in the Native worldview, it is noteworthy that not everything in the grammatical animate class is alive. For instance, Hallowell (1960) explains that the Ojibwa no more believe that all stones belong to the animate class; however, their confidence in direct experience makes them leave open the possibility that animate stones could be encountered in the future.

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In general, animate beings are conceived of by the traditional Ojibwa as having “an inner vital part that is enduring and an outward form which can change. Vital... attributes such as sentience, volition, memory, speech are not dependent upon outward appearance but upon the inner vital essence of being” (Hallowell 1960, 42). More generally, not all animate beings are persons, although being animate is a necessary condition for personhood. Furthermore, not all human beings are persons as well, since the standards for personhood are pretty high. As Norton-​ Smith concludes: Human beings are not persons by nature; they become persons and sustain their identity as persons by virtue of their participation in certain forms of social practices and performances, and through their relationships with and obligations to other persons. Second, the social practices and performances, relationships and obligations that sustain human beings as persons are moral in nature, that is, moral agency is at the core of personhood. Finally, being a person is not what is essential to being human. (2010, 90)

A Creek medicine man, John Proctor, explained that in order to become a Creek, one needs to “come to the stomp ground for four years, take the medicines and dance the dances” (Cheney and Hester 2000, 87). In other words, becoming Creek, i.e. becoming a person, requires participation in the Creek life and familial, social group, performing the ceremonies, assuming the tribal roles. Moreover, the above-​mentioned elements are entirely consistent with the view that there are non-​human persons. “An animate being is a person by virtue of its membership and participation in an actual network of social and moral relationships and practices with other persons” (Norton-​Smith 2010, 90). Moreover, the relationships in the American Indian community of human and non-​human persons appear to be closer in nature to kinship relationships (i.e. familial ties) than to the kinds of contractual relationships between persons existing in Western civil society. Therefore, human persons participate in a familial social group with other human persons as well as their animal and plant siblings; it is actually participating in this nexus of moral relationships that constitutes their personhood. The manitouki of the ancestors sometimes experienced in dreams are also considered members of the Native social group. Certain places can also have manitouki, when “people live so intimately with the environment that they are in relationship to the spirits that live [there]. This is not an article of faith; it is a part of human experience. I think that non-​Indians sometimes experience this also when they are in natural environments” (Deloria 1999b, 224).

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According to Viola Cordova, another important value that undergirds the relationships between persons in the Native community is equality: The Native American recognizes his dependence on the Earth and the Universe. He recognizes no hierarchy of “higher” or “lower” or “simple” or “complex,” and certainly not of “primitive” and “modern.” Instead of hierarchies he sees differences which exist among equal “beings” (mountains, as well as water and air and plants and animals would be included here). The equality is based on the notion, often unstated, that everything that is, is of one process. (2004, 177)

That is, all persons have equal value and respect for one another by playing roles in making and sustaining the American Indian world. It is also important to draw attention to such extraordinarily powerful entities as Coyote or Iktome. While Iktome is usually human, plant, and animal like, Coyote is a Trickster in many Native traditions, usually anthropomorphic. Scholars dispel the common misconception that such powerful non-​human spirit persons are gods as understood in Western religious traditions. If they were godlike deities, they would differ from human beings, i.e. they would be supernatural, omnipotent, and infallible. First, it needs to be emphasized that no distinction between the natural and the supernatural can be found in the Native worldview. The concept of the natural world, an inanimate material world governed by physical laws, is absent in American Indian traditions. For instance, Hallowell notices that in the Ojibwa thought the sun is not a “natural” object, but it is a non-​human person. The scholar asserts that the concept of the “supernatural” must be absent if the concept of “natural” does not exist. Describing powerful non-​human spirit persons as “supernatural,” he claims, ... is completely misleading, if for no other reason than the fact that the concept of “supernatural” presupposes a concept of the “natural.” The latter is not present in Ojibwa thought. It is unfortunate that the natural–​supernatural dichotomy has been so persistently invoked by many anthropologists in describing the outlook of peoples in cultures other than our own. (1960, 28)

In his book Spirit and Reason (1999), Deloria agrees on how Western thinkers separate the material and the spiritual (the natural and the supernatural) into two realms. “We are not dealing, therefore, with a conception of nature in the same way that Western thinkers conceive of things” (1999, 357). That is why powerful non-​human spirit persons in American Indian traditions cannot be supernatural gods without a conception of the “supernatural.” Furthermore, these powerful spirit persons can make mistakes, and although quite powerful, they are not omnipotent. They are no different in kind than human beings, even though they differ in power.

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There are also obvious similarities and differences between these powerful non-​human spirit persons and human beings and human persons. First, they possess some attributes of human/​animate beings. Precisely, they participate in a network of social and moral relationships and practices, just as human persons do. As far as differences are concerned, Coyote or Iktome are non-​human persons despite the fact that they can assume human form. Moreover, they are extraordinarily powerful entities. For instance, in the traditional Native story “Coyote, Iktome, and the Rock,” Iktome has the power to transform into a spider, while Coyote has the power to “make himself come to life again” (Erdoes and Ortiz 1984, 338). Great power appears to be an attribute of non-​human spirit persons. To sum up, in the Native worldview, the notion of a person is expansive, in that it encompasses all kinds of non-​human beings, including ancestors, animals, places, plants, physical forces and cardinal directions, and other powerful manitouki (i.e. spirit beings). The relationships and obligations that sustain persons are familial and are based on respect and equality; thus, moral agency is essential for personhood. The expansive definition of a person will be further explored in section 5.1 in the context of Rebecca Roanhorse’s novel Trail of Lightning.

3.5 Oral tradition and Indigenous storytelling Native American “seeing” involves not only human beings and the natural environment but also the metaphysical world of dreams and visions. According to a Native perspective, an Indian way of “seeing” is a cooperative effort between the conscious and subconscious mind and influenced by personal experiences and one’s tribal culture. Subsequently, dreams, visions, imagining, and daydreaming are essential to Indian thinking and have become part of the decision-​making process of thought, unlike seeing things in a linear manner. In every dream and vision one can find some clues of knowledge or revelations about what people wish to understand, yet, Indigenous people have learned to consider carefully what the subconscious mind suggests. Making a decision means concerning both the physical and metaphysical factors affecting one’s life. Moreover, the point of knowledge may not be apparent at the moment of its introduction. Therefore, native people need to be patient or ask for help of a person who is gifted to interpret such experiences as dreams and visions. Many tribes have such a metaphysical interpreter or translator, for instance, Black Elk, the holy man of the Oglalas. As far as the Muscogee Creeks are concerned, a Kerrata (key-​tha) is a gifted interpreter helping people understand a dream, vision, or unusual experience. As a result, a story can be told that provides information and is shared with

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a community or tribe. The process involves recreating a vision through a story in the minds of the listeners. Thus, not only observing but also listening is essential to the Indian mindset. The “story” holds a special place in Indigenous cultures since it serves multiple purposes, including sharing and learning traditional knowledge, providing lessons in morality or confirming identity. A story transcends time and comes alive as an experience again in the minds of listeners, becoming a part of them and the next generation. A story is the heart of the oral tradition in American Indian cultures that transmits the same reality of past and present. Orality is characteristic of American Indian thought and remains an essential element bonding the various entities of Indian communities. The Native Americans’ accounts of history were based mainly on oral traditions. It needs to be emphasized in this context that oral tradition differs from oral history. While the former is the process of oral expression through story, speech, oratory, and argument; oral history can be defined as an event told orally in the form of oratory, myth, legend, song, parable, and prophecy that would help to present the reality of a particular Native community. Non-​Indigenous people and Native people, who are close to their traditional beliefs, have a different understanding of history. The linear thinker relies on archival documents to write history, which is a measurement of the past, and each new event becomes a part of it. In the linear world of academia, printed documents are accredited with more importance than a retold verbal account. As far as Native cultures are concerned, history can be explained as the importance of “experience.” Memories of past events include emotions, descriptions of familiar sounds, vivid colours, and the intensity exhibited during battles, treaty-​making, and telling stories that describe Native leaders and peoples. Elders shared their knowledge and historical accounts through the oral tradition passed from one generation to the next. Oral accounts contained parables and lessons, and the morals of stories enlightened young people on values and virtues. The oral traditions also explained the creation of the universe, the origins of the people, and prophesied the future. There is an ongoing debate concerning the validity of oral history. It has gained increasing respect since the 1970s as the interviews of American politicians appeared to be essential to collect before these great men passed away. An increasing number of oral accounts have appeared in print since the turn of the 20th century. Land of the Spotted Eagle (1933) may serve as an example. Luther Standing Bear described in this book how his people learned the traditional ways of the Lakota and the way this information was passed to the next generation. He explains,

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In Lakota society it was the duty of every parent to give the knowledge they possessed to their children. Each and every parent was a teacher and, as a matter of fact, all elders were instructors of those younger than themselves. And the instruction they gave was mostly through their actions—​that is, they interpreted to us through actions what we should try to do. We learned by watching and imitating examples placed before us. Slowly and naturally the faculties of observation and memory became highly trained and the Lakota child became educated in the manners, lore, and customs of his people without a strained and conscious effort. […] This process of learning went on all the time. (1933, 13)

Thus, oral tradition is a way of sharing traditional knowledge within the community. Another point worth mentioning is that the principle of circularity orders the transmission of knowledge. As Fixico maintains, it is a style of presentation that might be mistaken for a mere repetition: One might say that the Indian mind is abstract, and confused with repetition. But another person might say that numerous examples stress the same point as stories told with the same message in mind for teaching the listener. Even these written words may seem repetitious, but in the circular way the purpose is met to prevent misunderstanding. It is a teaching tool. (Fixico 2013, 41)

3.5.1 The healing power of stories and the role of language Indigenous peoples have believed in the healing power of language and stories since time immemorial. Leslie Marmon Silko explains that for tribal people, stories were a way to pass on to successive generations “an entire culture, a worldview complete with proven strategies for survival” (1996, 30). Stories created a sense of self and of community, asserting Indigenous people’s identity, but also, as Momaday points out, they were created to explain human existence in the world: “[t]he possibilities of storytelling [thus of imagining] are precisely those of understanding the human experience” (1979, 168). The writer defines storytelling as an act that is “imaginative and creative in nature” (168). It was storytelling that helped Native Americans survive years of colonial wars, loss of land, European diseases, starvation, and virtual genocide. As N. Scott Momaday asserts in his prominent essay “Man Made of Words,” stories portrayed the reality Indigenous people experienced: “They accounted for themselves with reference to that awful memory. They appropriated it, recreated it, fashioned it into an image of themselves –​imagined it” (169). Thus, storytelling became a tool of their survival, a form of Indigenous resistance to the colonial forces and ensured Indigenous cultural continuance. Contemporary writers continue to believe in the healing power of language and stories. Although most authors would rather write in their Indigenous

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languages, many of them do not speak those languages. Used as a tool of oppression and forced on them by the colonial education systems, English has become the lingua franca for the many Indigenous peoples around the world sharing similar experiences under colonialism. In spite of the fact that English is not always a language of choice for them, contemporary artists use it to create literary works that aim to achieve the same goals as the oral stories did, i.e. to describe the history of their people, to maintain cultural practices, and to explain their relationship with the world. Virginia Irving Armstrong explains that “although severe and sometimes irreparable damage has been wrought, healing can take place through cultural affirmation” (2005, 244). In the introduction to Reinventing the Enemy’s Language, Joy Harjo and Gloria Bird point out that the practice of writing in English has a subversive nature, which aids Indigenous communities in recovering. The scholars refer to this subversive practice as the “reinventing the enemy’s language”: ‘Reinventing’ in the colonizer’s tongue and turning those images around to mirror an image of the colonized to the colonizers as a process of decolonization indicates that something is happening, something is emerging and coming into focus that will politicize as well as transform literary expression…. It is at this site where ‘reinventing’ can occur to undo some of the damage that colonization has wrought. (Harjo and Bird 1997, 24)

In other words, today’s Indigenous writers manipulate the English language as well as English literary traditions in order to represent Indigenous experiences under colonialism and thus help themselves and their communities heal from the colonial trauma. Similarly, Vizenor claims that language can become a means of liberation “that enlivens tribal survivance” (1994, 106). Imaginative stories undoubtedly create and affirm Native presence and tribal survivance through battling the institutionalized words of colonizers that continue to define “authentic Indianness.” As Kimberly Blaeser observes, Vizenor emphasizes in his works that “[t]he destiny of the American Indian rests with language. The Indian will survive or ‘vanish’ through the merits of language:  survive through tribal oral tradition, or be made to vanish through popular, scientific, literary, and political rhetoric” (1996, 39). Although the practices of Indigenous cultures cannot be communicated accurately through the English language, it helps Indigenous writers with the distribution of their works. More precisely, by writing in English, they are able to reach a larger audience, which is described by Louis Owens in Other Destinies as “a heteroglot gathering” of the tribal and non-​tribal, and a body of readers, including

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Indian readers from the same or other tribal cultures who may not be familiar with the traditional elements essential to the work but who may recognize the coercive power of language to ‘bring into being’; and non-​Indian readers who approach the novel with a completely alien set of assumptions and values. (1992, 14)

Owens suggests that Native American writers are aware of their diverse audience. The resulting mediation may impose high demands on the writer, but if done skilfully, the commonplace can take on provocative poses. The effect on literature is a conversation between and among readers with varying forms of knowledge: The effect is a richly hybridized dialogue aimed at those few with privileged knowledge –​ the traditionally educated Indian reader –​as well as those with claims to a privileged discourse –​the Eurocentric reader. One effect of this hybridization is subversive: the American Indian writer places the Eurocentric reader on the outside, as “other,” while the Indian reader… is granted, for the first time, a privileged position… The writer is appropriating an essentially “other” language and thus entering into dialogue with the language itself. (15)

It is also worth noting that stories may have destructive power as well. An Indigenous psychologist, Terry Tafoya, explains that from an Indigenous perspective, “stories are a type of medicine and, like medicine, can be healing or poisonous depending on the dosage or type. Indigenous people have heard poisonous stories in the colonial discourse. To heal, people must write or create a new story or script of their lives” (Tafoya 2005). A Métis writer, Jo-​Ann Episkenew is aware of the destructive power of stories. In her book, Taking Back Our Spirits, Episkenew describes the damaging effects stories can produce: I grew up in Winnipeg, once the centre of the Métis homeland, in the 1950s and ’60s, when Indigenous people faced overt personal and systemic racism. Through their stories of the “rebellions,” our teachers taught us that the Métis were traitorous and prone to insanity. Stories taught us that not only our environment but also our very identities made our lives perilous. As a result, those who could hide their identities did so to protect themselves and their children, and hoped for a better future. But living a false story—​a lie—​has negative consequences on children’s development and identity formation. (Episkenew 2009, 13)

Anishinaubae author Armand Ruffo points out that elder Art Solomon taught him that “the need for healing, the need for expression go hand-​in-​hand” (Loyie and Manuel 1998, 119). Indeed, from an Indigenous perspective, a writing process itself is healing and a way to manage the anger that is present amongst Native Americans.

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Linda Garro claims that “telling a story is a ‘relational act’ that necessarily implicates the audience,” or the reader, in the case of written stories (2001, 11). Indigenous peoples believe that âtayôhkêwin (the Cree word for sacred stories) are not only spiritual stories but are themselves spirit, i.e. they enter into the listener and transform that person. Jo-​Ann Episkenew considers everyday stories, which are the basis of contemporary Indigenous literature, to be themselves spirit and have transformative powers as well. However, before the transformation occurs, they must first implicate the audience, i.e. talk about the historical and postcolonial trauma in their communities. Current treatments of the post-​ traumatic stress response are similarly based on the conversion about stories concerning emotions relating to the traumatic events and then sharing that story: “in order for a patient to recover, the traumatic memory must be recalled and told to others” (Garro 2000, 7). The healing potential of stories is further discussed the context of two novels, Resistance and The Marrow Thieves. It is not only writing Indigenous literature but also reading it that has a healing function. Joseph Gold’s theories refer to reading as a “life support system” and prove that reading contemporary Indigenous literature enables Indigenous readers to understand how colonial public policies have affected tribal peoples in the past and continue to affect them in the present. In the process of “reading for our lives,” Indigenous people reassemble their individual and collective memories so that they gain a sense of personal and community control. This process enables them to reclaim the Indigenous knowledge, explain feelings about self and community, and validate Indigenous values and beliefs. Reading literature by other Indigenous people who share the same experiences can be a healing experience for both writers and readers.

3.5.2 Indigenous knowledge A comparison of the Western and Native conceptions of knowledge will also contribute to an exploration of the American Indian worldview. For Western philosophers, knowledge is of a propositional type, which means that it can be written down and conveyed through statements and propositions. According to Burkhart, this kind of knowledge is permanent, i.e., if some claims are justified and made true, they will continue to be true for eternity (2004, 19). In contrast, Indian philosophy entertains a way of knowing by direct awareness, experience and knowledge of how to do something. In other words, American Indian knowledge is procedural knowledge, which involves knowing how to perform an activity or procedure, or observing the world to learn something from it. For instance, Black Elk knows how to perform the ceremonial Horse Dance (2000,

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124–​35). Moreover, Burkhart describes Indian knowledge as lived or embodied, arising from human action and experience and so is “carr[ied] with us […] which seems to be designed to outlast us, to take on a life of its own, to be something eternal” (2004, 20). Furthermore, since American Indian knowledge is shaped by human actions and purposes, an account of Native knowledge cannot ignore its utility in addressing some practical concerns. Frank Rowland, Cheyenne scholar, noted that “for the Cheyenne, wisdom was learning how to use profound knowledge to help the community. If knowledge was gained but was not used to help the community, it was meaningless” (quoted in Crazy Bull 1997, 19). Therefore, the utility of an action, procedure or performance is a crucial condition for truth. In contrast to the Western thinkers whose scientific goal is to discover the laws governing the physical universe, Native Americans aim to understand the world and “to find the proper road along which, for the duration of a person’s life, individuals were supposed to walk”: That is to say, there is a proper way to live in the universe: there is a content to every action, behavior, and belief. The sum total of our life experiences has a reality. There is a direction to the universe, empirically verified in the physical growth cycles of childhood, youth, and old age, with the corresponding responsibility of every entity to enjoy life, fulfil itself, and increase in wisdom and the spiritual development of personality. (Deloria 1999, 46)

Burkhart explains that there are no morally neutral or inconsequential actions in the Indigenous world version, thus, the scholar articulates a fundamental principle of Indian knowing—​the moral universe principle: “The idea is simply that the universe is moral. Facts, truth, meaning, even our existence are normative. In this way, there is no difference between what is true and what is right. On this account, then, all investigation is a moral investigation” (2004, 17). The American Indian tradition constructs a moral universe that is interconnected, dynamic, animate and purposeful, in which human beings participate through their actions, ceremonies, and thoughts. In contrast to Western philosophers, Natives do not exclude some experiences because they are inherently deceptive; all experiences, even anomalous, can count as genuine evidence. In such a moral universe, the act of questioning forms a world in which creativity constitutes the moving force. Real questions arise in practical and direct action. Consequently, one must be responsible in the motives for and the kinds of questions one poses. Burkhart refers to this creative participation in making the world as the meaning-​shaping principle of action (16–​17). In his paper “What Coyote and Thales Can Teach Us,” Burkhart also draws attention to another difference between Indian and Western knowing. Precisely,

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in Western thought, distinctions are made between various realms of knowledge, including religion and science, technology and humanities. Despite certain connections, no one confuses philosophy and science, music and literature, or religion and history. However, there are no such clear differentiations between various branches of knowledge in American Indian culture. As Burkhart notices: Literature and philosophy, science and religion are all very different branches of knowledge in Western thought. Out of these four, most consider only two, science and philosophy, to be branches of knowledge at all. The other two are thought to be entirely different ways in which humans express their being in the world. However, in American Indian thought this is not the case. None of these four can really be separated from the others. (2004, 22)

As a result, there is no analogue of Western philosophy in American Indian traditions. In Western thought, philosophy is understood as a separate discipline posing questions about reality, value and knowledge, and attempting to answer them with a rational methodology. American Indian philosophy is, in contrast, multidisciplinary and multicultural; it fuses science and knowing with religion and literature. It is worth noting that Indigenous knowledge is often referred to as traditional knowledge. Although the meanings of these notions are inextricably linked, there are some points of distinction. Firstly, traditional knowledge is a broader term that includes Indigenous knowledge. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), “Traditional Knowledge” includes “the know-​how, skills, innovations, practices, teachings and learnings” of Indigenous peoples and local communities. These practices are “dynamic and evolving, and are passed on from generation to generation,” and may exist in “codified, oral or other forms” (quoted in Tsosie 2018, 234). Therefore, not all traditional knowledge is considered part of Indigenous knowledge; however, all Indigenous knowledge is a subcategory of traditional knowledge. It can be explained by the fact that traditional knowledge may have been formed by an individual or a group of people, whether Indigenous peoples or not. Stephen B. Brush points out that Indigenous knowledge and traditional knowledge share many features, such as being unwritten, pragmatic, experiential, customary, and holistic (2005, 59). The scholar distinguishes characteristics of Indigenous knowledge which can be attributed to traditional knowledge as well. These include localness, oral transmission, origin in practical experience, repetitiveness, emphasis on the empirical, being widely shared, holism, and orientation to practical performance. That is why both of the notions in question are used synonymously in the same context. It can be deduced that the character of Indigenous knowledge and traditional knowledge

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is different in the holders. Precisely, the stakeholders of traditional knowledge are either local communities or Indigenous peoples. The notion of Indigenous knowledge is also often used synonymously with the term Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). Winona LaDuke explains that it is a subcategory of TK comprising the “culturally and spiritually based way in which Indigenous peoples relate to their ecosystems” (1994, 127). What is more, Traditional Ecological Knowledge reflects Indigenous systems of environmental ethics and the communities’ scientific knowledge about the environment resulting from generations of interaction. For instance, the Traditional Ecological Knowledge of the Dene people of Canada “consists of a spiritually based moral code or ethic that governs the interaction between the human, natural and spiritual worlds” and it “encompasses a number of general principles and specific rules that regulate human behaviour toward nature” (Tsosie 1996, 225–​73). There are clear parallels among many Indigenous communities. For instance, most Indigenous peoples have land-​based subsistence economies instead of industrial or market economies. They also view the earth as an animate being and consider humans to be in a kinship relationship with other non-​human beings (276–​79). Most groups maintain an ethic of balance and reciprocity that extends to relationships among humans and other living beings. As Joan McGregor points out, “Traditional Ecological Knowledge” is a resource that can help build sustainability ethics (2018, 110). The definition of “sustainability” was first offered in the United Nations’ 1987 report, “Our Common Future,” by the World Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the “Brundtland Commission.” According to the document: “Sustainable development is a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission 1987, 8). For most Indigenous peoples, sustainability results from conscious strategies intended to preserve a balance between human beings and the natural environment for future generations. These sustainable practices have enabled Indigenous peoples to survive over many generations, despite the substantial shifts in their environment caused by European settlement. Today, Indigenous nations continue to foster those values as they develop their survival mechanisms to meet contemporary challenges. The spiritual relationship to the natural world is largely absent from contemporary inquiries about place and discussions concerning sustainability. Philosopher John Ehrenfeld (2008) warns that sustainability will remain unmet unless developed countries reorient their values, while the poet Gary Snyder (1974) emphasizes in his verse and prose that modern civilizations need to rediscover and keep to Native knowledge.

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3.5.3 Native science Another term used in connection to Indigenous knowledge is “Native science.” Some modern scholars consider science to be a Western construct and argue that Indigenous science does not exist. While Indigenous people have folk knowledge, it is not believed to be scientific. Moreover, according to some Western scholars, science must be objective and not affected by culture. Therefore, the term “Indigenous science” is meaningless to them. In contrast, social scientists argue that everything is embedded in culture, including systems of knowledge, education, and technology. What is more, there are also different myths within Western science itself tested by Western scientists. Leroy Little Bear also notices that the term “science” is culturally relative, and it varies in meaning depending on the worldview of the definer (2000, ix). The appearances are conditioned by human intellectual and sensory apparatus. Therefore, scientific facts are a product of the human observer and underlying reality. The reality created by modern science is mainly based on Western paradigms and measurements of Western mathematics. Jeremy Hayward believes that despite the usefulness of scientific discoveries, the world relies on a distorted, narrow view of science: “The modern description leaves out so much—​it leaves out the sacredness, the livingness, the soul of the world. And it does get troublesome when some scientists tell us, often with a voice of authority, that the part they leave out is really not there” (1997, 17). Paraphrasing Albert Einstein, Leroy Little Bear claims that the business of science is “reality” (2000, ix), and “if science is a search for knowledge at the leading edges of the humanly knowable, then there are sciences other than the Western science of measurement,” one of them is Native American science (ix). Indigenous science is incomprehensible mainly to mainstream Western culture since it operates from a different paradigm, i.e. a way of thinking, communicating and perceiving. Although measurement constitutes one of many factors in Native American science, it does not play a fundamental role like in Western science. Native paradigm includes ideas of constant flux and motion, existence consisting of energy waves, animate beings, space/​place, interrelationships, and everything being imbued with spirit. American Indians never claim regularities as laws since even regularities are subject to change. For Native Americans, change is the only constant. Gregory Cajete notices that in Native languages, there exists no word for “science,” nor for “psychology,” “philosophy,” or any other way of coming to know (2). The lack of words for science or art did not diminish their importance in Native life. While tribal specialists demonstrated particular knowledge of rituals

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and technologies, each member of the tribe was a scientist, a storyteller or an artist in his or her own capacity, and a participant in the web of life. Cajete points out that Native science can be seen as a metaphor for a vast range of tribal processes of “coming to know,” thinking, acting, and perceiving that have evolved through human experience with the natural environment. To understand Native science, one must “participate” with the natural world and become open to the roles of perception, sensation, imagination, and spirit as well as that of logic and rational empiricism (Cajete 2000, 46). In order to define Native science, it is also important to describe its boundaries. Cajete explains that Native science is a broad term that may include art and architecture, metaphysics and philosophy, practical technologies and agriculture, and rituals and ceremonies practised by Indigenous peoples. More specifically, Native science encompasses studies related to animals, plants, and natural phenomena, including farming, plant medicine, animal husbandry, plant domestication, fishing, hunting, metallurgy, and geology. Furthermore, Native science also extends to spirituality, creativity, and technologies sustaining environments. It can even include exploring the nature of language, the movement of time and space; the nature of the human relationship to the cosmos; and other similar questions related to natural reality. In other words, Native science can be described as “a map of natural reality drawn from the experience of thousands of human generations” that has contributed to the development of diverse human technologies (17). It is also worth noting that the word “science” can relate to the ways in which people come to know something. Indigenous science, however, encompasses all of the kinds of knowledge that are part of Indigenous culture. Hence, the terms “science” and “knowledge” are used interchangeably among Indigenous scientists. Native science is most comparable to what Western science refers to as environmental science or ecology. Although American Indians do not possess a term for either of those notions, they do understand the practice of the above-​ mentioned branches of Western science. This awareness is visible in their profound relationship to the natural world and their philosophies, customs, and cultural ways of life. In terms of biology, Native science has been viewed as “biophilia,” or the innate tendency to affiliate with all life forms (16). As far as anthropology is concerned, Native science can be perceived as “totemism,” “animism,” or the worship of nature. In the conceptual framework of philosophy, Cajete claims that Native science is based on perceptual phenomenology, which parallels the approach of Native science in that it provides a viewpoint based on lifeworld experience; it is also the foundation for the explanation of the world and Native science. There can also be numerous other definitions, but in its core,

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Native science is based on “the perception gained from using the entire body of our senses in direct participation with the natural world” (16). Although animism has been long considered a term describing a primitive belief system that links life or spirit to the inanimate, an environmental humanities researcher, Jemma Deer, expresses a need for rethinking animism as it works beyond the human and non-​human divide. In her 2021 book, Radical Animism, Deer explains that the term should be reclaimed from its ethnocentric origin and Western perception of animistic cultures needs to be changed (2021, 50). Some contemporary scholars, including David Abram, Elizabeth Povinelli, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, also present a more respectful approach to the idea of animism in their works. They all consider the animist perception of non-​human forms of life and a return to “nature,” since, as Timothy Morton (2007) and others have noted, the idea of “Nature” is questionable.

3.5.4 Indigenous speculative fiction Since Indigenous knowledge has not been considered a science for a long time, Native Americans and Indigenous people around the world have not been associated with the genre of science fiction which was defined in terms of Western mainstream science. It was in 2012 that the first Indigenous science fiction anthology Walking the Clouds drew attention to the Native presence in science fiction. As already mentioned in the introduction to this book, Indigenous science fiction has been long overlooked since the genre was associated almost exclusively with “the increasing significance of the future to Western techno-​cultural consciousness” as the editors of the Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction (Evans 2010) put it. The stories collected in Walking the Clouds confront issues of “Indianness” in a genre that arose in the mid-​19th-​century context of anthropology, which was deeply entwined with colonial ideology. Science fiction has tended to ignore the various space-​time thinking of traditional societies. As a result, scholars unintentionally omitted much of Native science fiction whose futures deal with parallel worlds or those based on the cyclical sense of time. What is more, some science fiction narrates the traumas of colonialism as “adventure stories.” Nalo Hopkinson points out in her introduction to So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy: “Arguably one of the most familiar memes of science fiction is that of going to foreign countries and colonizing the Natives, and as I’ve said elsewhere, for many of us, that’s not a thrilling adventure story: it’s non-​fiction, and we are on the wrong side of the strange-​looking ship that appears out of nowhere” (2004, 7).

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Moreover, since science is often believed to be the signature feature of the science fiction genre, it has often been debated whether the term “science fiction” can be attributed to the works of Indigenous peoples. Dillon argues that Indigenous sustainable practices can be considered a science, although they do not resemble western systems of thought. Dillon also coined the term “Indigenous scientific literacies” to refer to how Indigenous languages, stories, and art bear scientific teachings and, thus, improve relationships among all persons. In the introduction to Mitêwâcimowina: Indigenous Science Fiction and Speculative Storytelling, Neal McLeod adds that some streams of Indigenous science fiction may also focus on the “critique of [western] science, and how science and technology have been used to propagate colonialism” (2016, 4). What is more, speculation in Indigenous science fiction is based not only on the possibilities of the science but also on the aspect of mitêw, which refers to someone who holds spiritual power and does things beyond explanation. Thus, the narrative range of science fiction is broad, and so is the concept of what Indigenous science fiction could be. Dillon also distinguishes Indigenous science fiction from other types of speculative fiction like Native Apocalypse or contact stories. As far as Native slipstream is concerned, it is a type of speculative writing that resists any precise categorization. As Victoria de Zwaan claims, slipstream is created by those who “play with and undermine the conventions of the [sf] genre” (2009, 500–​504). In contrast to Western epistemology, Native slipstream presents time and space as inextricably conjoined. This subgenre of speculative fiction anticipated recent breakthroughs in physics and the concept of the “multiverse,” which means that reality consists of multiple alternate and/​or parallel worlds. Native slipstream employs time travel in order to exploit the potential of multiverses. This type of fiction allows writers to reclaim the Native space of the past and create better futures. It draws the readers’ attention to the moments of divergence as well as their effects. For instance, Gerald Vizenor’s “Custer on the Slipstream” (1978) depicts an alternate reality in which Indigenous peoples are no longer victims of the genocidal project of General George Armstrong Custer. Skawennati Fragnito’s (Mohawk) “TimeTraveller” (2008–​2013) can also be considered an example of a Native slipstream. It is a machinima about a Mohawk time traveller who reveals the Indigenous perspectives that are not presented in mainstream history books. Another form of Indigenous speculative fiction involves the stories of contact, which portray the Indigenous peoples as aliens/​others and deal with the theme of conquest or, in other words, “discovery.” These tales show aliens invading humans or the other way round, on an either geopolitical, psychological, or sexual level. In this way, Indigenous authors address the possibility of internal colonization, resistance and oppression, as well as historical realities that have changed Native

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existence. These tales can also be viewed as stories of survivance, which negate the organizing categories naturalized by colonial capitalism. Gerald Vizenor discusses the concept of survivance in Fugitive Poses: Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence as “more than survival, more than endurance or mere response... survivance is an active repudiation of dominance, tragedy, and victimry” (1998, 15). Subsequently, Indigenous science fiction builds on the miinidiwag tradition of Native “giveaway,” which are stories told in an ironic way, in order to challenge readers to understand their part in the lesson conveyed. Celu Amberstone’s short story “Refugees” (2004) embraces contact themes. In the novella, aliens intervene to protect the Earth from humanity by moving Indigenous people to another planet. The central conflict is between the Indigenous peoples, who have lived on the planet for seven generations, and the Indigenous routed peoples who have recently arrived from Vancouver. Indigenous futurism also involves the stories of Native Apocalypse, which present the relationship between the contact and Apocalypse as the “reciprocal cause and effect” (Dillon 2012, 9). From the Indigenous point of view, the “Native Apocalypse […] has already taken place” (8), since historical colonization resulted in the apocalypse experienced by Indigenous peoples not only in North America but also in other parts of the world. As Ambelin Kwaymullina, an Indigenous speculative fiction writer from Western Australia, explains: We understand the tales of ships that come from afar and land on alien shores. Indigenous people have lived those narratives [...]. Indigenous people lived through the end of the world, but we did not end. We survived by holding on to our cultures, our kin, and our sense of what was right in a world gone terribly wrong. (2014, 29)

Thus, Indigenous futurism is voiced by the offspring of those who survived the European colonization from the 15th century onwards. For Indigenous peoples, the invasion of aliens, the subsequent enslavement, species extinction, and environmental degradation “are not merely nightmares morbidly fixed upon by science fiction writers and readers, but are rather the bare historical record of what happened to non-​European people and lands after being ‘discovered’ by Europeans [...]” (Rieder 2008, 124). As a result, the Native Apocalypse depicted in Indigenous speculative fiction is rooted in the Age of Discovery initiated by Christians in the name of the Bible. While Apocalypse is associated with the biblical canon, the Native Apocalypse points to the “state of imbalance, often perpetuated by terminal creeds” (Dillon 2012, 9). Hence, Native Apocalypse shows the scars and the trauma suffered by Indigenous people so as to provide healing and a return to bimaadiziwin [Anishinaabe peoples’ word for the state of balance] (9).

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Many Indigenous futurisms present alternate histories, where circumstances are reversed, and Natives win or are centred in the narrative. At the same time, these stories offer a possibility of an optimistic future. Such alternate histories often refer to resonant figures or well-​known cataclysms, as, for instance, the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, the Battle of Little Big Horn (1876), the Ghost Dances after the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. Sherman Alexie’s “Distances” set in the aftermath of a nuclear war, clearly makes a reference to the Ghost Dance. The narrative makes a commentary on the divisions between urban and reservation Indian identities, where the ghosts of Indians come back as Others. As mentioned previously in the introduction to this book, the North American Indigenous novels that will be discussed in this study can also be seen as stories of Native post-​Apocalypse. Zainab Amadahy’s The Moons of Palmares (1997) imagines the Native Apocalypse, which is then followed by a revolution leading to a redesigned sovereignty. Rebecca Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning (2018) and Amadahy’s Resistance (2013) present alternative stories where Indigenous communities win the fight against colonial forces. Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s Oracles (2004), Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves (2017) and Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God (2017) present a series of events after an environmental disaster and elaborate on the conditions of ongoing colonial abuse using futuristic settings. They also explore possibilities for survival in an apocalyptic world. The above-​mentioned types of “apocalyptic storytelling” not only acknowledge the long-​forgotten abuses suffered by Indigenous communities but they also provide an opportunity of “biskaabiiyang,” or “returning to ourselves” where one can “[discover] how personally one is affected by colonization, discarding the emotional and psychological baggage carried from its impact and recovering ancestral traditions in order to adapt to our post-​Native-​Apocalypse world” (Dillon 2012, 10). This process can be described as “decolonization” since it demands a change of Euro-​Western concepts. Indigenous speculative fiction challenges the structures of colonialism by creating “ethnoscapes”:  estranged worlds of the future, where an imaginary environment foregrounds the intersection of Indigenous nations with other sovereignties, race, technology (see Lavender 2011). Dillon also mentions that decolonization should be central to (post)colonial sf literature and Indigenous futurisms as a means of achieving biskaabiiyang. John Rieder’s Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction (2008) contends that fantasies of appropriation and exploitation still exist in contemporary science fiction. Indigenous speculative fiction is characterized by self-​ reflexivity and helps in defamiliarization. It is also noteworthy that Indigenous Futurisms should not be relegated exclusively to the future since it also relates

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to the ongoing crisis of the present time. Indigenous Futurism involves storytelling, which is the source of healing for present generations, but it also serves to transmit traditional knowledge, which can help overcome environmental issues. At the same time, Indigenous speculative fiction emphasizes that Native peoples have always been ready to adopt new technologies. The term “speculative fiction” itself has been causing a stir among many literary scholars and led them to think of other concepts. For instance, in Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, Daniel Heath Justice offers another term, “wonderworks,” in place of Indigenous fantasy, speculative fiction, or imaginative literature. According to Justice, the terms mentioned “are burdened by dualistic presumptions of real and unreal that don’t take seriously or leave legitimate space for other meaningful ways of experiencing this and other worlds –​through lived encounter and engagement, through ceremony and ritual, through dream” (2018, 152). The term “wonderworks” is more in line with Indigenous epistemologies and relationships. The word “wonder” is rooted in certain uncertainty and mystery, which reminds Justice of the creative force of the universe understood as “Great Mystery.” Wondrous things are unpredictable and draw attention to the existence of other worlds and realities. Wonderworks, then, are works of art that help us imagine different alternative futures beyond settler colonialism. However, the term “wonderworks” did not catch on, and many scholars still argue about the boundaries of speculative fiction and its distinction from other genres, particularly science fiction. As mentioned in the introduction to this book, I have chosen to use the term “speculative fiction” as the umbrella term and include science fiction as a subset of speculative fiction since the narratives in this study do not collectively fit under any other single genre label, nor do they all fit within other critical terms. Despite the variety of all the genres speculative fiction comprises, there are two qualities that they share. First, speculative fiction challenges normative notions concerning reality and the idea that nothing exists beyond the phenomenal world. Second, speculative fiction makes no pretence of being factual or accurate. The field of speculative fiction can thus be described as the unlimited space for Western, non-​Western and indigenous non-​mimetic traditions, which draw attention to the marginalized or forgotten modes of engagement with reality.

3.6 “Ecological Indians” In recent years, as a result of Native Americans’ resistance to submitting to certain state environmental regulations as well as their work to protect their communities, cultures and the environment, Indigenous peoples of North America have

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often been reduced to what Shepard Krech (2000) has called “Ecological Indians,” that is, a neo-​colonial stereotype similar to the figure of the “noble savage.” As “Ecological Indians,” Indigenous peoples are expected to live in rural areas, defend nature, have specific features like wearing a “traditional” dress or refraining from technology. Indians have also been often stereotypically depicted as beings without agency, leaving no mark on the land. These stereotypic images developed in the 1960s and 1970s, when a wave of American Indian activism, which aimed to improve the social conditions of Indigenous peoples, hit America. Indians became symbols for the American counterculture and environmentalism, a way of life in opposition to white, urban, techno-​industrial society. However, the images of Native Americans in ads and films offered a critique of industrial society instead of a critical understanding of Indigenous peoples’ complex interactions with the environment. The highly praised Dances With Wolves (1990) is often considered to be a misleading dance with mythology, which uses animals and Indians as environmental symbols to criticize 20th human–​nature relationships. These ideas unintentionally denied Indians their culture and history and misdirected non-​Indian society’s responses to modern Indigenous peoples and issues. Although early environmentalists were inspired by Native American cultures, their knowledge was based on a cultural misinterpretation of a more complex whole. Contemporary Indigenous groups and their ancestors were not as ecologically sensitive as the stereotypes about them have implied. Indians were never “ecologists,” they were instead careful students of their environments, striving for sustained yield but unafraid to exploit some periodic abundance. Native Americans developed a land ethic based on long-​term experience and recognized that they were part of creation. The land was central to their survival, beliefs, and identity. Their subsistence strategies and beliefs reduced the environmental degradation but did not leave the natural environment untouched. Such ecocritics as Greg Garrard or Lawrence Buell have also questioned the idea that pre-​modern Indigenous groups lived in harmony with nature (Garrard 2004, 120–​21; Buell 2005, 23). The above-​mentioned scholars refer to Krech’s work, proving that not all North American tribes hunted animals, including the buffalo “sustainably.” Krech points out that the dominant image of an Indian is based on the assumption that every Indigenous person “understands the systemic consequences of his actions, feels deep sympathy with all living forms, and takes steps to conserve so that the earth’s harmonies are never imbalanced and resources never in doubt” (2000, 21). Krech implies that not only Europeans are to blame for species extinctions but also Indigenous peoples should not be seen as models of ecological awareness. As Garrard explains in Ecocriticism, the

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relationship between Europeans and Americans was based “on destruction and consumption of forests and wildlife so astonishingly voracious that, in places, it amounted to an ‘ecocidal’ campaign to exhaust and refashion whole habitats” (2004, 123). However, Krech also concludes that while not all Indian tribes could be described as “conservationists,” many “clearly possessed vast knowledge of their environment” and “understood relationships among living things in the environment” (200, 103, 212). Garrard emphasizes Krech’s point that Indigenous resistance movements (beginning in the 1970s with the occupation of Alcatraz Island) employ tropes of ecological indigeneity since they organize to protest against ecological degradation and land appropriation. Garrard concludes that contemporary Native American writers continue to create images of the Ecological Indian in ways that provide “some Indians with a source of pride and aspiration for themselves and their societies” (2004, 125). Further on in this book, I will look at the way selected North American Indigenous writers challenge simplistic arguments about the Ecological Indian by setting their stories in modern contexts.

3.7 Native American identity in the urban milieu One of the most common misconceptions about North American Indigenous people is that they live rural areas or reservations. In fact, Native American environments and culture began to change dramatically with Euro-​American contact. Parcelling out acres of the land began the process of colonial transformation of the New World. Old World epidemic diseases and pathogens, the disappearance of native flora and fauna, domesticated plants and livestock, as well as changing patterns of Native resource management altered the landscape. Indigenous peoples were gradually relocated from their ancestral homelands to what Linda Tuhiwai-​Smith described as “re-​appropriated, reserved pockets of land,” i.e. designated reservation areas, which were to remove tribal communities from the emerging nation-​states (2001, 51). Tracing the history of the federal government’s violence against Native Americans, Kiowa poet N. Scott Momaday claims that in the 19th and the 20th centuries, the reservation was imagined by Americans as a place inhabited by “a poor, syphilitic, lice-​infested wastrel whose only weapon against despair was alcohol” (1997, 69). The writer adds that in their worst version, reservations became “contagious colonies and concentration camps” (69). Thus, the white people began to perceive the inhabitants of reservations as “rude-​refined” domestic communities involved in hierarchical power relations with the newly emerging American nation-​state (Hall 1996, 188). It is important to note that Indigenous communities were undergoing at that

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time a complex process of reconstruction conditioned by the power relations within tribes as well as with external non-​Native communities and the American government. Throughout the 19th century, Congress introduced a series of legal acts that resulted in the mass dispossession of Native Americans and the disintegration of tribal communities. The Indian Removal Act, passed in 1830, forced many northern tribes to resettle in western prairie lands (west of the Mississippi River), which were considered undesirable for the white man. Their abandoned homelands in the lower South-​East were sold to the newcomers. In 1887 the federal government implemented the Dawes Act (the General Allotment Act), which authorized the U.S. President to divide Native American lands into individual holdings. This law aimed to introduce tribal communities to the concept of private property and transform Indians into American farmers. Native Americans with at least 50% Indian blood could be granted legal status and given allotments to control individually; they were subsequently subjected to federal laws. In 1934 the Indian Reorganization Act was introduced, which intended to reverse the traditional goal of assimilation of Native people into American society and extended American Indians’ right to form tribal governments and other organizations. Those pieces of legislation imposed new borders demarcating Native Americans’ space and triggered a procedure of legal identification of Indigenous individuals that became a tool in the process of further fragmentation of tribal communities. Although Native Americans are commonly believed to have been living in reservations and rural communities, Native presence has been constant in many American cities and the areas adjacent to them since the beginnings of European settlement. The migration to cities increased at the beginning of the 20th century when Native American men were recruited to fight in World War I. After World War II, the Indigenous community split into two groups, small and mainly rural Native communities and a large urban Indian population. As a result of the implementation of the Termination and the Relocation Acts, in 1953 and 1956, respectively, Indian people began to, either forced or voluntarily, migrate from reservations and traditional lands to assimilate in urban areas in search of work education and new housing. This policy of the 1950s was another attempt of the federal government to integrate American Indians into the mainstream American culture. However, Donald Fixico asserts that this policy failed since American Indians resisted the individualism promoted by the dominant culture and, being culturally a communal people, formed various communities in the beginnings in ghettoized parts of the city (2001, ix).

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In order to understand the situation of contemporary Native communities which are undergoing a process of transformation, it is necessary to redefine the meaning of “home” within the diasporic boundaries. The importance of this issue has been addressed in the works of numerous Native scholars and writers, including Simon Ortiz. Taking into consideration the constant growth of Native urban communities, Ortiz expresses the need for a debate over the understanding of “home” in the following passage: For Indigenous American people, home used to be simple. You had a home, and you could return to it if you chose to do so… your homeland was the source of your identity, and that was a major part of your identifiable place in cultural society. Returning home was a simple matter of returning to the place you belonged… You returned home; you returned to place. You returned to your land. But now that your Indigenous land has been designated an “Indian reservation,” are you still returning home? (2007, 145)

As Ortiz points out, “home” is no longer seen in terms of a reservation-​based community but is understood as “the Indigenous socio-​cultural context found in urban locales across the United States” (144). Similarly, Brill de Ramirez and Susan Berry stress the importance of the conditions in which contemporary Native communities live as a result of land dispossession, colonial displacement, and often forced relocation (2009a, 39). According to Brill de Ramirez and Susan Berry, reading Native American literature in the context of contemporary discussions around the diaspora will deepen the understanding of the contemporary situation of Indigenous people in the Americas. The critic characterizes contemporary Indigenous experience by a sense of “diasporized indigeneity,” that is, “liv[ing] in a condition of alienation even though one’s bodily presence is within or near one’s ancestral homelands,” or by a sense of “an indigenized diaspora,” that is, “a lived and perceived sense of belonging and ‘home’ even when one is geographically distanced from one’s ancestral homelands” (de Ramirez and Berry 2009b, 161). It is worth noting that from the traditional tribal perspective, migration and movement are inherent in Indigenous experience, as they have been “form[ing] the basis for physical and spiritual well-​being in many tribal societies” (Blaeser 2009, 215–​16). Thus, the diasporic experience of contemporary Native Americans can be understood as a continuation of the great migration that began with the creation of the first people and since has taken various forms, such as sacred journeys, the Long Walk, the Trail of Tears, and forced relocation. Ultimately, transgressing borders has transformed the character of Indigenous communities that are part of the American nation-​state. The formation of Indian urban communities has been influenced by cultural and socio-​political circumstances.

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Yet, Native Americans’ responses to urban experience have varied in different periods. The first generation of urban Indians, who moved in the late 1940s and early 1950s, not only had to deal with criticism from reservation Indians but was also exposed to adverse effects of the relocation policy as well as was forced to confront negative white stereotypes of themselves (Straus and Valentino 2001, 89). As a result, some of them would lose control over their lives in the city and subsequently return to reservations. However, a large group of those who continued to live in the city always remained, while the urban communities they formed provided them with a sense of belonging to a new “urban tribe.” Ewelina Bańka, in her book View from the Concrete Shore (2018), claims that contemporary Indian communities continue to encounter various problems, among them violence, racism, unemployment, undereducation, and lack of medical services. Nevertheless, they have learned to take advantage of modern American facilities and are becoming an active part of American society. The gradual “empowerment” of Native Americans has resulted in many reports on contemporary Indigenous experience and the negotiation of Native home and identity in modern America. As a result of migration to their new urban environments and the formation of new communities, Native American city dwellers have had to modify their sense of self since many of the reservation rules do not apply in the socio-​culturally diverse urban environment (Lobo 2001, 74). In traditional homelands, these are the land and tribal ties that determine one’s self-​defining process, whereas, in the city, one’s attachment to a place and a sense of belonging to a community may become problematic as Native Americans often become isolated individuals or members of scattered ethnically diverse groups living in the suburbs, or white-​dominated neighbourhoods. An interesting issue in this context has been the transformation of the traditional concept of tribalism in the city and a new understanding of the relationship between a Native American’s sense of self and place. The matter of self-​identification becomes even more complex when considering the growing number of interracial and intertribal marriages that have given rise to a generation of mixed-​blood urban Indians. For such people, the process of self-​identification involves understanding their culture(s) and developing a sense of belonging to a community. Susan Lobo explains that urban Indians have been developing new ways to define their identity as contemporary Native Americans while maintaining their traditional ways of life. While adjusting to the new environment, most of them have modified the concepts of home and community. According to Lobo, this led to the evolution of a new meaning of Indian community, that is, “the urban reservation”—​“a widely scattered and

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frequently shifting network of relationships with locational nodes found in organizations and activity sites of special significance” (74). The urban reservation is “not essentially a place, but rather it is characterized by relationships that bond people together and is, therefore, one of the ways that identity is established” (74). Due to its colonial association with social, cultural and geopolitical implications, the use of the term “reservation” may be considered problematic; however, Lobo’s understanding of the urban reservation negates the confinements imposed on Indigenous people by the nation-​state. The emergence of the urban reservation encouraged debate over the impact of urbanization on Native communities in America and the issue of tribal identification in contemporary Native experience. Terry Straus and Debra Valentino raise that subject in their essay “Retribalization in Urban Indian Communities”: ‘Urban’ is not a kind of Indian. It is a kind of experience, one that most Indian people today have had. There are urban areas on or closely bordering many reservations; there is a lot of movement between urban and reservation communities; and in today’s world, telephones, television, and the Internet expose every reservation to the problems and perks of urban life. The rift between urban and reservation Indian people is artificial and imposed. It derives in large part from the federal policy that excluded off-​reservation Indians from tribal treaty rights. (2001, 86)

By rejecting the dichotomy between the reservation and the city, the authors point to the problems of Native communities in dealing with the pieces of legislation that have regulated their tribal status. As Bańka points out, the Civil Rights movement inspired Native American activism and encouraged them to express contemporary Native identity publicly (2018, 38). In addition, the strengthening of the relations between the old and the new Indigenous urban communities in America contributed to the appearance of nationalist and pan-​Indian attitudes in the cities. Although the pan-​Indian character of the Native American diaspora has been criticized as handing down tribal traditions, Thomas King notices the positive aspect of pan-​Indianism as evidence of Native Americans’ cultural continuance and a sign of their adaptation to contemporary socio-​cultural circumstances. In an interview with Jace Weaver, King claims: I think a lot of people think of pan-​Indianness as a diminution of ‘Indian’, but I think of it as simply a reality of contemporary life. Native culture has never been static though Western literature would like to picture it that way… In reality there are a lot of Indians who go off the reserve, who come back to the reserve, who work, who go off the reserve again, who keep going back and forth, and they manage. (Weaver 1997, 150)

The heightened sense of activism in the 1960s and 1970s contributed to forming a new collective identity based on shared experience and goals. One

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of the attempts to describe this new Indian identity is Alan Sorkin’s term—​a “neo-​Indian social identity.” It focuses on the newness of the construction of this identity. Vine Deloria Jr. and Clifford M. Lytle began to refer to the identity of urban Indians as “ethnic” instead of “tribal,” suggesting that “the merging of many tribal identities and histories in the urban setting meant the adoption of a common, albeit artificial heritage” (1984, 236). Those shifting expressions of Indian identity are evidence of Native Americans’ adaptation to the contemporary American environment. In Edge of Empire, Jane Jacobs argues that identity politics “articulates itself through space and is, fundamentally, about space” (1996, 1). Therefore, the articulations of collective and individual Native identities led to a reconceptualization of the space within which these identities are formed. Jeffrey P. Shepherd claims that contemporary Indigenous communities integrate reservations into a larger cultural landscape and, simultaneously, reclaim cities “into their old conceptualizations of space and place” (2008, 35). Consequently, when seen from an Indigenous perspective, negotiation of home within the city space may be seen as a re-​appropriation of Native lands in which Native people “re-​Indigenize the city by creating Native communities and neighbourhoods” in the heart of the American metropolis (34). However, it needs to be emphasized that some Native people do not feel the need to stress their tribal background. The role of place in the Indian experience remains to be explored in contemporary Native American literature. Responding to the cultural and socio-​ political changes in American society, Native American writers represent various perspectives on contemporary Native experience at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. While for years Native literature explored reservation Indian life primarily, presenting the city as a place that suppressed Native identity, many late 20th-​and early 21st-​century American Indigenous writers, including Leslie Marmon Silko, Rebecca Roanhorse and Zainab Amadahy, offer portrayals of America in which the city becomes a place where Native presence is validated.

Chapter 4. Bodies, class, technology and environmental injustice in Zainab Amadahy’s speculative fiction The following chapter discusses selected works of Zainab Amadahy, particularly Moons of Palmares (1997) and Resistance (2013). It is explored how Amadahy illustrates the connections between body, class, race and place-​based injustices. Following Stacy Alaimo, racism will be discussed as environmental, which allows to prove how socio-​political forces produce landscapes that affect human bodies. Instead of showing the human body as an enclosed entity, Amadahy demonstrates that the body is vulnerable to the substances and flows of its environments, including industrial environments and their social/​economic forces. Zainab Amadahy links landscape, labourers and women by portraying their parallel plights. Forced to constantly maximize its “efficiency,” the body of the worker is treated like other “natural resources.” The Moons of Palmares also draws attention to the still prevalent colonial assumptions about family life. The writer addresses the true causes of environmental damage and inequality, in order to preserve both nature and vulnerable humans from exploitation and encourage to develop environmental practices that will foster the vital symbiosis of human beings and the non-​human world. Amadahy not only draws attention to the ways bodies are embedded within ecosystems and social systems, but also to the role spirituality may take in facilitating materialization. The novels also touch upon the issue of technology, and its impact on women. The chapter also delves into the ways Amadahy conceptualizes the environment and its agency.

4.1 Zainab Amadahy’s The Moons of Palmares 4.1.1 (Neo-​)colonization of the planets The Moons of Palmares is set in the future on a former colony of the Earth, called Palmares,7 which has achieved political independence. Palmarans’ sovereignty is, however, limited as they are still subjugated to the earth-​based “Consortium”

7 The name of Palmares refers to a settlement of escaped slaves in nineteenth-​century Brazil, however, it is not explained why the colony’s founders chose such a name.

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who controls the mining operations on the planet’s moons. This seems to reflect the contemporary Western control in postcolonial countries, as well as economic and environmental dangers of neo-​colonialism and globalization. Palmarans engage in active and passive resistance in order to solve political, economic, and environmental problems. Amadahy’s introduction of Leith Eaglefeather, the new Security Chief of the Terran Compound, allows for comparisons between the colonial situation on Palmares, and the past colonization of North America. In this case, the colonizers are referred to as the Terran Consortium, which is a group of companies that dominated the galaxy’s mining industry. The Consortium exhausted the Earth’s resources, including quilidon, which is vital in maintaining Earth’s standard of living. This substance allows Terrans to capture energy and thus travel through the galaxy, conquering and colonizing, obtaining scarce materials for resale on the home planet (Amadahy 1997, 42). As the narrator explains, “Earth’s survival depends on its being able to keep on subordinating all the colonies in the galaxy, each with its specific role: Mars and the asteroid belt for strategic minerals, Basilea for thyanite […]” (145). Then, the Consortium discovered quilidon deposits on Palmares’ moons and immediately decided to recruit labour from Earth and from colonies on Mars, as well as the stations orbiting other planets. The workforce for Palmares’ mining operations was formed from “the poorest of the poor” and most desperate. After decades, “live labourers” were still kept for maintenance and programming of the artificial intelligence that directed the operation of the robots ranging from droids to nanites that extracted and refined quilidon (7–​8). When the Consortium realized that the costs of transporting supplies from Earth to the mining station were too high, they began to develop the then-​nameless planet. Although Amadahy published her novel in 1997, it still remains valid and seems to prophesize the current activities of private companies and governmental agencies from many countries, who make commitments to the long-​term colonization of Mars. For instance, Space X’s goal is to inhabit Mars as early as in 2024. Like for Europe’s colonies in the so-​called “New World,” the primary motivations for space colonization on Mars are economy (see Dapremont 2021). In Amadahy’s novel, the Consortium’s refinery and workers’ quarters on the planet evolved into a settlement and subsequently into a company town. The resources acquired on the moons were refined on Palmares and used to produce basic equipment. When the miners’ families settled on Palmares, a local economy developed as well. The colony’s labourers formed a new society and became a community-​minded people. Thus, the life on Palmares became less centred on the drudgery of the mines. In the beginning, the Consortium backed the changes since they supported its mining activities, i.e. local supplies were less

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expensive than transporting goods from Earth. Moreover, the workforce in the mines began to grow and seemed more stable and satisfied. Hence, the Consortium did not object to the Palmarans request for home rule. Since it was comfortable for them to stop financing the colony, the Consortium’s board of directors persuaded Earth’s government to grant Palmares home rule. Nevertheless, in return, the company had guaranteed its right to maintain a protected base of operations on the planet in several treaties. To make sure that the terms of the deal are met, the Consortium sent a contingent of Peacekeepers, who have acted as the liaison between the Terran Government and the Palmaran Governing Council. Although the majority of Palmarans appeared to be initially content with the arrangement, for some home rule would never be satisfactory. Over the last Terran decade, conflict arose. One Palmaran political party, the Menchista, demanded that the Consortium departs from Palmares for reasons of environmental justice and genuine sovereignty. One of the party’s leaders, professor Sixto Masika, claimed that the mining of the moons of Palmares had led to the destruction of lands: More than ninety percent of Palmares’ surface was covered with violet oceans, […]. Small islands dotted the equatorial region of one hemisphere. Fine red sand beaches lay at the base of spectacularly rugged cliffs, many of which were split by thunderous waterfalls. The only native vegetation to survive terraforming was an inedible blue fungus that thrived in the damp, humid regions. Palmares’ rough beauty was lost on those who originally colonized the planet. (Amadahy 1997, 23)

What is more, the activities led to the volcanic eruption, which “has left only hardened lava in its wake, and unlike volcanic ash on Earth, it is devoid of the nutrients that support plant life” (22). It also resulted in the complete devastation of fields, gardens and homes. The planet’s soil is also described as infertile and practically impossible to cultivate. The volcanic eruptions, the tsunamis, the deadly quakes the Palmarans have experienced for the last two decades were caused by the wide-​scale mining of the moons. As Masika, a scientist, explains “mining […] is eating away huge chunks of the moons that orbit our planet —​is destabilizing the tectonic plates beneath us. […] The moons are losing mass and their orbits are shifting, and with them the gravitational forces” (23–​24). The destructive impact of quilidon extraction on the environment in the novel seems to reflect the results of oil extraction in the real contemporary world. There seems to be also a relationship between the Consortium and the energy companies that affect the United States policy in the Middle East. In her novel, Amadahy elaborates on the consequences of colonialism. It has always resulted in the cultivation of lands, bodies and minds through the

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imposition of a dominant culture (colonial, neo-​colonial, modernist and neoliberal), which is considered to be superior, more rational and opposed to nature. According to the postcolonial literary scholar Pablo Mukherjee Upamanyu, colonialisms and imperialisms should be seen “as a state of permanent war on the global environment” (2010, 68). In their introduction to Postcolonial Ecologies: Literatures of Environment, Elizabeth DeLoughrey and George B. Handley point out that both the historical form of colonialism as well as its contemporary forms of settler-​colonialism and neo-​colonial extractive capitalism ought to be understood as an “offence against the earth” (2011, 5). The development of agriculture and extractive industries continue to violate the Earth. Despite his profound anthropocentrism, Frantz Fanon’s book The Wretched of the Earth recognizes the land as “the most essential value” for the European population that “has been nourished with the blood of slaves and it comes directly from the soil and from the subsoil of that under-​developed world” (1968, 101–​2). This insight is a basis for the anti-​imperialist critique that includes Justus von Liebig, the 19th century German soil scientist, who discussed British agriculture and imperialism as a practice of plundering the soil and resources of other countries. In contrast to the Terran culture, which is characterized by consumerism and technology, the industrious Palmarans attempt to preserve the old ways based on the principle of relatedness. They care about the natural environment and grow plants inside the compound. Amadahy illustrates this with the example of a character called Aristide, who reveals in conversation with Major that “Well, someone has to preserve the old ways.” […] “old isn’t always obsolete. We need to take what we can use. In our case, it’s whatever lets people be connected —​related —​to each other. Something besides consumerism and technology” (1997, 16). Palmarans cultivated different types of vegetation imported from the Earth and planets: “Gardens filled with tropical foliage imported from Terran hot-​houses, their DNA altered to thrive in the alien environment” (10). Amadahy describes the landscapes preserved owing to the Palmarans, including “marinas, recreational beaches, and untouched gardens of native fungus nestled in the coves and inlets” (10–​11). Major is fascinated with the way this colony has evolved. Palmares’ colonial structure is similar to many colonial structures around the world, where self-​government is still a major concern. Palmarans signed the treaty with the Consortium, which is alike Canada’s Indian Acts and the treaties in North America, granting limited forms of self-​government in combination with the economic colonization that many postcolonial countries faced after gaining political independence. The protagonists of Amadahy’s novel, Eaglefeather and Zaria, have a conversation about it:

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“Didn’t your people sign a treaty that gives the Consortium the right to be here? For two hundred years?” “It was the only way we could win home rule. Unfortunately, our grandparents had a rather limited understanding of the concept. Or maybe they had no choice about signing the deal. But what good is home rule? We aren’t independent and we don’t control our resources.” “It was an important treaty, the first of its kind. It became a model for other colonies.” “I’m sure it did,” she shot back. “Colonizers throughout history have recognized the cost-​effectiveness of indirect control. Give people the right to elect their own leaders, fund their own security forces, health care and education, but maintain control of their resources and you can still call the tune. It’s an old strategy—​ once called neo-​colonialism by dissidents on Earth. Political independence alone means little.” (52–​53)

The passage quoted above presents the future of North American Indigenous peoples as connected to the past when settlers questionably interpreted the law in order to exploit the lands belonging to Native Americans. Amadahy challenges in the novel the linear perception of time by presenting history as a continuum without a beginning or an end. Such a concept of time results from the fact that circularity orders all facets of American Indian life.

4.1.2 Resistance In the novel, Major Eaglefeather (Cherokee), a Peacekeeper of the Terran Consortium, who was granted a transfer to Palmares, conducts more trustworthy negotiations with the Palmarans than his fellow co-​workers do. Nevertheless, he is blind to the flaws of the system. Despite evidence of corruption and cruelty among the Peace Officers, he does not initially believe that members of his organization would violate laws and torture prisoners. He also questions the Palmarans’ allegations that the mining destabilizes the moons. The Menchista prepares boycotts in order to pressure the Consortium to negotiate. Over several years, however, some fractions within the Menchista become impatient with those nonviolent tactics. The plot revolves around the activities of one group of such activists, the Kituhwa, named after a 19th-​century Cherokee-​traditionalist secret society, who broke away from the Menchista in order to sabotage the Consortium’s mining activities. During one of the demonstrations, Rabindra Woczek, who is a protester, is killed. Since members of Kituhwa wrongly believe that she died on Major Leith Eaglefeather’s orders, the group kidnaps him when he comes into closer contact with Masika’s quilombo8. 8 From Angolan Kimbudu kilombo points to an Indigenous community, particularly, recalling historically a community of escaped African slaves who joined with Indigenous peoples in resisting colonization in pre-​nineteenth-​century Maroon settlements

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He is about to escape when an unexpected quake hits the community. Sixto and Zaria are under arrest for sabotaging the refinery. The novel presents different types of resistance to neo-​colonialism. The characters, Sixto and Magaly, represent two opposing strategies of resistance to the system. Sixto is a proponent of peaceful demonstrations and education to raise awareness of the Palmaran society at large and people living on the Earth about the results of quilidon consumption. In contrast, Magaly considers sabotage to be a better solution since it will raise the cost of the mining quilidon, making it less appealing. The protagonist, Zaria Aquene, is torn between these two points of view, sometimes supporting Sixto, her lover, and sometimes siding with Magaly, her lifelong friend. She is, at the same time aware that it is difficult to fight colonization as it was in the case of the First Nations of North America: As people after people encountered the Europeans, they debated what to do. Whether to respond peacefully or violently. Whether to cooperate or resist. Whether to be assimilated or not. Some peoples cooperated. Some resisted peacefully, others not so peacefully. Some withdrew to other territory, even as the land shrank before them till there was nowhere to go. Different people had different responses. And not one worked. They were decimated. In some cases entire civilizations disappeared. (117)

The strategy that works in the end is a combination of the above-​mentioned approaches. Eaglefeather contacts a journalist on the Earth, who publishes the results of the geological research that the Terran government have been hiding, including the information on the upcoming quake. After Sixto is tortured to death, Eaglefeather and Magaly attack the Compound and rescue Zaria. Magaly is killed in the attack, however, the act of resistance results in success as the oppressive Terran government is removed from power. The crimes committed against the Palmaran people are sanctioned, and the Consortium has to pay the Palmarans reparations. Representing the interest of their people, Eaglefeather and Zaria negotiate a new treaty, willing to compromise in order to arrive at an equitable solution. Although the mining of the moons of Palmares continues, the Palmaran government owns a majority stake in the operation and decides that all the extracted quilidon needs to be replaced with less strategic minerals of equivalent weight to prevent further destruction of the planet. Zainab Amadahy’s The Moons of Palmares presents a cycle from the beginning of Apocalypse through revolution to sovereignty.

4.1.3 Battling the concept of a Noble Savage In “The Indian in Science Fiction,” Mary S. Weinkauf suggests that Native peoples on other planets are often modelled on certain stereotypes of “the Indian”

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(1979, 308). Gregory Pfitzer adds in “The Only Good Alien Is a Dead Alien” that space aliens became “metaphorical Indians victimized by an ethic of conquest extended into new arenas of discovery and suspense” (1995, 55). Similarly, Andrew Macdonald and Mary Ann Sheridan, in Shape-​Shifting:  Images of Native Americans in Recent Popular Fiction, point out that Native American presence in science fiction serves as a basis for exploring questions of conflicting concepts or interpretations of reality (2000, 276). Non-​Indigenous writers tend to provide a distorted and biased representation of Native Americans to fit European-​based genre traditions. In The Moons of Palmares, the symbolic parallels between the Indigenous peoples of alien worlds and Native North Americans are complicated by the introduction of imperialists of Cherokee ancestry, i.e. Major Eaglefeather, a member of the Peacekeepers that occupy Palmares. Although he believes his mission is to bring peace, his real duty is to protect the interests of the Consortium on Palmares. His Cherokee origins lead him to sympathise with the people of Palmares, despite his position in the colonial hierarchy. Eaglefeather’s Cherokee heritage connects him to the Menchista, a resistance group named after the Native Guatemalan activist Rigoberta Menchu, as well as to the group of rebels called “Kituhwa, after a nineteenth-​century Cherokee-​traditionalist secret society” (6). When Eaglefeather is kidnapped by the Kituhwa, the glimpse at a dreamcatcher in his cell brings “him comfort, the hope that he might have something in common with his captors after all” (71). The Major also befriends Magaly, the most radical member of Kituhwa whose “features suggested her ancestry may have been predominantly Indigenous American” (16). Eagelfeather also becomes close to the Aquene family of Cherokee origin, who spy for the Kituhwa. Thus, instead of putting emphasis on the difference between the Palamarans and Terrans, Amadahy stresses the connections and similarities between the two contrasting societies by presenting the Palmarans as the descendants of Terran settlers rather than extraterrestrials. In this way, the author also prevents alienating the Indigenous people. Eaglefeather’s position as both a colonizer and the colonized allows readers to identify with him from a variety of perspectives. His final change of heart and support for the Palmarans encourages readers in the industrialized West to draw parallels between the situation in this imaginary future, and that of today, and to reach similar conclusions about the disparities in their own world. Eaglefeather serves as an Indigenous North American and a Terran imperialist who advocates for the rights of Indigenous peoples. The character is modelled on other First Nations characters of several earlier texts written by non-​Native authors. Andre Norton’s 1960 (1984) novel The Sioux Spaceman may

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serve as an example in this respect. The titular “Sioux Spaceman,” Kade White Hawk, is a member of a Terran observation crew on the “underdeveloped” planet of Klor. Norton’s 1959 novel The Beast Master reflects the conflict over treaty and land rights in the southwest United States by representing the inner conflict of the Diné hero, Hosteen Storm, who has a bond with the Norbies, the Indigenous people of Arzor fighting with the Terran settlers. In A. C. Crispin and Kathleen O’Malley’s Silent Dances (1990) and Silent Songs (1994), the Lakota hero Ptesa’ Wakandagi interacts with the bird-​like Grus, who can be seen as the colonialist Founders. Eleanor Arnason’s A Woman of the Iron People (1991) also deals with an Indigenous character, Edward Whirlwind, who is the only Anishinaabe on a Terran expedition on an inhabited planet. The parallels between Indigenous peoples and extraterrestrials are also discussed in Clare Bell’s novel People of the Sky (1989), where a Pueblo hero, Kesbe Temiya, discovers a Pueblo colony on another planet. In her paper, literary scholar Judith Leggatt notices that in his efforts to save the “new world” from colonial expansion, Eaglefeather seems to be similar to all of the above-​mentioned generic sci-​fi predecessors (2010, 135). Eaglefeather attempts to solve the conflict between Terrans and Palmarans, by introducing an alternative to what Louis Althusser termed “Repressive State Apparatus” (2000, 176), which is a form of power operating by means of violence. As Eaglefeather points out: “I subscribe to the belief that law enforcement officers—​especially Peacekeepers—​should be mediators. People turn to violence because they can’t find other means or don’t see other options. We should be trained to help resolve differences peacefully” (Amadahy 1997, 31). Although Eaglefeather’s wish to bring peace to Palmares seems to be altruistic, Amadahy questions his motivations within the story. Eaglefeather’s idealism is considered “naive” by Zaria, who accuses him of having a tremendous “hero complex” (34). Zaria criticizes his paternalistic attitude by saying: “You, fresh from Basilea, arrive on Palmares, a world you know nothing about, to single-​handedly mediate a war? Thanks anyway, but we don’t need a saviour” (34). The society portrayed in The Moons of Palmares seems to be one where racial intolerance does not exist. In fact, as Eaglefeather points out, “The very idea of race seemed ludicrous now” since “the characteristics used to classify people by race, and therefore as inherently superior or inferior, had been determined by less than one percent of their genes” (16). The Terran imperialists and the Palmaran colonists have various ethnic identities, and the characters do not discriminate based on skin colour. Zaria Aquene points out that the colonists working at the mines came from a variety of Terran colonies and cultures, “They needed a basis of unity [...] They had to forge a common bond from their Terran past, so they revived what they needed from the societies out of that past”

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(12). The village of Tubman, where community gathers, is named after Harriet Tubman, who worked to free African Americans from slavery. There are, however, some references to the racial profiling prevalent among police forces today. In the Peacekeeper complex, an intruder is identified as the other by racial features: “His grey garment blended in, but his coffee-​brown skin and his raven hair, tied at the nape of his neck, ruined his attempt at camouflage. Anyone could spot him and recognize that he should not be in the building” (1). The characters are defined in terms of racial ancestry in order to demonstrate that the community is multi-​racial and multi-​ethnic. Although the Terrans and Palmarans are of different ethnic backgrounds and racism seems to be erased, prejudice still exists and is based on the planetary origins of people. Eaglefeather seems to consider such prejudices absurd: Though racism was an anachronism in this century, the same way of thinking was at work in assigning inherent character traits to people of different worlds. It was ridiculous. Not that differences didn’t exist. There were differences born of environment and circumstance—​intangible and difficult to define, but real all the same—​and they were dividing people, making them distrust and even fight each other. He and Zaria Aquene were on opposite sides in a dispute that was born of nothing either could pin down. Absurd, he thought. (16)

Major Eaglefeather was also aware of the attitude of the old major, who did not keep with official Terran policy about Palmares, and was prejudiced about them: “Those people? You say that as though you think they’re different from us. Their ancestors were born on Earth, just like ours.” (5). What is more, people of mixed origin in the novel also face discrimination. Zaria is bullied as a child since her father is a Terran, and her mother seems to collaborate with the Consortium. A group of children insults “her with shouts that her mother was a Terrafucker and that she was a half-​Terran mutant” (87). Eaglefeather is aware of the limitations of shared ethnic ancestry, as he comments on the Native American characteristics of Magaly during a demonstration: The crowd suddenly hushed and the major saw that a groundskip had pulled up. The first person to emerge from it was a diminutive woman, thirtyish, copper-​skinned, with long charcoal-​coloured hair. Though clearly of mixed ancestry, as were most humans these days, her features suggested her ancestry may have been predominantly indigenous American. Two hundred years ago, they would likely have been allies in the struggle against racism, he reminded himself. In the here and now, however, she was Palmaran and he was Terran and they were, by definition, adversaries (16).

These cultural prejudices led to the conflict between the two peoples concerning the economic and environmental issues.

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In the above-​mentioned passage, Amadahy reminds the readers that racism is material in its logic, i.e. it is based on skin colour, but it is also discursive in that, using Frantz Fanon’s words, one’s “corporeal schema” can be replaced by a “racial epidermal schema” (1952, 110). That is, self-​consciousness resulting from being classified as an epidermal object, which subsequently subjugates the body’s agency. This kind of disorientation might lead to a profound physiological affect, i.e. nausea. Fanon provides an example of such a process in Black Skin, White Masks: ‘Mama, see the Negro! I’m frightened!’ Frightened! Frightened! Now they were beginning to be afraid of me. I made up my mind to laugh myself to tears, but laughter had become impossible. I could no longer laugh, because I already knew that there were legends, stories, history, and above all historicity, which I had learned about from Jaspers. Then, assailed at various points, the corporeal schema crumbled, its place taken by a racial epidermal schema. In the train it was no longer a question of being aware of my body in the third person but in a triple person. In the train I was given not one but two, three places. I had already stopped being amused. It was not that I was finding febrile coordinates in the world. I existed triply: I occupied space. I moved toward the other … and the evanescent other, hostile but not opaque, transparent, not there, disappeared. Nausea … (1952, 112)

Racism has been premised on the rational triumph of mind over body and it also results from savage discourses based on a Cartesian dualism between cerebral European and the physical savage. As a discourse, Indigenous physicality was “capable of linking, and animating a group of discourses, like an organism with its own needs, its own internal force and its own capacity for survival” (Foucault 2002, 39). For example, Darwin’s evolutionary theory “directed research from afar” acting as “a preposition rather than named, regrouped, and explained … a theme that always presupposed more than one was aware of … forcibly transformed into discursive knowledge” (39). As Brendan Hokowhitu explains, Indigenous “savagery” was based on discursive knowledge, which was also transferred onto the Indigenous body (2020, 155). Physicality, thus, allowed for transcribing history upon the Indigenous body. In this context, it is worth mentioning that one of the assumptions of New Materialism is that matter (including bodies) interacts with discursive knowledge, thus, creating subjectivities. As Karen Barad (2007) notes, the success of colonialism was predicated on the convergence of the “material-​discursive,” where the discourses concerning the physicality of the savage had an impact on the Indigenous bodies. Foucault’s concept of biopower can also be applied here as it sees the body as a material site on which discursive formations are imprinted. Biopower relates to “a power whose task is to take charge of life” requiring “continuous

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regulatory and corrective mechanisms” (Foucault 1990, 144). Foucault points out that biopower is “productive” (in contrast to suppressive) in its nature. Such a power “has to qualify, measure, appraise and hierarchize, rather than display itself in its murderous splendour … [the] juridical institution is increasingly incorporated into a continuum of apparatuses whose functions are for the most part regulatory” (144). In Amadahy’s novel, Eaglefeather’s initial advances to befriend Palmarans meet with rejection partly due to his own prejudices. One of the characters, Nailah, compares Eaglefeather’s confidence in the decency of his job to the racism of Major Stojic, another Peacekeeper, who clearly detests the Palmarans. She notices, “if there is anything to admire about Major Stojic, it’s his honesty. I’d rather deal directly with bigotry” (Amadahy 1997, 50). Eaglefeather also shows disrespect towards Indigenous Elders and their wisdom by referring to one of the Elders as a “Feisty old man” (81). What is more, Eaglefeather is also convinced that the Palmarans are incapable of sabotaging the mining operations without the assistance of tech-​savvy Terrans. He considers the Palmarans to be technologically inferior to those living on the Earth. Such approach reveals the extent to which Major Eaglefeather is engrossed in Consortium’s worldviews, which reflect the beliefs of the industrialized West. The colonel claims he finds “it hard to believe that the Palmarans could pull this off on their own.” For the colonel, Palmarans were simply inferior, incapable of planning and executing such an act. The major thought otherwise, but his intelligence reports told him that the Palmarans had neither the hardware nor the software such a complex operation would have required. No, it was much easier than that. Someone had handed over the codes. A sympathizer? A mercenary? He had no idea, but he shared the colonel’s suspicions that the Palmarans could not have acted alone. (57)

Colonel Welch, Eaglefeather’s commander, establishes a binary opposition between the logically thinking Terrans and the irrational Palmarans: “They don’t think logically like you and me. No, they can be quite irrational. You saw that fellow in the square today, Sixto Masika? The one who incited the riot? He’s quite typical. Can’t be reasoned with” (26). This statement stands in direct opposition to the real image of Sixto, who is a scientist and a reasonable, rational man. What is more, Eagelfeather underestimates Palmarans’ power and abilities to resist colonialist expansion. When asked about the person who might be responsible for programming the barge to collide with the refinery, the major answers that it could not have been Magaly as “She wouldn’t have the technical know-​how. No offense, but Palmaran technology is decades behind ours. Besides, if it were Magaly, the death toll would have been a lot higher. That leaves Zaria. She was trained

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on Earth. She has the expertise.” (124). He states: “We’re superior Colonel. We have the numbers and the technology. They don’t stand a chance” (173). In this way, Eagelfeather falls into the paradox where he believes First Nations peoples to have their own cultures, which in itself defies well-​established “Indian” stereotypes, but also constantly relies on “Indian” stereotypes. These kinds of stereotypes appear not only on television but are widespread in the science fiction genre. Christine Morris argues that “when it comes to Indians, even the best science fiction writer is often caught in the traditional American literary dichotomy between writers like James Fenimore Cooper and his Noble Red Man, and Mark Twain and his Ignoble Savage” (1979, 301). “The Indian” is often represented as an opposition to “the White Man,” which enhances the European male’s self-​perception as superior. For instance, Kade Whitehawk, the protagonist of The Sioux Spaceman, is particularly emotional in contrast to the rational people of European descent. He fails to deal rationally with the colonizers and could be easily provoked to “revert with whirlwind action to the less diplomatic practices of savage ancestors” (Norton 1984, 6). Whitehawk also frequently claims that the Lakota people have a natural affinity toward horses. What is more, they are often presented as belonging to the past. This connection is supposed to emphasize the importance of Indigenous traditions, however, such a portrayal can also be harmful. As a result, the Native North American characters are almost entirely stereotyped as “Noble Savages.” Although Eaglefeather is of Cherokee heritage, he represents colonial attitudes. Eaglefeather’s behaviour proves that he is a victim of internal colonization, pitting him against his people. When Eaglefeather is kidnapped by the Kituhwa, he grumbles about the necessity of consensus concerning his fate. Sixto Masika believes that a deeper understanding of First Nations’ history would help him comprehend it: “Many of the First Nations of the Americas had systems of government that were far more democratic than anything we know today. The nations of the Iroquois Confederation, for example, knew the true meaning of consensus” (Amadahy 1997, 83). Eaglefeather is aware of the past and traditions, but rather than seeing it as a source of strength, he believes Indigenous people should move on:  “My ancestors’ indecision, superstitions and inability to join forces was their downfall. We were our own worst enemy. That’s why we were conquered, why we spent centuries fighting extinction” (83). In contrast, the Palmarans want to build their current culture by drawing on past traditions; as Masika explains: “military conquest has rendered many a culture extinct, but we believe in learning from history, Major, and Terran history is rich and diverse. Many values long forgotten there still matter to us. But you Terrans can’t seem to respect that” (83). The Palmarans have rejected the globalized homogenous

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Terrans, and intend to establish a culture which consists of different societies retaining their distinctiveness:  “[w]ays of life long forgotten on Earth gave meaning to an otherwise routine and lonely existence, or so the anthropologists who studied the planet theorized. Traditional cultures from around Earth had made Palmares an amalgam as rare as the mineral its citizens mined” (5). Thus, Zainab Amadahy’s novel is a commentary on the current situation of Indigenous people around the world, who are considered to be relics of the past.

4.1.4 Environmental racism and toxicity Zainab Amadahy addressed in her novel the material effects of economic systems on the worker’s body. Her thoughts seem to align with the ideas expressed by Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins in Biology under the Influence: Racism becomes an environmental factor affecting adrenals and other organs in ways that tigers or venomous snakes did in earlier historical epochs. The conditions under which labor power is sold in a capitalist labor market act on the individual’s glucose cycle as the pattern of exertion and rest depends more on the employer’s economic decisions than on the worker’s self perception of metabolic flux. Human ecology is not the relation of our species with the rest of nature, but rather the relations of different societies, and the classes, genders, ages, grades, and ethnicities maintained by those social structures. Thus, it is not too farfetched to speak of the pancreas under capitalism or the proletarian lung. (2007, 37)

In Bodily Natures, Stacy Alaimo similarly discusses racism as environmental, which allows to prove how socio-​political forces produce landscapes that affect human bodies (2010, 27). Alaimo refers to the concepts of “pancreas under capitalism” and the “proletarian lung” to demonstrate the physiological impact of class (and racial) oppression, indicating that there is a connection between the biological and the social spheres. Nevertheless, the oppressed who are physically affected by economic and social systems may be unable to prove their biosocial conditions, as it often demands expertise and legitimation to display the images of a worker’s pancreas and the lungs transformed by external social forces. The proletarian lung exemplifies Alaimo’s idea of trans-​ corporeality. Instead of showing the human body as an enclosed entity, it demonstrates that the body is vulnerable to the substances and flows of its environments, including industrial environments and their social/​economic forces. In this way, the biological/​social condition of this lung might open new possibilities for literary production and analysis. This type of trans-​corporeality exemplified by the proletarian lung can be approached from the perspective of the concept of environmental justice, which

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emphasizes the material interconnections between bodies and places, particularly between the peoples and areas that have been dumped. Environmental justice social movements and studies address the unequal distribution of environmental benefits and harms, revealing how race and class, as well as gender and sexuality, influence material, often place-​based inequities. For instance, race is considered to be a crucial factor in the location of toxic disposal sites in the United States. Indeed, environmental justice activism emerged from civil rights movements with an African American community’s protest against a hazardous waste site in Warren County, North Carolina, in the early 1980s. What is more, numerous forms of violence against Native Americans, African Americans, and Mexican Americans can be regarded as environmental justice issues:  the “removal” of Indians from the areas fundamental to their cultural and physical survival; plantation slavery; Mexican-​American farmworkers who are affected by agricultural chemicals. Much of human history could be rewritten from an environmental justice perspective assessing the environmental benefits and harms suffered by different groups. In The Moons of Palmares, Zainab Amadahy illustrates the connections between class, race and place-​based injustices. Palmarans are depicted as escaped slaves, who were previously recruited by the Consortium from Earth and from colonies on other planets: “The poorest of the poor, trickling into the sector over several decades, had formed the workforce for Palmares’ mining operations” (Amadahy 1997, 7). Although the quilidon is now extracted by robots, including droids and nanites, these were the labourers who had done it for years. During protests against mining and the Consortium’s rule, one of the demonstrators says: “They abandoned us on this planet. We were cheap labour for the mines. They didn’t care how we lived, as long as we showed up for our shifts. Our parents and grandparents sweated and bled to terraform this planet. It was our labour. We made our home here. We raised our children here. By what arrogance do they dare destroy it?” (24). Palmarans received the worst treatment, including food and health care, and then when they built their community, their lands are devastated. Zainab Amadahy links landscape and labourer by portraying their parallel plights. Forced to constantly maximize its “efficiency,” the body of the worker is treated like other “natural resources.” The working conditions faced by Palmarans must have been extremely difficult, taking into consideration the fatigue Major Eaglefeather has been fighting after his arrival on the Palmares resulting from “his body [getting] adjusted to fractionally heavier G-​force, lower air pressure and higher temperatures than he had become accustomed to (…)” (6). The exploitation of workers leaves an indelible mark on their bodies, which are not

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only the sites of the direct application of power, but also permeable bodies transformed and penetrated by substances similar to coal dust as well as ethramine gas, which is used in the processing of quilidon (144). The labourers also need to work in carbon dioxide-​based atmosphere, hence, a dome is built to keep the settlement out of the toxic environment (7). Thus, Amadahy portrays the concerns for workers’ health and, subsequently, makes her readers consider all environments as areas of concern, and scrutinize economic systems, class, race, and gender injustices, as well as the flows of toxic substances. Workers’ physiological responses to harmful working conditions lead to a discussion concerning bodily resistance. While environmental theorists conceptualize the “agency” of nature, emphasizing that the material world is not a passive resource to be exploited by humans, it is also crucial to consider how the labourers resist the way their bodies are used as resources for industry. For instance, Christopher Sellers mentions another type of “worker resistance”: “the extent to which their bodies were reacting to, rebelling against, the chemical and physical conditions of the workplace. Even the least organized and most submissive workers were not infinitely pliable; their own physiology set limits to their obedience” (1997, 230). As a result, the occupational disease can be viewed as a corporeal way of resistance to hazardous working conditions. Instead of separating bodily resistance from conscious action, we can envision a plethora of intra-​actions or trans-​corporeal dynamics in which, physiological reactions to work environments spark inquires and struggle. The Consortium not only acts criminally in exploiting labourers but they also violate human rights by not announcing the quake, which is the result of mining operations. This affects many innocent people, including Pryia, who gets trapped during the quake under stone column and subsequently dies (Amdahy 1997, 128–​129). The quake also impacts a baby, whose grandparent believes that the new-​born can actually sleep through this. Then, it is explained that “He wasn’t sleeping a moment ago” due to some damages made to his bodies (131). Nevertheless, the Consortium claims that their mining activities on the moons had not contributed to these environmental disasters, including quakes (23–​24). Despite sufficient proofs that the gravitational force between Palmares and the moons is shifting, the Palmaran scientists’ research is dismissed and not taken seriously. Masika’s father was a geologist and he died together with his colleagues in a plane crash 27 years earlier. They were meeting with a group of Terran journalists in order to present evidence that the increase in volcanic activity is connected to the Consortium’s mining operations on Palmares’ moons (144). The pilot managed to bail, but the cargo with ethramine gas went down and became lethal to the passengers. Ethramine gas is “used in the processing of quilidon. […] They

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were all rendered unconscious and died in a matter of minutes. The gas had dissipated by the time their bodies were discovered, but the autopsies confirmed the cause of death” (144). In this way, Amadahy also illustrates the vulnerability of bodies to different (toxic) substances and their flows through their environment. The crash plane with Masika’s father was just the first in a series of events that made other journalists leave Palmares. They contested the official account of the accident and they received “a message in return: nothing that jeopardized the mining operation would be tolerated. They began to have accidents, some of them fatal, till more and more of them, fearing for their safety, left” (144). In the end, Masika is also killed by the Peacekeepers, while they officially announce that he suffered a stroke in the prison cell. It is important for the Consortium that the proof of Terran mining’s destructive impact on Palmares is not transmitted to Earth. Otherwise, they would lose control over the moons and the profits related to their activities. Although the colonizers are aware of the damages made to the planet, they blame Palmarans and overpopulation for the environmental issues. In the novel, the Colonel presents these views in the following passage: The planet is geologically unstable. They knew that when they settled here, but they kept coming. The Consortium provided them with equipment, technology and monetary assistance to terraform this planet. Now that they’ve done it, they want us off. And you can bet that if we leave, they’ll take over the mines the next day. That would spell disaster for Earth. We cannot relinquish control over the largest source of quilidon ever discovered. Can you imagine what it would be like? Being dependent on the rabble here to supply us with an essential energy requirement? […] Their findings cannot be duplicated. It’s difficult to accept that natural disasters can still occur. People lose their lives, and it’s easier to blame the Consortium —​that way the Palmarans don’t have to take any responsibility for the mess they’ve created down here. They find some scapegoat, instead of instituting population and environmental controls. (33–​34).

Politicians in the novel hide the results of research concerning climate change, they do not take more decisive measures against environmental degradation, while some people seem to ignore the impact of climate change. These seem to be the symptoms of what Amitav Ghosh refers to in his book The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016) as “the crisis of imagination.” The writer explains that despite all the available extensive knowledge concerning climate change realities, human beings are incapable of seeing the impending future threat; even the critics of current economic developments contributing to environmental damage appear to be affected by this “derangement,” that is an inability to see. Moreover, Timothy Clark explains the issue of conveying the reality of climate change as the problem of scale in his book Ecocriticism on the Edge (2015). The environmental crisis that constitutes the Anthropocene can

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only be understood at a scale which is many times greater than the level of the individual, and many times longer than the timescale under which humans typically operate. This change of perspective impacts the human response to environmental issues.

4.1.5 Overpopulation, reproductive rights and environmental injustice Zainab Amadahy’s The Moons of Palmares also draws attention to the still prevalent colonial assumptions about family life. These ideas are expressed in the novel by Eaglefeather, who believes that Palmarans have more children than they can afford and the overpopulation contributes to the destruction of the environment:  “Well, curtailing your population growth would help halt the environmental degradation you people complain about. This planet could easily sustain a population of about half its current size” (Amadahy 1997, 80). Eaglefeather’s views reflect the prevalent opinions of people inhabiting affluent countries on the relation between ecological issues and the overpopulation of the third world. Eaglefeather expresses his views during a conversation with Jamal Brieche, who replies that the planet “[…] will sustain no life at all if the mining continues at its current rate,” the old man retorted. You Terrans would deny us our right to have the children we want, rather than cut back on your own energy consumption. You have the highest per capita rate of quilidon consumption in the galaxy, Major. If your people weren’t so wasteful, you wouldn’t need to mine our moons and our planet would stabilize (80).

Brieche points out that it is the overconsumption of the smaller populations of developed countries that contributes to environmental degradation. His response reveals the criticism of the anti-​population views, which date back to 1798, when the English cleric Thomas Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population. He claimed that human population was outpacing the food supplies available to meet human needs. Hence, people ought to have fewer children, however, they should not resort to any artificial birth control (Malthus 2018, 61). Malthusian theory can be seen as one of the earliest examples of practices violating women’s human rights. The clerk’s views were adopted in many environment-​related academic publications in the 1960s and 1970s, including Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 The Population Bomb. Ehrlich believed that mass starvation is unavoidable in the near future and that the environmental and food crises were caused by “too many people” (1998, 66). According to Ehrlich, food aid should not be provided to developing countries which do not implement programs forcing women to have fewer babies. The anti-​population arguments were

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subsequently preached by such organizations as Zero Population Growth, later called Population Connection. Their members intended to provide women all over the world with birth control in order to keep the population in balance with natural resources. Many contemporary environmentalists, including the authors of Life on the Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation (2012), also believe that population growth is responsible for the higher rate of carbon emissions and environmental degradation. Thus, maximum childbirth policies are supposed to save the planet from degradation. Since the 1960s and the birth of the environmental movement, scholars and activists have contested the opposing views and theories on population growth. Population control policies were severely criticized by ecofeminists, who consider them to be sexist and disregarding human rights, particularly women’s reproductive rights in the developing countries. Population growth cannot be considered an independent driver of the social changes that result in environmental degradation. In their 2011 book entitled Too Many People: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis, Ian Angus and Simon Butler prove that the relation between emission levels and population growth rate is deceptive (2011, 300). The scholars explain that carbon emissions rise mostly in the countries with little or no population growth, rather than in the densely populated areas. Carbon emissions are generated mostly by the high-​income countries rather than the low-​income ones. In his book Peoplequake, Fred Pearce explains this phenomenon in the following passage: The poorest three billion or so people on the planet (roughly 45% of the total) are currently responsible for only 7% of emissions, while the richest 7% (about half a billion people) are responsible for 50% of the emissions. [...] A woman in rural Ethiopia can have 10 children and her family will still do less damage, and consume fewer resources, than the family of the average soccer mom in Minnesota or Manchester or Munich. (Pearce 2010, 242)

To put it another way, the environmental degradation does not result from a large number of children in Africa or South America. Food shortages, according to Angus and Butler, are caused by overconsumption in wealthy countries rather than overpopulation. Population control and environmental eugenics policies has been long associated with forced sterilization. In the name of environment protection, wealthy nations have been imposing methods of birth control and involuntary sterilization on women of colour and occasionally men in the Global South and in the United States. Population control policies are no longer as racist as they used to be. Nevertheless, women of colour and low-​income women continue to be

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perceived as “too fertile.” In some countries, sterilization has become a condition of pay raises and ration cards, while in the United States involuntary sterilization still takes place. According to the Committee on Women, Population, and Environment, women ought to have access to all family planning methods and both women and men should be able to choose how many children they have. Judith Butler would refer to such medical regulation of the female bodies as a “mechanism for the compulsory cultural construction of the female body as a maternal body” (Butler 1990, 90). As mentioned earlier in section 2.6, Butler’s concept of performativity relates to the performance of gendered norms, including the reproduction, which allows existing as gendered subjects. Gender is created through different performances, which consist of the re-​iteration of norms, which in turn are their results. Maternal desire seems to be often presented as natural to womanhood, hence, Butler describes the maternal body “as an effect or consequence of a system of sexuality in which the female body is required to assume maternity as the essence of its self and the law of its desire” (92). Thus, sterilization can be considered a performance challenging the naturalness of maternity by changing the female body. In her paper, “Sterilization as Cyborg Performance,” Jennifer Denbow points out that the sterilized female body parodies gender and subsequently proves “the contingency of the female body’s association with maternity” (2014, 117). In her book, Amadahy satirizes the environmental policies that blame reproduction and population for the environmental crisis. In keeping with a reproductive and environmental justice argument, Amadahy emphasizes that these are corporate economics and destructive social behaviours that cause considerable damage to the natural world, rather than sex/​overpopulation and human presence. Allocating the greatest share of environmental degradation resulting from economic development to women and marginalized and/​or low-​income communities can be described in terms of environmental injustice. Environmental justice and reproductive/​sexual justice activists and scholars have pointed to the misguidedness of concentrating on sex and overpopulation as the primary sources of environmental damage as well. By representing the histories of female characters who fell victim to exploitative capitalism in her novels, the writer presents reproductive justice arguments against the belief that sexuality is the root of environmental degradation. Through these female characters, Amadahy reveals the issue of omnipresent sexual and reproductive injustice, where women are considered to be only sexual assets in the patriarchal, sexually exploitative society. Zainab Amadahy depicts in her novel females to be as much the victims of the exploitative capitalism as the natural environment is. Women’s bodies are

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represented in terms of market value and are treated as objects to be exploited just as the resources of non-​human nature. Major Stojic seems to be the one whose behaviour reveals certain prejudices against the local population, which is a source of exotic experience. He believes that “Palmaran women were inherently more seductive, more erotic, than their Terran counterparts” (9). Then, Amadahy further reveals the violation and sexual commodification of women through her detailed description of women being imprisoned and tortured for sabotaging the refinery. After getting arrested, Zaria is oppressed by the Colonel, who states that “No one knows you’re here, you know. I could kill you both, make it look accidental and leave your bodies where they won’t be discovered for a hundred years” (169). She is sexually harassed by the Colonel: “Captain Lobo’s eyes went from her breasts to her legs and back but avoided her face. His staring made her nauseous” (169). Zaria, however, decides to use her body as a form of “armed resistance” and “curled up on the floor. She lay with her arms pressed against her ears, her hands clasped tightly behind her neck, her face hidden. She was soaked with sweat, and the glistening streaks on the cell floor around her testified to the writhing she’d done earlier” (173–​177). Another woman who falls victim of tortures is Peris: She was leaning back in the seat, pale, her eyes closed. Her right breast was soaked in blood. Her breathing was shallow, but she was still alive. […] Only hours ago, she had been cowering in her cell. She had been tortured. She hadn’t talked, but now she knew that if she spent enough time in Compartment Two, they would break her. No doubt about it. They would have to kill her. She would never go back there. (181).

The novel also touches upon the issue of technology and its impact on women. The imprisoned women are interrogated in a special room, where a neuro-​link is put into them, which stimulates the brain’s pain centres. The device is operated from an adjacent room. The victim feels intense pain, but the technique leaves no physical damage behind. The device was built by the Terran government contracted with Consortium and has been tested on Palmarans, who are tortured to death (139–​140). One of the female characters, Magaly Uxmal, is represented as a victim of Peacekeepers as well. The girl is initially said to have lost both her parents in a flood and then adopted by a local couple. However, Magaly finally admits that they were arrested as suspects in a bombing by the Peacekeepers: “It seemed like there were hundreds of them. They burst into the house. I was terrified. […] They beat my dad brutally. Ripped me from my mother’s arms while she tried to fight them off. They took me away and brought me to a woman’s house” (150). In this way, the Canadian author establishes parallels between the abuse and

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corporate commodification of women and the environment, which reflects ecofeminist aesthetics. As was pointed out in section 2.5, ecofeminists see the roots of the ecological crisis and the exploitation of both women and nature in the dualistic hierarchy privileging man over nature, reason/​technology over instinct and questions the reason for man’s superiority over nature. Women are as much in need of protection as is the non-​human environment. At the same time, female characters demonstrate the reproductive justice politics that women’s bodies should not be subjected to corporate commodification and sexual violence, nor to environmental policies negatively associating women with reproduction, and hence with environmental degradation. The writer addresses the true causes of environmental damage and inequality, in order to preserve both nature and vulnerable humans from exploitation and encourage developing environmental practices that will foster the vital symbiosis of human beings and the non-​human world. What is more, female characters exert agency and have an impact on the development of the plot. Zaria is an IT specialist who hacks the Peacekeeper’s system and is the one responsible for capturing Eagelfeather. Magaly seems to be another female character who subverts the stereotypes concerning the strength of women. When Zaria and Magaly were attacked as children, Magaly revealed a “windmill-​style of fighting difficult to defend against” (105). Thus, Amadahy creates Indigenous heroines fighting against the status quo. She does so also in another novel, discussed further on.

4.2 Zainab Amadahy’s Resistance 4.2.1 The urban environment Zainab Amadahy’s Resistance (2013) also deals with similar themes that can be found in The Moons of Palmares. The novel is set in Toronto in 2036 when North American cities are bankrupt and ruined due to global warming, the economic crash of 2023 and the flu epidemics of ’24 and ’26, which were caused by a genetically engineered virus. With the spread of flu epidemics, most institutions were closed by the authorities intending to contain the pandemic. Toronto General Hospital was defunded, and the equipment was transferred to the hospitals outside the city. Rural areas began to fill with squatters and the unemployed searching for jobs, food or a place to settle. Urban gangs were terrorizing citizens out of food and supplies, and the poorest could not afford transportation out of the city. This situation seems to illustrate David Wallace-​Wells’ claim that climate changes and increased heat dramatically enhance criminal and disruptive behaviours, including assaults, murders, rapes, robberies and suicidality

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(Wallace-​Wells 2019, 129, 138). Then, when the government in the novel lost control of the situation and corporations started to profit from people’s tragedies and natural disasters, activist leaders began to form communities to promote environmental sustainability. In Amadahy’s novel, the corporation called Matzu Industries has invented a new way of manufacturing coltan. Instead of mining coltan, they produce the ore from its composite parts. Since ruined cities in North America contain the molecular ingredients to make coltan, the company wants to deconstruct the empty buildings, break them down to their molecular components and make the ore from scratch. The company is particularly interested in areas inhabited by Indigenous people. One of the protagonists, Vincente, recalled that the land inhabited by them had been confiscated by the city in 2026—​supposedly under a questionable legal authority—​in an effort to contain the raging flu epidemic. Vincente charged that the concern over public health had been about controlling a hotbed of political activists who were organizing “residents” (squatters) to grow food, built their own solar power systems and generally undermine “government and corporate control” of their lives. Thus, Indigenous people live on a disputed land that has been sold to a mining company. It is noteworthy that Amadahy presents a circular order of temporal and spatial experience. In a similar manner to settlers, industrial corporations and governments attempt to overtake the unexploited Indigenous lands as opportunities for economic growth. As was pointed out in section 1.6.1, the activities of extractive industries, such as mining, result in environmental degradation, forced displacement of Indigenous people, and human rights violations, which means the abuses of Indigenous peoples’ right to lands or the right to determine one’s economic, cultural and social development. Indigenous communities are not included in decision-​making processes concerning the planning of extraction projects, which is also reminiscent of the overall marginalization of Indigenous communities across the country. Indigenous peoples in the novel resist industrial companies by inhabiting the space but also by posting new updates concerning their conflict with the extractive company on the YouTube channel. Those who are marginalized as Other-​ than-​Man in the fictional Toronto have been repurposing urban space through the acts of habitation and various activities. To begin with habitation, the main obstruction to the agency of corporations and government is the ongoing occupation of colonial buildings by residents who, due to established communal life, resist any efforts to move them on. Simply by dwelling in Toronto, residents positioned outside of the frames of Man repurpose and decolonize its colonial buildings. In this way, their everyday life constitutes a decolonial repurposing through

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the activities. It resembles the contemporary resistance of global Indigenous movements, such as the Indigenous Environmental Network and the Idle No More Movement, who have drawn attention to the destruction of sentient lands. Zainab Amadahy’s novel also challenges simplistic ideas about Native Americans. As discussed earlier in section 3.7, Native American Indigenous people are often thought to live in reservations and rural areas, however, they have been living in many American cities since the beginning of European settlement. The writer illustrates an urban reservation characterized by relationships that bond people together. The Indigenous community in the novel reclaims the urban environment into their old conceptualization of space and place. They incorporate the traditional ways of living into their lives. Since they inhabit a heavily polluted area are trying to handle the crisis by organizing community gardens and building their own windmills, solar powered water pumps as well as doing workshops where people could learn the skills to survive the crisis. By disengaging from the normative vision of Indigenous people as living rural areas, Amadahy adopts the method of defamiliarization, which has been discussed in section 2.8.8.

4.2.2 The oppression of women The protagonist of the novel also seems not to fit the stereotypes concerning Native Americans and their closeness to nature. The protagonist, Inez Xicay, is a nanotechnology researcher of African Latina and Indigenous descendent, who specializes in medical nanotechnology research. Thirteen years after leaving clinical practice, she is about to defend her application to the Addison Foundation for funding to the Nano-​Immunology Research Project. The novel begins with Inez preparing for this meeting and recalling the dream she had, which described the day she was raped by her boss and fired later on. When reflecting on that moment she understood that she was experiencing the Fight/​Flight/​Freeze reaction. My adrenaline and cortisol levels would have been off the charts, heightening my senses, preparing my large extremities to confront or run and choking off the blood supply to my higher thinking centres in favour of my lizard brain, which governed instinct. But I didn’t flee or fight. I froze. The worst choice of the three, I would later recall. (Amadahy 2013, 9)

This passage points to the connection between mind and body. Emotions are entangled with physical sensations and thoughts. Every feeling one experiences corresponds to certain physical reaction. Thoughts and feelings play a role in regulating the biochemicals in blood and can impact a restructuring of one’s cells. As mentioned in section 3.5, dreams are important to American Indian

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way of thinking and provide some clues about the things people want to understand. The dream Inez had seems to be also a warning. Felipe Gonzales, the former employer of the protagonist appears to be a member of a committee in the opening she applies for. As a result, Inez loses her job and project funding because of her abusive former boss, who accused her of “sexual improprieties,” which supposedly involved taking advantage of some of her patients (20–​21). Soon after Inez is invited to practice medicine in Toronto by her friend Tamaya “Tam” Wilson, a medical doctor, who co-​established with Vincente a clinic community that lives on a disputed land coveted by a mining company. Tam shows Inez around the clinic and they encounter a room, where a dozen women of varying ages and races sit in a circle. Inez listens to the conversations that sound like a group therapy session. The women share emotional stories of the abuse the experienced. One of the women recalls the moment a man broke into her house: “He didn’t care where his bullets landed. […] His eyes were so wild, I thought he was going to kill us all but instead he offered to spare me if I cooperated” (37). The protagonist is especially touched by a woman explaining why she cut her hair after the assault. The woman revealed that when she “tried to run away, he grabbed [her] hair to pull [her] back. He controlled [her] through [her] hair” (39). She had also cut her locks off days after the incident. Listening to the story made her realize why she had done that. She felt that her dreadlocks had been responsible for allowing him to manipulate her head. The story triggers thoughts and emotions that remind Inez of the rape: “Memories of Felipe’s grip on my dreadlocks that day rushed through my mind and body” (38). Thus, the novel illustrates the importance of stories in healing traumas. As explained earlier in section 3.5.1, “telling a story is a ‘relational act’ that necessarily implicates the audience,” or the reader, in the case of written stories (Mattingly and Garro 2001, 11). Indigenous peoples believe that âtayôhkêwin (the Cree word for sacred stories) are not only spiritual stories but are themselves spirit, i.e. they enter into the listener and transform that person. Jo-​Ann Episkenew (2009) considers everyday stories, which are the basis of contemporary Indigenous literature, to be themselves spirit and have transformative powers as well. However, before the transformation occurs, they must first implicate the audience, i.e. talk about the historical and postcolonial trauma in their communities. Current treatments of the post-​traumatic stress response are similarly based on the conversion about stories concerning emotions relating to the traumatic events and then the sharing of that story:  “in order for a patient to recover, the traumatic memory must be recalled and told to others” (Mattingly and Garro 2001, 7). The novel seems the show how Inez is transformed by listening to stories.

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What is more, Amadahy illustrates in the novel parallels between the exploitation of the environment and women by capitalist forces. It is also revealed that Inez’s former employer was also responsible for keeping other women captive in the mining company area, which wants to overtake the land inhabited by Indigenous people. The women are abused on everyday basis: “Somebody has been using her as a human punching bag; she had been raped more than once” […] “Raven hadn’t been the only woman to suffer that fate. There were, apparently, close to fifty women being held in captivity. A regular brothel, though Raven didn’t share details” (Amadahy 2013, 78). As previously stated in section 1.6.1, the relationship between capitalist development and heightened violence against women is linked to the predator–​prey relationship industrial society has developed with the Earth, and subsequently, human beings. After the Matzu Industries and Scaithwaite’s mining companies merged, they prevent Inez from leaving the country as they want her to become the head of their new medical research division (116). Although Inez rejects their offer, the owners force her to meet them. In order to make her collaborate, the company kidnaps Inez’s friends and shows her the videos of other women held in captivity at the corporation, claiming they will let them free if she visits them and accepts their offer. Consequently, the protagonist decides to meet the company owners. What first sparks Inez’s attention during the meeting are Scaithwaite’s holographic statues and wall art, which mainly feature “long-​legged, pink-​ bodied nudes, blond or red-​headed women with zero curves and small tits, lying around listlessly in flower gardens, on pool decks and within elaborately furnished bedrooms” (135). The women are presented as passive, sexualized objects to be observed by some onlookers. What bothered Inez most is that all of them are young and White:  “After all these centuries Black and Brown bodies were not considered beautiful unless they could approach a White standard, being ‘lucky’ enough to have green eyes, straight hair or light skin colour. […] Scars and disabilities, particularly if worn by the Brown or the Black, were positively revolting” (135–​136). Therefore, Inez seems to criticize the category of a woman, which also reflects the views of Judith Butler and Monique Wittig (see sections 2.6 and 2.7 of this book). The category of “women” should not be based on the model of a white, middle-​class, heterosexual woman, thus, excluding all other groups of women. Since female bodies are subjected to normalizing practices, the sexed bodies strive to become ideal. The author of the novel intends to unsettle the gender binaries developed owing to social norms and practices. In addition, Amadahy introduces in her novel lesbians, Zulie and Raven, who had been lovers for years. Therefore, she challenges the normative links of gender, heterosexuality and anatomical shape.

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4.2.3 More-​than-​human  agency Throughout the story, Inez undergoes a change, which leads to her recognizing Indigenous knowledge and more empathetic engagement with the more-​than-​ human world. As a Western scientist and medical researcher Inez is sceptical about employing Indigenous knowledge to treat the patients of a Toronto hospital. She does not accept “relational” ontologies and believes ceremonies and prayers to be simply placebos. Inez is uninterested in the power of plants and views them as inert things. At the same time, the staff at Toronto’s clinic considered Inez’s research on the enhancement of the immune system irrelevant. The moment Inez receives tobacco from Grandmother Louise she begins to learn to acknowledge Indigenous ways of knowing and becomes more connected to the world of experience. Within many Indigenous communities, the act of giving somebody a tobacco tie symbolizes an ethic of reciprocity since it embodies the idea that during the process of seeking knowledge, a person enters a co-​constituting ethical relationship with other more-​than-​human agents (Kovach 2009). In order to gain insight into any part of the environment, one needs to rethink what they return to the agents with whom they establish a network of relations. An ethic of reciprocity includes taking into account the effects of humans’ actions on the communities with which humans interact and depend on. Beyond the scale of a person, an ethic of reciprocity is also seen as politics; as Leanne Simpson explains, Extraction and assimilation go together. Colonialism and capitalism are based on extracting and assimilating. My land is seen as a resource. My relatives in the plant and animal worlds are seen as resources. My culture and knowledge is a resource… The alternative to extractivism is deep reciprocity. It’s respect, it’s relationship, it’s responsibility, and it’s local. (Simpson 2017, 75)

The event that makes Inez realize that she is embedded in the web of relations and makes her understand the agency of plants is the meeting with the representatives of the mining company. Before her visit to the corporation, Inez invents a dormant nanovirus to guard her against sexual assault. The nanovirus has a form of a self-​assembled biogenerator that feeds on the glucose inside one’s body. It is supposed to activate when a “bully circuit lights up within the host body” and then “pinch nerves along the spinal column –​debilitating pain” (Amadahy 2013, 126). Her invention is based on the neurological research. Every time a person is about to commit an act of violence, the brain reacts in a very unique way, i.e. certain neural pathways are activated. This is the way “the bully brain” works (126). Although Inez has tested the nanovirus numerous times before the visit, it fails to work during the meeting. When one of the company representatives, Garen,

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intends to rape her, the nanovirus is not activated. Nevertheless, the nanovirus begins to function when Garen removes from her bra the tobacco tie Grandmother Louise gave her. Specific brain circuits are activated by sexual desire, and these neural pathways, in turn, activate the nanobots. Garen collapses to the ground and writhes in agony in the end. Inez manages to run away from the corporation with some of the previously imprisoned women. In the following days, Inez attempts to understand why her program did not initially work. She comes to the conclusion that the program should not have been activated at all since “DO NO HARM protocol” has remained in effect the whole time. It means that the nanobots have never installed any programming that might have hurt or inflicted suffering on a person. Her scientific worldview prevents Inez from understanding what suddenly triggered the nanovirus and disabled “DO NO HARM protocol.” Several characters in the novel try to explain the events with psychokinesis, i.e. the psychic ability enabling a person to control a physical system without physical interaction. Inez continues to be sceptical of this theory and regards it as pseudoscience. But after her second meeting with the business owners, she changes her mind. Although Inez had improved the faulty program, it fails to work again. Fortunately, when her former employer attempts to rape her, tobacco tie activates the nanovirus, subsequently, the abusers begin to suffer and are defeated. Inez examined “the tobacco tie in [her] hand with a sense of wonder [and] suddenly felt a subtle vibration and warmth from it that [she]’d never noticed before” (261–​262). She realizes that tobacco possesses agency, and it has activated the nanovirus. Subsequently, Inez manages to free hapless prisoners and sex slaves from “the bowels of Scaithwaite-​Matzu’s underground cages” (262). Tobacco tie can be described as a character who also helps the fictional Indigenous community end the conflict with the Scaithwaite. Inez’s former boss emails press and confesses to the violence and the torture perpetrated in Toronto as well as sexually harassing a number of women working under him at Temple Hospital. This experience teaches Inez the importance of Indigenous knowledge and makes her realize that she is connected to the “wisdom in her bones” following Grandma Louise’s advice. Her friend, Vicente, emphasizes that she is not alone in the world, “We’re all inter-​connected, inter-​dependent. This mission wasn’t about you. It was about us. It was about the whole world. We took down one of the biggest bad guys on the planet” (264–​265). Thus, tobacco and Inez are represented as heroes possessing agency. This seems to challenge the Western narrative concentrating on a male hero and depicting more-​than-​humans as a background of the story. The protagonist of Resistance initially struggles to understand how tobacco exerts material agency that impacts other things, just like the humans who

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interact with it. It results from the fact that the idea of the agency has been associated with intentionality and rationality in Western thought. The novel depicts an expanded definition of agency, which is not confined by human cognitive abilities, including conscious action. It reflects the ideas of new materialists, who believe that human beings are situated within a constant flux of material flows, allowing for becomings with the agential more-​than-​human world, as discussed earlier in section 2.8.1. In Bennett’s view, tobacco in the novel could be described as an actor made from the same vital material as humans rather than social construction. In the words of Jane Bennett, tobacco can be seen as an “actant” whose agency relies on the interaction between different bodies and forces. Similarly, Jemma Deer explains that agency occurs between things; it is a characteristic of “the dynamic inter-​actions of all kinds of forces (human and non-​human, conscious and unconscious, organic and inorganic) as they act upon and through each other” (Deer 2021, 13). Acknowledging such entanglements of non-​human agencies that are constantly “intra-​acting,” in Karen Barad’s words, can lead to a change in our relationship with the world (Barad 2007, 33). The perception of tobacco as an actant by Indigenous people has an ancestral basis and results from the American Indian worldview. Some traditional Creek stories involve humans talking to plants, who express themselves through songs and rhythms (Chaudhuri and Chaudhuri 2001, 33). Native Americans consider tobacco a spiritually potent plant and a sacred and life-​affirming persona, which has been mistreated and turned into an addictive commodity by mainstream culture (Winter 2000, 3). Mvskoke/​Creek writer Joy Harjo also draws attention to the issue of modern maltreatment of tobacco: “Consider tobacco and how it has served us traditionally. It too has been dehumanised by process, by lack of respect in its use” (Harjo and Winder 2011, 102). Instead, tobacco should be treated with respect and used judiciously: “It is a beloved plant for my people, and is a different plant than used in the manufacture of tobacco products. We used to use it sparingly. It’s a powerful plant. The power gets angry when misused” (65). As explained earlier in section 3.3, the land is perceived as alive and viable, which results from traditional spirituality. Indigenous peoples’ literature, including Zainab Amadahy’s Resistance, thus can be interpreted as a way of restoring respectful relationships with the land and particularly vegetal nature. Instead of presenting plants as resources to be used, Amadahy shows them as living organisms that tell their own stories and communicate in their own way rather than through language understood by humans. This seems to align with Elizabeth Povinelli’s ideas described in her book Geontologies: “[a]ll living things are like us, if we understand that our dominant mode of semiosis, language, is just one of many kinds of semiosis” (Povinelli 2016, 185). In the “Material

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ecocritical reflections,” Serpil Opperman discusses semiosis and connects it to the liveliness of the things which are alive and expressive (Oppermann 2018, 9). The scholar rejects the mind/​matter dichotomy stating that “material phenomena are not isolable from semiotic processes and that matter can be creatively expressive in bearing material stories about ecological crises interlaced with socio-​political struggles and geophysical forces” (10). Zainab Amadahy’s novel illustrates the above-​mentioned ideas; instead of anthropomorphizing plants, the writer presents plants as constantly interacting and forming narratives. Such depiction of plants and rocks as living organisms might be referred to by some scholars in terms of animism, however, it is not a term Indigenous peoples would use to describe the relationship with the environment. As Linda Hogan points out, for tribal peoples the kinship with the alive world is simply called “Tradition” (2015, 17). What also helps Inez understand her emotions are her dreams concerning her ancestor Martha, who has also been through the experience of rape. In the novel, Grandma Louise explains the phenomena in the following way: “Our people believe that ancestral memories are in the blood. […] With the right ceremony or prayer, you can awaken them.” As a scientist, Inez also seems to agree with this claim: “Well, as a scientist, I know that social, physical and emotional experiences shaped our ancestor’s DNA, and that gets passed down genetically. Epigenetics figured that out early this century. So Martha’s life, her loves and dramas, helped shape my body. And my body, especially my brain plays a role in shaping my thinking. So, in that way, ancestral memory is in my blood, you could say” (Amadahy 2013, 189). Thus, the body and DNA become entangled in the process of remembering and passing on stories which recreates a connection with ancestors and establishes a collective past. Hence, Zainab Amadahy draws attention to the embodied nature of Indigenous experiences. As Joanna Ziarkowska points out, “if the body is a book in which past and present Indigenous experience is inscribed, blood and DNA become mechanisms of this inscription” (2021, 156). Thus, the body can be described as what Gregory Cajete refers to as “the source of thinking, sensing, acting, and being, and … the basis of relationship,” constructed of molecules, it experiences and participates in the world (2000, 25). What is more, the author of the novel draws attention to the interconnectedness by enfolding various “natures” within the human: the wild bacteria, the virus that is already within the human gene. Inez Xicay describes the human body as a great environment for the replication of nanobots. “We’re made of trillions of atoms and molecules that can be repurposed to make trillions of nanobots. They’re invisible to the naked eye, pass undetected through skin cells, can even ride on our breath. One person infected with nanobots can infect others”

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(Amadahy 2013, 75). Science fiction makes us thus realize that we inhabit a corporeality that is never disconnected from our environment, yet we are permeable beings, reliant upon the others within and outside our porous borders. However, we do not have to delve into the science fiction world in order to realize that we inhabit a corporeality that is never disconnected from our environment. As Bonnie Spanier puts it: [O]rganisms do not exist apart from their environs or from other organisms. Not only are organisms surrounded by and embedded in a dynamic interaction with their environs—​and in that sense are contiguous with it—​but we are contiguous with the environment from the inside as well, whether through our digestive and respiratory tracts, our skin pores, or the network of endoplasmic reticulum throughout the cytoplasm of many types of cells. A human body is many organisms, most of which are necessary for a healthy life: E. coli in the lower intestine, microorganisms on the skin. … A very different psychology of self and other would understand our beings as open to and connected with the environment around us through our external and internal surfaces, as well as what we project of ourselves (our exhalations, body head radiation, wastes, etc.). (1995, 90)

The biological sense of transcorporeality may be complemented by Cary Wolfe’s argument that the “other-​than-​human resides at the very core of the human itself, not as the untouched, ethical antidote to reason but as part of reason itself ” (2003, 17). The above-​mentioned views of new materialist scholars seem to have been inspired by Indigenous thought and the way Indigenous people see the body as network of connections standing for the various processes between humans, non-​humans, spirits in a particular place and time. In Indigenous thought, the world is understood through a physical embodiment (see section 3.3 of this book).

4.2.4 Making kin with technology Zainab Amadahy also contrasts Western and Indigenous views on science and technology in her novels. In Resistance, Vincente reveals in his conversation with Inez that “he is sceptical about science and its possibility to solve all the problems.” In this context, he discusses the possibility of science prolonging lifetime. He criticizes immortality as “overrated,” claiming that “death enable[s] life. […] the cycle was necessary. Without ongoing regeneration, birth and rebirth life would grow stagnant and you’d wish you were dead” (Amadahy 2013, 89). These lines seem to reflect Native American thinking, which is circular in its philosophy. What is more, Vincente elaborates on the implications of future technologies by referring to theoretical physicist and scientist Michio Kaku, who

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“predicted that by the year 2100 humans would be masters of nature; that our destiny would be to become like the gods we once worshipped and feared. We would enjoy perfect bodies and extended lifetimes” (89–​90). The scientist made Vincente realize that “science is about control. If we control the environment, our bodies, each other, we’ll never have to get sick, suffer discomfort or even die” (90). Kaku’s ideas present the logic behind the dominant scientific worldview. The writer introduces the character called Marco Chang, who also supports the idea of science as a means of control. Marco is an intelligent young man, who had earned three PhDs, one in quantum engineering, the next degree was in robotics and the third in weapons nanotechnology. Although he had been working on weapons development, including a personnel nano-​shield, an internal air filtration system that was supposed to protect the lungs, eyes and respiratory tract from airborne chemical weapons, he quit his job after learning that veterans had been ordered to commit atrocities in the wars the United States managed to involve itself in (201). He realized that “the US was born out of genocide, enslavement and stolen land” (201). Although his work would have saved lives as well, he did not want to be part of a system, which would have forced him to develop offensive weapons some day. What is more, Zainab Amadahy touches upon the issue of disability through the character called Marco Chang, who is also one of several community members using a wheelchair since his legs were underdeveloped because of a rare form of osteoporosis. Thus, Amadahy confronts the “experience of the negative body,” i.e. the body signalling illness or anxiety, which was a concept mentioned in section 2.8.1 of this book. Marco’s body represents a different type of corporeal agency since it resists acting in a desirable manner for him. What is more, Marco can be considered what Donna Haraway refers to as a cyborg, i.e. a technologically enhanced body, which constitutes a hybrid of nature and technology, as a metaphor that can aid in dismantling the nature/​culture binary. In this context, Marco as a cyborg challenges the readers to think beyond the machine/​ flash binaries. He also embodies Donna Haraway’s term of naturecultures, which draws attention to the inseparability of nature and culture (see Haraway 2003). As a result, Amadahy’s novel proposes a decentring of the human being in order to deconstruct hierarchies and emphasize co-​constitution as well as an assemblage of a multitude of interactions. At the same time, the novel suggests that the future depends on the way technology is used. Inez’s friend, Vincente indicates that cybernetic technologies may be actually helpful in many ways. For instance, technology may liberate and empower women if used properly. As an example may serve here Inez and the way she used her skills to design a nanovirus, which may protect women from

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abuse. Similarly, in The Moons of Palmares the writer illustrates how technology may serve as a means of oppression, but at the same time, it can help women and Indigenous people liberate themselves. The case of Marco Chang proves that technology may improve the well-​being of people with different disabilities. The above-​mentioned ideas seem to align with the process Rosi Braidotti describes as “becoming-​machine.” As was mentioned in section 2.8.8, this concept dismantles the barriers between human beings and technology. The relation between humans and machines is reimagined as a nonhierarchic relationship between two elements. This would result in a more emphatic understanding of the evolution of machines. What is more, the garden community relies on both modern (techno-​)science and Indigenous knowledge, and is founded on the ideas of cooperation and reciprocity rather than rivalry. When Inez asks her friend Tam to describe the communal structure and culture, Tam responds: A whole new way of being in this world. Cooperation, compassion, they’ve been ridiculed and denigrated for centuries in favour of competition, individualism and the profit motive. But we human beings are actually wired for cooperation. We benefit physically, mentally and emotionally from caring and sharing. (Amadahy 2013, 68)

Tam advocates for an Indigenous relational worldview, in which cooperation is valued and any contribution to the community’s development is received with gratitude. The community relies on the teachings of plants and attempts to imitate the way plants collaborate. As Zulie, one of the community members, explains: “It’s kind of a really nice teaching about how the plant world cooperates and how their cooperation contributes to our well-​being. Something we try to role model in this community” (47). In her book Braiding Sweetgrass (2013), Indigenous scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer explains the way plants might tell people how to live. She provides an example from Indigenous agriculture concerning the Three Sisters, i.e. the three plants: corn, beans, and squash, which grow together and complement each other in the garden. When the bean sprouts, it wraps its shoots around the corn stems, which later act as a support for the climbing bean. Meanwhile, the squash grows broad leaves, which help keep moisture and repel weeds. In this way, the three sisters can survive severe winters as they cooperate below ground and above ground. The Three Sisters provide a manifestation of what a community can become when its members share their gifts. Similarly, the Three Sisters offer a new metaphor for an emerging entanglement between Indigenous knowledge and Western science, which are rooted in the earth. As Kimmerer suggests, corn can be thought of as “traditional ecological

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knowledge, the physical and spiritual framework that can guide the curious bean of science, which twines like a double helix. The squash creates the ethical habitat for coexistence and mutual flourishing” (2013, 148). In the fictional Indigenous community in Amadahy’s novel, traditional knowledge coexists together with scientific knowledge. The characters resort to both traditional Indigenous healing practices, ceremonies and Western medicine, and they attend group psychotherapy which is complemented with yoga classes. Indigenous Elders provide spiritual guidance for the community members, who gather their own food and sustainably produce energy. (cf. Wieczorek 2021) Professor in postcolonial studies John Thieme points out that “gardens are places that are created and nurtured according to the needs or desires of their individual cultivators” (2016, 38). American studies scholar Wendell Berry adds that “gardens are a protest of the conventional food system because they signal a symbolic independence from it” (2009, 161). In the novel, the Indigenous community protests that the food system is unsustainable through the production of their own food in their rooftop garden. In other words, the community members deplore industrial agriculture and the current methods of growing crops, which are dependent on fertilizers and chemical herbicides, depleting the soil and causing damage to biodiversity. The ideology concerning food production in the rural setting reflects the beliefs of a political and social movement, which Michael Pollan named the “Food Movement” (Bouvier 2013, 425). While gardens may have been treated as personal retreats, they are recognized symbols of the above-​mentioned movement. Amadahy not only draws attention to the ways bodies are embedded within ecosystems and social systems but also to the importance of spirituality in creating interconnections. As mentioned in section 3.3, for American Indians spiritual practices constitute an ongoing dialogue with the world. In the novel, learning such communication allows Inez to activate the nanovirus. Additionally, the novel discusses the way Marco’s prostate cancer is healed by Duyet, whose work consists of relieving their pain through prayer (Amadahy 2013, 226–​227). Just like Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker and Rosi Braidotti, Zainab Amadahy challenges secular feminisms. The above-​mentioned scholars and Amadahy acknowledge the importance of spirituality and spiritual healing in one’s (especially women’s) struggle against oppression. What is more, a strong sense of spirituality entails ethical responsibility toward the more-​than-​human world. It may exceed our frames of understanding and serves as a practice of relationship building. Thus, new materialist ecological thought could be enriched by engaging in a dialogue with Indigenous narratives. As Kate Rigby explains,

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a new materialist ecology emphasizing connectivity, nonlinear causality, trans-​ corporeality, material agency, and an ethics of more-​than-​human “mattering” is likely to make far more sense within an Indigenous horizon of understanding than either the reductive materialist discourse of “resource management” or, its counterpart, New Age (or evangelical Christian fundamentalist) notions of “spirituality.” (2014, 284)

While mainstream Western thinking often rejects Indigenous ways of living, Zainab Amadahy’s novel suggests that Indigenous people are open to combining Native science with Western science. This idea seems to align with Donna Haraway’s thoughts, also making kin between “all sorts of categories of players—​ including gods, technologies, critters, expected and unexpected ‘relatives’, and more—​and diverse process [...]” (Haraway 2016, 216).

Chapter 5. Reimagining heroism: Sacred mountains, plants and Indigenous women in Rebecca Roanhorse’s and Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s speculative fiction The novels discussed in the following pages do not praise human exceptionalism. Rebecca Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning (2018) and Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s Oracles (2004) depart from what Donna Haraway calls “the Man-​making tales of action with only one real actor, who is the hero, the world-​maker,” which tend to defer “the suffering of earth-​rotted passivity beyond bearing” (2016, 118). The following chapter discusses the way women, rocks and plants exert agency in the above-​mentioned novels. Unlike in traditional literary depictions of botany, the writers present plants and rocks as living beings, thus, challenging the perception of life and nonlife. It will be also discussed how the novels reimagine the Western ideal of a hero.

5.1 Rebecca Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning 5.1.1 Native Apocalypse In her book, Trail of Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse, an Indigenous science fiction writer of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo and African American descent, challenges conventions of Western science fiction stories that often focus on colonialist tropes. By linking alternate pasts, presents, and futures together, the novel centres on the Indigenous conception of the Apocalypse, which results from colonialist and imperialist agendas. Thus, the novel can be classified as a “post-​Native Apocalypse” (Dillon 2012, 10). Trail of Lightning is set in the apocalyptic future known as the “Sixth World,” which depicts the world after an ecological disaster referred to as the Big Water. The narrative makes many references to the stories of the Navajo people, who call themselves the Diné. For instance, the novel presents different Diné heroes, including Ma’ii, or Coyote, a trickster god. Roanhorse connects the Big Water to the Navajo cosmology of different worlds resulting in a great flood. Diné creation stories are based on a four worlds model, which is often expanded to a five worlds model. Following an initial period of peace, betrayal leads to turmoil and

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causes the Diné peoples to leave their world and enter another. According to Yolanda Begay, this worldview has been shaped by the historical trauma that the Diné peoples have suffered (2014, 123). In the Fourth World, Changing Woman, also called “Earth Mother,” created the earth and the sky, then gave birth to the twin heroes and formed the first clans and rules for the social organization of the Diné people, including ceremonies, as well as the kinship principle of k’é (122). Changing Woman also created the four original Navajo clans in the Fifth World of the Navajo creation story. In the novel, the Fifth World ends with the Big Water and thus the Sixth World begins, in which monsters, gods, and humans coexist. The story of this Native Apocalypse, the Big Water, is related to colonial relationships as well as the capitalist interests of the extractive industries that abuse Indigenous lands and peoples, revealing how these forms of oppression overlap and thus respond to the ecofeminist criticism (cf. Gaard and Murphy 1998, 3). The plot focuses on the protagonist Maggie Hoskie, a trained and talented monsterslayer, who is an apprentice of the immortal monsterslayer, Neizghání. Maggie points to the hurricanes, floods, droughts, and the “New Madrid” earthquake that preceded the apocalyptic flood (Roanhorse 2018, 23, 70). She points out that these were the consequences of the climate change resulting from the activities of extractive multinational corporations:  “the oil companies ripping up sacred grounds for their pipelines, the natural gas companies buying up fee land for fracking when they could get it, literally shaking the bedrock with their greed” (23). This seems to illustrate how industries similar to those of the 19th and 20th centuries continue to marginalize Indigenous people by denying them their right to self-​determination. In his 2017 paper “Our Ancestors’ Dystopia Now,” Kyle Powys Whyte points out that industrial settler efforts led to the devastation of ecosystems through deforestation and overharvesting, as well as the obstruction of Indigenous peoples’ capacities to adapt to the changes through containment on reservations in the past (209). In the novel, Maggie perceives the planet as living and responsive, which seems to be visible when she reflects on the vengeance wrought by the Earth on humanity striving for oil-​based wealth. The planet brought the Big Water, i.e. the flood that devastated the United States in the aftermath of “the Energy Wars”: “The Earth herself stepped in and drowned [everyone] all regardless of personal politics” (Roanhorse 2018, 54). Roanhorse emphasizes that these are corporate economics and destructive social behaviours that cause considerable damage to the natural world rather than overpopulation and human presence. It seems to reflect the views of such scholars as Naomi Klein, Jason Moore and Andreas Malm, who argue that the blame for the ecological crisis should be put not at humanity in general but at

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(predominantly white, Western and male) capitalism. Such logic led Jason Moore to introduce the term “Capitalocene” as an alternative term to the Anthropocene (see Moore 2015; 2016). Rebecca Roanhorse presents the current ecological crisis as a continuation of, rather than a break from, the era of colonialism which extends through advanced capitalism. For Maggie, “the Diné had already suffered their apocalypse over a century before” (23). Thus, the protagonist links the Native Apocalypse to Indigenous experiences of displacement. Indigenous people, in this story, lose their land a second time, this time not only via dispossession but because of an ecological catastrophe brought on by the settlers. It echoes Kyle Whyte’s views that: Thinking about climate injustice against Indigenous peoples is less about envisioning a new future and more like the experience of déjà vu. This is because climate injustice is part of a cyclical history situated within the larger struggle of anthropogenic environmental change catalyzed by colonialism, industrialism and capitalism –​not three unfortunately converging courses of history. (2016, 12)

The activities of extractive industries continue to disproportionately impact Indigenous peoples and result in environmental degradation, forced displacement, loss of culture and human rights violations, which include the abuses of Indigenous peoples’ right to lands or the right to determine one’s economic, cultural and social development. The realities of the Fifth World presented in the novel seem to reflect contemporary times and can be identifiable with our near future. A group of people intends to protect the environment from extractive multinational corporations and engages in the protest against the project of a Transcontinental Pipeline. It seems to parallel the contemporary Indigenous movements, which object to the construction of pipelines across the country. Water Protectors at Standing Rock resisting the Dakota Access Pipeline may serve here as an example. In the novel, the wars over control of oil and natural gas as well as massive protests against extractive industries destabilize the situation in the former United States and lead to bloodshed (Roanhorse 2018, 132). The novel also draws attention to the impact of pipelines on human health by introducing the character of Hastiin, one of the “thirsty boys,” i.e. boys thirsty “for whatever you’ll pay them”: When Hastiin finally shows up at my window, he’s decked out in the same uniform as the rest of the Thirsty Boys—​blue fatigues, big black boots, and his skull bandanna hanging loose down around his neck. His face is hard and lean in the dawn light, all knife-​edged cheekbones and deep shadows, shorn skullcap and day-​old beard. The rumor is that he served on the front lines of the Energy Wars, one of the original Protectors at the Transcontinental Pipeline protest camp, the one that saw the first mass casualties. They say he breathed in a lot of nerve gas and it ruined something in his brain, so now he can’t

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keep still. His fingers tap absently against my window’s edge, all that energy focused on us. (132)

This passage shows how people living close to oil and gas pipelines are at risk of health problems due to exposure to toxins and chemicals emitted by those facilities. By describing how breathing in the gas leads to a brain disease, Roanhorse illustrates the transcorporeality of the human body, which involves the interaction of human and non-​human agents. As previously mentioned in section 2.8.7 of this book, transcorporeality considers the far-​reaching consequences of industrial practices on human beings, especially the ones considered to be other. The toxicity of our environments is intertwined with power relations, settler-​ colonial violence and corporate greed. Thus, the novel challenges the subject of Western humanist individualism.

5.1.2 “The Wall” and more-​than-​human agency The narrative presents an alternative view of the history written by the settlers. In the post-​apocalyptic world illustrated by Roanhorse, the Navajos possess their own independent nation-​state, Dinétah; while the rising sea levels erased the United States’ West and East Coast. After the US “crashed and burned” (69), there remained independent city-​states like Burque (formerly Albuquerque). The writer imagines the future beyond colonial domination and the United States as a settler country, representing a decolonized space encompassing Navajo territories. The post-​apocalyptic landscape of the novel points to the consequences of resource exploitation of the Fifth World and implies that in the face of climate change any state borders become irrelevant. Natural resources are scarce. The environment near the Dinétah border seems to be even much more destructed by the capitalist forces: the dry cracked earth. The land here is barren, nothing like the relative lushness of the mountains or my little valley. The sad sickness of Black Mesa settles in around me. In the growing light, under the green sky, it is suddenly so much like my dream that chills race across my arms, pulling goose bumps. (260–​261)

Sugar and coffee have become luxury products, nearly impossible to obtain. Some people, including tribal chiefs, continue to exploit the limited resources as “Greed is universal” (54). The relation between the destruction of the natural world and capitalism is summarized by the protagonists, Kai and Maggie, as they drive across the desert: “Seems anywhere there’s a natural resource, there’s someone willing to hoard it for themselves to make more money than they can spend” (54).

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Due to the violent encounters that “invoked the specter of conquest, manifest destiny” (22), the Diné people in the novel build a Wall around the ancestral lands. In her paper “Dimensions of Decolonial Future in Indigenous Speculative Fiction,” Julia Siepak interprets the Wall in the context of contemporary political landscape addressing President Trump’s rhetoric of the Wall (2020, 71). The rise of radical right ideologies connected with the election of Donald Trump as the U.S. president, whose main postulates include building a wall dividing the U.S. from Mexico, is featured in the novel. The Wall built by the Diné is nothing like what the US government had tried to build along its border with Mexico: “a mountain of gray concrete [with] barbed wire lining the top” (Roanhorse 2018, 23). Instead, the Diné build a wall in which “for every brick, a song was sung […] a blessing given. And the Wall took on a life of its own” (23). The wall, like the Earth, seems alive, and it is “beautiful […] white shell, turquoise, abalone, black jet” (23); it saves the Diné because it keeps out the floodwaters. There is no longer any “Fed” (23) to run the country, which now has a coastline that runs from Texas to Idaho. Thus, the Navajo Tribal Council separated their people from the rest of the former United States in order to protect the relation between the Diné people and the land, maintained by the traditions of storytelling. The Wall helped Indigenous people reclaim their agency and rewrite the stories that have marginalized them. The Wall and its perception as living, possessing agency seem to illustrate how Indigenous lifeways defy the destructive force of racial capitalism as epitomized in the US settler state. What is more, the author of Trail of Lightning depicts corn pollen as well as obsidian, i.e. igneous rock and one of four Navajo sacred stones, as possessing agency. Maggie uses pollen and obsidian as ammunition in her fight with the monsters: “I load my shotgun with shells full of corn pollen and obsidian shot, both sacred to the Diné” (9). The special shot in the shells does not kill the monsters but slows them down. When the shot is thrown at the evil creatures, “pollen should ground them to the spot, and the obsidian should hurt them” (82). Roanhorse hints in this way at the tradition of making Navajo arrowheads from obsidian. Furthermore, corn pollen is used in healing ceremonies and is often referred to as the Navajo tree of life, for it was given to the Diné at creation as a gift in the fourth world (Capelin 2009, 12). Changing Woman sang of the connection between the people and the Holy Ones through corn pollen. In the novel, there seems to be also an allusion to the importance of pollen for the interconnection and harmony between peoples and the natural world. Maggie performs a kind of ceremony over the dead bodies of monsters and emphasizes the way the powdery substance links the body to the earth: “I split open one of my shotgun shells, pour a little corn pollen into my hand, and dust it over both

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bodies with a quick prayer. Not that I’m much for praying, but Grandpa Tah tells me that the pollen binds the flesh to the earth” (Roanhorse 2018, 17). Rebecca Roanhorse presents the way Indigenous people challenge the perception of pollen and rocks as cold, dead or inert, and as such, resources to be exploited and instead focus on a rock as vibrant and living. The stones are depicted as what Jeffrey J. Cohen refers to as “an aeonic companionship” (2015, 17). Such a vision of rocks questions the life–​death divide since it encourages to comprehend temporal scales beyond the human. It is difficult to grasp the timescales of strata spanning 65 million years, but “a rock […] opens an adventure in deep time and inhuman forces of slow sedimentation” (Cohen 2015, 4). Thus, the sediments challenge the binaries of life and death, past and future as they represent a scale between biological life and geological mineral. For instance, limestone was created between 65–​62 million years ago in a warm sea, and it includes microscopic coccoliths (algae), bryozoans (mosses) and corals (see Lilja 2021). Therefore, the limestone indicates a transformational force, which seems to reflect Elizabeth Grosz’s philosophy of “nature as becoming,” which suggests that the natural environment constantly changes and develops rather that being a passive resource. Grosz “understands life and matter in terms of their temporal and durational entwinements. Matter and life become, and become undone. They transform and are transformed” (2011, 5). Similarly, a professor of inhuman geography, Kathryn Yusoff, discusses fossils as “unlock[ing] this life–​ death, time–​untimely, corporeal–​incorporeal equation” (2013, 779). Through her representation of minerals and rocks as lively, Roanhorse’s fiction inspires us to think beyond the human-​centric timescale and to engage with time as becoming. The mineral can be described as vibrant if it is perceived over a longer period of time rather than the span of a human lifetime. In their paper titled “Stone Walks,” Stephanie Springgay and Sarah E. Truman refer to rocks as “queer archives” (2017, 852), which means that they are immanently lively due to their melting, eroding, collapsing and other processes. The vibrant change across huge periods is invisible from a human point of view. Jane Bennett explains that stones, tables, technologies, words, and edibles that confronts us as fixed are mobile, internally heterogenous materials whose rate of speed and pace of change are slow compared to the duration and velocity of the human bodies participating in and perceiving them. [They appear] as such because their becoming proceeds at a speed or a level below the threshold of human discernment. (2010, 3–​4)

This type of thinking with stones helps to counteract a mode of thinking about matter as a mere dead resource and, instead, opens up for a more entangled understanding of human-​matter relations. Furthermore, it aids in extending

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compassion and respect beyond the life–​nonlife boundary. What is more, the above-​mentioned considerations on the rocks also prove that both Western science and Indigenous knowledge rely on rocks to pass on knowledge, (hi)stories, and information. Nevertheless, Indigenous peoples have often been accused of primitivism due to their perception of rocks as possessing spirit and telling stories. At the same time, Western scientists seem to “read rocks” as well and “discover” what Indigenous peoples have known for centuries.

5.1.3 Violence against women In the world represented by Roanhorse, the exploitation of the environment seems to parallel the oppression of women. Maggie gained her supernatural clan powers as a consequence of the traumatic encounter with some evil Sixth World witch and the monsters assisting him (the witch is addressed as “he”) (Roanhorse 2018, 106–​11). During the attack, the witch forces Maggie to slit her grandmother’s throat and then wants to rape her. Maggie is hit and then a “fleshy hand scrapes across [her] face” (106). The clan power rushes through her veins. The woman strikes back and kills all of her attackers, astounded at “how terrible [she] could be” (109). From that moment, Maggie carries with her a memory of abuse: “I fight a wave of memory. The remembered feel of a man’s weight holding my own body down, blood thick and choking in my mouth as powerful fingers grip my skull and slam my head into the floor. A strong smell of wrongness in my nose” (9). Violence is then strongly identified with masculinity, which creates a sense of an affirmation of patriarchal structures. After the attack, Maggie gains powers coming from her clans:  the “Walks-​ Around” clan provides her with extraordinary speed “faster than human[s],” while the power of the Living Arrow clan makes her “really good at killing people” (58–​59). She then becomes an apprentice of the immortal monsterslayer Neizghání, who is known as a monsterslayer and a powerful deity in Navajo mythology. He teaches Maggie how to fight and helps her become “the person you hire when the heroes have already come home in body bags” (2). The novel reflects the realities of Native American reservations, where vigilantism might be the only option for dealing with violent crimes, especially those committed against women, whose experiences are frequently disregarded. Neizghání leaves her when he notices that she is becoming too violent and her clan powers indicate that “[she is] touched by death now and that it’s changed [her]” (110). Neizghání’s understanding of her powers as the expression of infection with evil impact her dread of “becoming just another monster” (14) and makes her reject the role of the hero she is expected to fulfil. She refuses to identify with her

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Indigenous heritage, as she is scared that the monstrous side of these powers might be revealed. She visits the Dinétah town of Lukachukai, where a family hopes that Maggie, with her supernatural clan powers, can find their lost daughter. When Maggie travels to the mountains tracking the girl, she finds her barely alive but doomed to die because she has been tainted by her cannibalistic monster kidnapper. After killing the girl (out of mercy) and the monster, Maggie brings the monster’s head to her honorary Grandpa Tah, a well-​liked monster expert. She asks Tah, a local medicine man, for any information concerning a new type of monsters. According to Tah, the monstrous creatures were made by a powerful witch using a magic black flint drill. Subsequently, with the assistance of Kai Arviso, Tah’s grandson and a young medicine man, Maggie travels through Dinétah to destroy the witch and battle ancient monsters who have been resurrected. In order to find them, Maggie and Kai search for clues on some VHS tapes, DVDs, magazines and maps documenting a lost landscape from before the Big Water found in an abandoned library. Since gasoline is barely available, Maggie has adapted her car to run on “hooch” (21), which seems to be ironic considering the history of alcohol’s negative influence on Indigenous people in North America. Further, Maggie is also accompanied by Ma’ii or Coyote, a Navajo trickster figure, who is the driving force of the plot. After Maggie and Kai gain some information about the “fire drill,” which may have something to do with the monsters, she is visited by Maʼii. The Coyote persuades her that the drill belongs to Mósí, a cat goddess, and he also gives her some magical rings and asks her to accomplish a task for him. Meanwhile, they discover that Grandpa Tah’s hogan has been burnt down; Maggie assumes that it might have been Neizghání’s job. During the journey, the protagonists stay at a local bar run by Grace Goodacre. Then, they are joined by the Goodacre’s children—​twins “primed for speed and agility” (257), as well as a motorcycle gang called Thirsty Boys. Coyote visits Maggie and helps her and Kai return to their quest, pointing them towards Mósí, the divine, cat-​like bookkeeper at the club called Shalimar. Mósí tricks Maggie into a fight and guarantees that the winner of the duel will get the fire drill. Once she enters the ring, her rival appears to be Neizghání. Their battle ends when he nearly kills Maggie and tries to rip her heart out. The battle between them turns into violent and misogynist spectacle. And then [Neizghání’s] bloody lips are on mine, forcing my mouth open with his tongue as he kisses me. He is rough, brutal and possessive. I taste iron and salt. Holding my throat in his one hand, mouth still on mine, he reaches down with the other hand, wraps his fingers around the hilt of his weapon, and thrusts his lightning blade up and under my ribs. Digging for my heart. (243–​244)

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Thus, the battle between Maggie and the monsterslayer exposes the clearly toxic character of their relationship, which is based on violence and disrespect. In this conflict, Maggie’s loss demonstrates how the Western hero’s narrative praises violence, identifying the key attributes of genuine manhood as courage, aggression and dominance. It seems to support the argument that women are represented in hero stories only in connection to the hero, and sexual domination is confused with physical and political dominance. Through Maggie’s labelling as a female inferior, the novel illustrates how women are also classified in terms of what Margery Hourihan would refer to as “good and bad femininity” (1997, 3). Maggie can only fully embrace her Indigenous heritage and, eventually, her position as a female Native American hero, by overcoming this humiliating dualistic understanding of gender. Maggie’s failure does not diminish her value and skills. She manages to survive owing to Kai’s healing clan abilities. He heals her and then she pursues vengeance on Neizghání, believing him to be guilty of Tah’s alleged death and the creation of monsters. When they arrive at the mine where Neizghání abandoned Maggie, Coyote appears and reveals that he is the one who controls the monsters. Coyote is also responsible for everything that happened to Maggie, including the death of her grandmother, resulting in the activation of her clan powers. He did it all in an attempt to have her trained into a powerful warrior. Infuriated, Maggie murders him and goes to the place where Neizghání threatens Kai, whom he regards as a rival. Neizghání suggests that Maggie should either fight or leave Kai and return to him. Maggie decides to trick Neizghání. Hence, she kills Kai, hoping that his clan powers will bring him back to life. She then binds Neizghání with Maʼii’s rings, thus, removing his powers. Ultimately, Maggie returns to her trailer, where she finds Grandpa Tah, luckily alive. As the book closes, Maggie and Tah wait for Kai’s return. It seems that Roanhorse attempts to comment on the contemporary condition of Indigenous women emphasizing their ongoing oppression and the prevalence of patriarchal structures, particularly of the Diné community, which reflects the colonial heteronormative patriarchal gender norms (Denetdale 2009, 135). The Indigenous author establishes parallels between the oppression of women and the exploitation of the environment in a patriarchal society. As previously explained in Chapter 1 of this book, this treatment of vulnerable groups and nature is rooted in the dualistic hierarchy privileging man over nature.

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5.1.4 Reimagining heroism: The agency of women Rebecca Roanhorse’s novel reimagines heroism through a female Native American protagonist that differs from the oppressive Western ideal of a hero. In 1949, Joseph Campbell used the term “the monomyth” to describe a pattern of literary heroism that can be found in literary works from around the world. The traditional hero’s quest toward mythological status involves “a separation from the world, a penetration to some source of power, and a life-​enhancing return” (Campbell 2008, 28). The hero needs to pass several “rites of passage” in order to complete his journey. This type of nearly god-​like, heroic genius possesses “exceptional gifts” (29), which allow him to save the reality of human existence. The presence of a traditional hero in American literature conveys values perpetuating oppressive Western power structures. Furthermore, Campbell’s traditional hero presents a stereotypical image of heteronormative masculinity, thus discriminating others based on gender, race, age, and ability. In 1997, Margery Hourihan described Campbell’s traditional hero’s journey in terms of an “invariable pattern” (9). A white, young male hero “leaves the civilized order of home to venture into the wilderness in pursuit of his goal” (9). His bravery and strength aid him in overcoming all difficulties encountered during his journey to achieve his goal, which could be the discovery of a treasure or the rescue of a damsel in distress. He is, then, rewarded at home, for instance, with the hand of a beautiful woman (9–​10). Hourihan points out that this ideal is very limited in its scope as it involves the set of dualisms which have impacted Western thought. When the hero embarks on a quest and runs into evil creatures like dragons or witches, he invariably exemplifies the superior terms of these dualisms (2). What is more, the Western hero appears to be the agent of oppression and exploitation as it is the idea of conquering that can be classified as heroic, masculine, and white. As a cultural ideal rooted in colonialism, “[t]he hero story celebrates the conquest of nature, as well as of ‘savages’” (6). Thus, Western heroism legitimizes the idea of nature as a conquerable space, as well as othering based on gender or race. Roanhorse’s work subverts gender stereotypes associated with the Western hero story. In Campbell’s monomyth, women appear as submissive characters in the hero’s tale. Campbell provides an example of a woman as a nature goddess who “can never be greater than himself [male hero], though she can always promise more than he is yet capable of comprehending” (2008, 97). This description demonstrates how women’s bodies have been linked to the natural world, as criticized by (eco)feminists (cf. Merchant 1989b, xix–​xxi). Women’s sexuality poses a threat to the hero by diverting him from his intended course. Hence, the

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hero must move past “this limitation of the body” (Campbell 2008, 103). In contrast, in Roanhorse’s novel, gender roles appear to be reversed. It is a woman who plays the part of the stereotypical male hero, i.e. a fierce monsterslayer, while Maggie’s companion, Kai, resembles Campbell’s nature goddess. What is more, Kai’s body is sexualized by Maggie, who notices his “[m]ovie-​star boy-​band handsome” face, his “[p]erfect hair, […] fashion model clothes [and] [f]lawless brown skin” (Roanhorse 2018, 39). Kai’s appeal is considered one of his clan powers, “Talks-​in-​Blanket” (273), which assists him in persuading others for his personal gain. Kai is also a medicine man, who possesses healing clan powers that work on humans, allowing him to “heal the land […] [by] [c]ontrolling the forces of nature” through “Weather Ways” (36). While Campbell’s theory denigrates “[t]he shaman” or “the medicine man” of “every primitive tribe” (82–​84) to the position of the hero’s spiritual helper, in Roanhorse’s story, Kai’s healing clan powers are perceived by Maggie as “cool superpowers” (59). Maggie considers his healing powers to be better than hers since his do not make people distrust him or “get [him] treated like [he is] diseased or a step away from being one of the monsters yourself ” (59). What is more, Trail of Lightning reimagines gender by presenting the Diné community as connected by “k’é,” i.e. clan kinship, rather than divided into male and female (Begay 2014, 122). Maggie and Kai seem to be of distinct genders when viewed from the Western perspective. However, the Diné are not defined by their appearance or sexuality. In the novel, contrary to the gender norms of Western heterosexual patriarchies, both Maggie and Kai wear makeup and jewellery, and Maggie discovers that Kai had an affair with one of their male acquaintances (Roanhorse 2018, 199, 215). In Maggie’s opinion, this embrace of gender fluidity and Diné identity makes Kai appear “preternatural” (212). This type of gender fluidity seems to reflect pre-​contact gender variability that used to be sacred to Diné (see section 1.6.2 of this book). Rebecca Roanhorse reimagines the ideal of Western heroism in Trail of Lightning. Maggie is characterized as the hero—​the monsterslayer, a figure that can be found in Western hero myths as well as in Navajo mythology, where it is known as Neizghání. Nevertheless, she is marginalized due to the traditional Western heroic ideal. She is considered the “other” because of her race, gender and allegedly monstrous clan powers. Maggie does not want to disclose her clans to the Diné family who wants her help, explaining that “[she’s] never been much for tradition, and it’s better all around if we just stay strangers” (3). This seems to stand in opposition to her Diné identity which is based on the principle of k’é—​ the kinship system. Maggie Hoskie is perceived as an outsider:

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“This is bullshit,” the brother says loudly, and his challenge sends a nervous titter rippling through the gathering. “What can she do that we can’t do?” He gestures to encompass his posse of friends along the wall. “Clan powers? She won’t even tell us what her clans are. And Neizghání’s apprentice? We only have her word for it.” (4–​5).

When she finally reveals her clans, her powers are met with immediate mistrust, as she anticipated, because they contradict the Diné family’s expectation that Maggie should resemble the mythical male hero Neizghání: I’m not like Neizghání, no. He is the Monsterslayer of legend, an immortal who is the son of two Holy People. I’m human, a five-​fingered girl. But I’m not exactly normal, either, not like this brother and his friends. […] “Honágháahnii, born for K’aahanáanii.” Only my first two clans, but that’s enough. The crowd’s muttered suspicions rise to vocal hostility, and one of the boys barks something ugly at me. (6).

The first two clans of the Diné clan structure are bilateral, originating from the mother and father respectively. Maggie’s maternal clan can be translated as “Walks-​Around;” it provides her with exceptional speed. Her paternal clan means “Living Arrow,” which indicates that she is “really good at killing people” (58–​59). Maggie’s extra-​human powers separate her from the Diné, who lack such extraordinary abilities. Although her non-​human self is based on ancient spiritual practices and in the natural environment, and hence may be considered integral to her society, Maggie is regarded as frightening, as the other. People dislike her because “she’s not right […] she’s wrong, Navajo way” (5). Maggie is anxious about being compared to her mentor Neizghání, who is described as the “hero of legend, […] the son of Changing Woman and the Sun” (113). She is aware of being other than this hero since, in her opinion, her own monstrosity is the reason for Neizghání’s departure. Maggie considers her clan powers to be a burden and threat rather than a source of empowerment that allows her to perform heroic acts. The novel demonstrates how such binaries shape Maggie’s self-​ perception as the colonized other. Maggie blurs the boundaries between spirit and mortal, the monster and human. Thus, she embodies a challenge to the traditional narratives that were based on such binaries. Maggie’s self-​doubt in her clan powers continues to prevent her from seeing her potential of being an Indigenous female hero. She seems to despise the violence that her clan powers allegedly represent. This demonstrates how Native American self-​perception is influenced by Western binary gender roles and colonialist discourses. Lorena Bickert points out that Roanhorse’s novel shows how colonialist power structures sustain a hierarchy that denies gendered and racialized others their “right to self-​determination, and, by extension, their active role

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in the Western hero story” (2020, 17). Maggie’s self-​perception is affected by the binary gender system imposed by settlers. Jennifer Nez Denetdale (Navajo) notes that, long before the arrival of settlers, women have been playing a crucial role in the social, economic, political, and spiritual organization of the Navajo people and their country, which was built around matrilineal clans (2017b, 84). As a result of colonialism, Indigenous societies have been transformed, women’s places have been undermined, and the idea of multiple genders within the Diné community was eradicated. At the same time, Maggie’s and Kai’s subversion of the “ideal hero” proves that the novel questions Western hero stories and the gender roles associated with them. In this regard, Trail of Lightning subverts Western discourses of domination that reveal how traditional Western heroism is also racially coded. While Campbell’s monomyth revolves around a white, Western, young, non-​disabled male hero and Native Americans as primitive peoples, Roanhorse’s novel casts “other” Native American heroes battling monsters in an apocalyptic environment. Furthermore, the monomyth depicts nature as a “demon wilderness,” a place filled with monsters and gloom (Campbell 2008, 68). Early representations of the Western hero were based on the collapse of savagery and the triumph of civilization. According to ecofeminist researcher Maria Mies, without the colonization of women, nature, and foreign peoples, Western civilization and its concept of progress, natural science and technology would not exist (1993, 43–​44). Roanhorse’s story challenges the traditional Western idea of heroism and engages with the ecofeminist vision of diversity. In contrast to Campbell’s hero, Indigenous heroes discussed are complex and ambivalent characters whose actions reveal difficulties rather than heroic flawlessness. The story shows an Indigenous female hero whose self-​doubts are part of her journey to discovering her potential. In this way, the text presents what Dillon describes as the process of “returning to oneself,” which entails recognizing how colonization has affected one’s life, then, discarding the emotional and physical burdens resulting from colonization, and reclaiming ancestral traditions in order to adapt them in the post-​Native apocalyptic world (2012, 10). Maggie experiences how these colonialist discourses deny her the role of a heroic character in a stereotypical Western hero tale. In the end, Maggie manages to return to herself by accepting that “[k]illing is [her] clan power the same way healing is [Kai’s]. […] It’s who I am” (Roanhorse 2018, 232). Owing to Kai, she realizes that “[b]eing a hero’s not about being perfect. It’s about doing the right thing, doing your best to get the people you care about home safely. You were willing to sacrifice yourself to do that. […] Whatever happened to you may have been evil, but you aren’t evil” (232–​233).

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In Trail of Lightning, Kai helps Maggie accept her Indigenous heritage and consider her clan powers as a gift and “as potential for growth” (57). He recalls the story of his grandfather, for whom clan powers were “gifts from the Diyin Dine’é [the Holy People]. […] they manifest in times of great need, but not to everyone, and not everyone is blessed equally” (57). Thus, he emphasizes the importance of storytelling and Indigenous science based on interconnectedness. Maggie initially perceives traditional knowledge as “noble savage shit” (57), alluding to how Western traditions perpetuate an image of “noble” American Indians as “closer to nature.” Such colonialist discourse prevented her from seeing her heroic potential lying in her Indigenous heritage and forced Maggie’s isolation from her community and its traditions. Learning to trust her powers and embracing her Indigenous heritage catalyses Maggie’s heroic agency and allows her to become what Loren Bickert refers to as “the empowered monstrous other hero in the post-​Native Apocalypse” (2020, 22). Thus, Maggie exerts heroic agency along with the land that is a participating actor rather than a passive background to the hero’s quest. This seems to reflect Native American discourses of community which are based on respect for the land, reciprocity and observance of rituals. Maggie reveals this responsibility for the land when she says that “balance between earth and animal and self feels right. Feels true” (Roanhorse 2018, 8). Both Kai and Maggie believe that Indigenous knowledge and notions of interconnection and community are important in an apocalyptic environment. Thus, Roanhorse presents us with Native American heroes, who are rooted in Navajo traditions and Indigenous science, and the writer subsequently contributes to the renegotiation of Western science and relations with the environment based on exploitation. Maggie as an Indigenous hero does not represent a stereotypical Western definition of an individualistic hero striving for power. Indigenous understandings of interconnectedness and relationality subvert the Western ideology of colonial violence. It might also be argued that Kai and Ma’ii are selfish and greedy for power, which is associated with the Western ideal of a hero. It, however, reflects how Western discourses of dominance shape the narrative. Kai refers to this complexity by saying that “[c]lan powers […] can be used for good or evil” (234). Ma’ii tricked Maggie into becoming a “weapon finer than any other” (266) in his own pursuit of vengeance against Neizghání, with whom he is in conflict. Kai similarly healed Maggie also to fight Neizghání. Additionally, Kai’s act of saving Maggie fulfils the patriarchal vision of the male hero as a rescuer of a lady. The novel demonstrates the struggle of the female Indigenous hero against different boundaries imposed by the traditional Western hero story. Maggie challenges these power structures, which cast her as the other with respect to the Western

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male hero model. The narrative presents diversity and recognizes otherness and difference as positive. At the same time, Roanhorse’s female figure attempts to dismantle this patriarchal and highly hierarchical system. On the one hand, the traditional Western heroic ideal systematically marginalizes Maggie as an Indigenous woman with what Western culture sees as “supernatural” abilities. She is considered the “other” because of her monstrous clan powers brought on by a traumatic encounter with the monstrous underbelly, but also because of her race and gender. By introducing Maggie as a Diné protagonist whose Indigenous heritage and connection to her ancestral lands help her feel empowered, Trail of Lightning offers an alternative perspective on the concept of heroism and its intersections with race, gender, the environment, as well as the science fiction genre. In the novel, Maggie renegotiates what it means to be a hero in the face of the post-​Native Apocalypse by accepting that she does not fit the characteristics of a Western hero ideal. Thus, by writing her story, Roanhorse contributes to the ecofeminist “process of rewriting the old stories” of heroism that revolve around the conquest of the other (Gaard and Murphy 1998, 11–​12). The narrative certainly strays away from the ideas reinforcing Western dualisms such as self/​ other, male/​female, or hero/​monster. Instead, the novel constitutes a productive counter-​narrative, which promotes inclusivity, cooperation and responsibility.

5.1.5 Porous bodies and expansive definition of a person Rebecca Roanhorse also presents porous boundaries between the human and animal. While searching the monsters in a Diné club, Kai’s Indigenous medicine allows them not only to look beyond the binary gender system. Instead of seeing “[n]ormal” human bodies, the medicine exposes “the children of Dinétah, stripped of all illusions” (Roanhorse 2018, 208–​210). Maggie describes different kinds of beings with rabbit ears, feathers, or antlers and refers to them as “monsters,” as she is afraid that the medicine will reveal her own monstrosity as well: Many of the clans I recognize. Ats’oos Dine’é, the Feather People, are easy to spot, their feathered bodies covered in the greys, browns, and whites of hawks. Others have more elaborate plumage, showing reds and yellows and blues. All have a third eyelid that moves horizontally across staring eyes. By the bar sit two Big Deer People, huge three-​ point antlers rising from their heads. They wear wide buckskin skirts and their feet peek out from underneath, dainty black hooves. A man wearing a patchwork fur coat and rummaging through a pile of random car parts can only be Rabbit clan, the ears and oversize teeth unmistakable. (210)

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By illustrating such a human/​animal connection, Roanhorse refers to American Indian legends describing humans as actually the descendants of the powerful beings that had lived on the Earth before humans and who managed to remove their fur masks. An animal was a person with a lineage that preceded humanity’s (Nelson 1983, 31). In contrast to the Western scientific view that human beings differ from animals in terms of advanced evolution, in American Indian philosophy, non-​human beings are raised to the ontological status of a person. Human beings are not perceived as one of the races of animals, but in Native worldviews, animals are seen as people like humankind. This seems to correlate with Thomas M. Norton-​Smith’s Native conception of a person as “expansive,” where all non-​human beings are members of the American Indian kinship group and recognized as persons (cf. section 3.4 of this book). The novel also deals with such a powerful entity as Coyote, i.e. an anthropomorphic trickster figure who sees Maggie as his protégé. The Coyote hides his animal body in the clothes of a “gentleman scoundrel from some old Hollywood Western” (Roanhorse 2018, 87). Such a powerful non-​human spirit person is a real-​life character rather than a god or an abstract, supernatural figure since the concept of the “natural” and, subsequently, “supernatural” does not exist in Native American worldviews. In American Indian traditions, there is no division into the material and the spiritual. Such a powerful spirit person as Coyote makes mistakes and is not omnipotent, thus, he does not differ from human beings, even though he is powerful. All persons have equal value and respect for one another in sustaining the American Indian world. By introducing the Navajo mythological character of Coyote, Roanhorse connects the novel to the Indigenous storytelling tradition. The vision of monstrosity presented by Roanhorse seems to align with the concept of monstrosity explored by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing in Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet. In the introduction to the volume, Tsing discusses the potential of monstrosity in imagining a sustainable vision of human life. As the editors of the book suggest, all organisms are entangled with each other, and monsters actually highlight symbiosis (2017, 3). Thus, a symbiotic body can be used to address an enmeshed ethical agency. Such a concept of the monstrous as a figure of ecological entanglement unsettles the human from the position of superiority and provides a way out of bounded individuality as a primary tenet of life. Understanding agency emerging through the entanglements of different bodies suggests an ethics of living-​with, similar to the biological “symbiogenesis, the comaking of living things” (8). What is more, Roanhorse blurs the oppressive division between the human or the animal, of the self or the other, and poses the

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possibility of an extension of mutual vulnerability, so that one’s very existence is intrinsically dependent upon the other. The concept of interconnection presented by Roanhorse also parallels the ideas conveyed by Donna Haraway in her book Staying with the Trouble. The scholar implements the metaphor of weaving a spider’s web to illustrate a world in which all lives are interwoven and the hierarchy between humans and non-​ humans does not exist: “Weaving (…) performs and manifests the meaningful lived connections for sustaining kinship, behaviour, relational action  –​for hózhó  –​for human and nonhumans” (Haraway 2016, 91). The scholar refers to Hózhó, which is the Navajo term translated either as peace, balance or harmony. The idea of weaving is of particular importance to the Diné people. Navajo weaving, particularly with the wool of Churro sheep, connects people to animals “through patterns of care and response-​ability in blasted places of excess death and threatened ongoingness” (89). This idea of Navajo people living in peace with animals is reflected in Roanhorse’s novel. What is more, the idea of hózhó proves that Indigenous ways of living inspire Western scholars such as Haraway. Subsequently, Roanhorse’s novel shows that humans are in equal standing with animals and the rest of the natural world. The human/​animal interactions are represented as a complex and dynamic part of entangled ways of existing. Thus, the writer advocates delayering of the interspecies hierarchy. This idea has been reflected not only in the work of Rebecca Roanhorse but also such Indigenous artists as Freja Carmichael, Darcie Bernhardt.9 Trail of Lightning challenges anthropocentric ways of thinking and encourages to practice what Haraway refers to as “tentacular thinking,” which is also a metaphor for a non-​linear, multiple, networked existence. This mindset has been a central core of Indigenous peoples’ worldviews for millennia and it reinforces the idea that everything is worthy of respect and caring.

9 The work of these artists can be found at https://​www.artl​ink.com.au/​iss​ues/​4020/​ind​ igen​ous-​kin-​con​stel​lati​ons/​. Indigenous kin constellations represent considerations around ancestral materiality and intellectual traditions spanning the skies, great oceans, and lands connecting the kin and First Peoples from around the world.

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5.2 Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s Oracles 5.2.1 The journey of an Indigenous heroine: Becoming a Medicine Woman Environmental destruction due to capitalist practices as well as the agency of the more-​than-​human world is also central to Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel’s book Oracles (2004). She is a Mohegan historian, Medicine Woman and an Indigenous speculative fiction writer living in New England. Her novels, Oracles (2004) and Wabanaki Blues (2015), advance the work of her literary ancestors by capturing and recalling extreme weather events and exploring how individuals correspond to them. Mohegan people cherish the remarkable tradition of telling and writing stories about weather and seasonal changes, which has been of interest to many climate historians. Scholars have attempted to reconstruct past climates through different means, including meteorological instruments, proxy data, historical documents such as diaries, newspapers, weather station records, and ships’ logs (see Wigley, Ingram, and Farmer 1981). If they searched through Indigenous literature, Mohegan writing, in particular, they might find some intricate details. In his journals, the 18th-​century Native American minister Samson Occom frequently mentioned extreme rain, cold, and snow that delayed his journeys, sometimes evaluating the weather’s severity by his neighbours’ observations: for example, the spring and winter of 1785 in Connecticut were “judged by the oldest men we have, to be the Hardest in their memory, the most spending” (Occom and Brooks 2006, 291). Similarly, his contemporary Joseph Johnson wrote journals, frequently noting that a day “looked very likely for Storm” (Johnson and Murray 1998, 111). Weather information can also be found in the Mohegan Medicine Woman’s, Fidelia Fielding’s diaries, which recorded not only some personal information but also the clarity of the skies, diurnal patterns, the cold and the heat at the beginning of the 19th century.10 Fielding was a mentor to Gladys Tantaquidgeon, the great-​aunt of Zobel, who recorded “Mohegan weather lore,” where she included local knowledge, for instance: “To hear talking or wood chopping from a greater distance than usual indicates a storm is brewing” (quoted in Senier 2020, 107). Mohegan weather stories appear to have been successfully adapted in a written form. In addition to stewarding stories of the tribal past, including

10 Fielding’s original diaries can be found in a digital version at Cornell University Library’s Native American Collection, http://​nac.libr​ary.corn​ell.edu/​exh​ibit​ion/​writ​ tenw​ord/​writte​nwor​d_​5.html.

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past extreme weather events (Wabanaki Blues 2015), Zobel writes about climate futures. Although Zobel’s futuristic novel Oracles (2004) is not specifically classified as cli-​fi, it presents Indigenous people struggling with the consequences of climate change and other “disruptions of colonialism, capitalism and industrialization” (Whyte 2017a, 164). Set in the mid-​21st century among the Yantuck, a fictional group whose people, landscape, and culture resemble the Mohegans, the novel begins with the act of arson that demolishes a tribal casino. While most tribal members consider the casino to be the centre of the reservation, for Ashneon Quay, a young medicine-​woman-​in-​training capable of communicating with the dead, its destruction symbolizes the disappearance of pollution it produced: This night, evening felt right for the first time. It was a glittering, black‐beaded gala night, a night to celebrate and give thanks. Ashneon stretched heaven ward toward the faraway flames that burnt up the mountain sky. The bright lights of Big Rock would never again ruin another evening for those masters of the night (Zobel 2004, 5).

Capitalist development has also led to climate change and extreme weather events, which “had simply gone berserk” (2004, 15). While the old Mohegan weather lore provided communities with a sense of comfort by revealing some cosmic patterns concerning atmospheric conditions, Zobel imagines the weather in the future as characterized by complete irregularity and unpredictability: “Too little rain was followed by too much flooding. Searing heatwaves were halted by blizzards” (15). In addition to climatic disruptions, Oracles discusses various political, ecological, and cultural effects of climate change. For instance, due to deforestation, traditional medicinal plants are said to lose their efficacy, and the remaining trees maintained by the Yantucks have become some sort of a tourist attraction visited by many “young cyberbrats” (52). What is more, a tribal oyster farm has been affected by ocean pollution and acidification. Instead of providing an apocalyptic environmental scenario, Zobel’s novel represents climate change as a global risk; it presents “the fractious dawn of a legendary age: a time when the Yantuck would remember how to plant and how to fish, how to swim and how to fly” (7). Tribal members argue about the best way to preserve the natural environment and sustain their traditional practices. Since her parents died in an accident, Ashneon was raised on a sacred mountain-​top by two Indian Medicine People, her grandmother Winay and great-​uncle Tomuck. Ashneon possesses the power to travel into the Spirit World and speak to her ancestors. She also mastered the technique of visiting her mother on the other side. When Tomuck dies, she seems to be a perfect successor as she has been long trained to take on the role of Medicine Woman

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and has been truly devoted to the traditional ways of living. She feels ready to assume this role, as she has been preparing for that her whole life. She is convinced that she is about to deliver the eulogy after Tomuck’s death as a future Medicine Woman. Her confidence is expressed in the following passage: Oh, Tashteh, I’ll be all right. I always knew I would have to do it some day. Really, I expected this. Don’t you think I’ve heard all their talk about me being the next Oracle, Medicine Woman, or whatever? Today was a shock and it will be hard to get through the ceremony, but I know I can do it. I’ve prepared for this all ... (83).

However, it is Ashneon’s cousin Obed, who gives the eulogy. He wishes to become a Yantuck Medicine Man although he has never followed “the Yantuck lesson plan for life,” nor was he devoted to Indigenous traditions (136). Obed proves his lack of Indigenous knowledge during an interview for the media, in which he attempts to impress the viewers with a pseudo-​salutation to the Sun. It does not resemble the classic version of this yoga exercise but is simply an improvization. Moreover, Obed works for the New Light Corporation, a company that intends to hire all those claiming to possess Indigenous knowledge, who are called the Oracles. These spiritual seekers are supposed to broadcast from “Delphi I, the world’s first spiritual space station” (19) and their service will be accessible to those willing to pay the admission fee. In order to increase Obed’s power and make him the focus of the world, the leader of the New Light group casts a spell. The Medicine People criticize his choice to do the business out of their traditions, claiming that “when Indians walk away from the Creator and start running toward the dollar, it’s much worse than for other folks” (21). Since Ashneon appears to be the opponent to Obed’s immediate assumption of the Yantuck Oracle seat, he attempts to reach his goal by denigrating Ashneon during his interview for the media. He describes his cousin as “a grief-​stricken and delusionary young woman” (120). He also suggests that she does not possess any power to talk to the dead but is mentally ill. In fact, Obed believes she claims to be travelling to the other side because of her inability to deal with the loss of her parents. As he states during the interview: “Dear little Ashneon must confront her loss and move on. Denial is a condition that this unfortunate young woman knows only too well. […] Unfortunately, the world cannot wait for either her salvation or its own. We Oracles have to weigh the needs of the many against those of any one individual” (126). What is more, Obed brings Dr Foxon Arber, a psychiatrist, to support him in his defamation of Ashneon. The doctor has invented a condition called White Light Deprivation or WLD, from which Ashneon is supposedly suffering after Tomuck’s death. He added that “this condition

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is akin to withdrawal from narcotics, and it results from the sudden loss of a great spiritual leader” (127). Due to constant bullying, the protagonist begins to lack confidence in her skills and power. Her self-​doubt is especially emphasized after she helps Obed’s family connect with his late wife, Dangun Mockko. Ashneon visits her grave to listen what she has to say and makes it possible for the family to listen and see Dangun again. Obed’s daughter thanks Ashneon and praises her powers, while the medicine-​woman-​in-​training questions her position: “Seeing my mother was like a dream, Ashneon, a beautiful dream. Forget those stupid New Light Oracles. You are the truly amazing one! Ashneon closed her eyes and threw her arms around the girl’s shoulders. No, not really, she whispered” (115). Even though Ashneon helps to connect with Obed’s late wife, the New Light members continue to spread lies about her: The Miracle of Yantuck Mountain had thus been reduced to a supermarket tabloid. Foxon spread lies like butter. The irony was that he and his New Light buddies professed to want nothing more than a miracle, and having witnessed a whopper, instantly dismissed it. No bard rejoiced in song, no noble warrior proffered treasure for the glorious deed. Instead, they stoned and mocked the hero like a common criminal, in keeping with western religious tradition. The Indians were not much better. They loved Ashneon for about a minute and a half. Then they went back to denouncing her as delusional. (116)

Although Ashneon has been trained to assume the role of a new Medicine Woman, the binary gender system imposed by settlers prevents her from taking an active role in the hero story. The traditional Western heroic ideal marginalizes Ashneon, who begins to self-​doubt herself. She is considered the “other” because of her gender and extraordinary powers. This prevents her from seeing herself as a potential Indigenous female hero. However, the doubts Ashneon experiences seem to be a part of the journey to discover her potential. She manages to “return to herself ” and accept that her powers are a gift enabling her to help humans and non-​humans alike. She feels a responsibility for the land instead of seeing it as a way to earn money, which she reveals in her final conversation with Obed: Helping ease pain is what medicine people do! Whether it’s the pain of humans, plants, or other entities doesn’t matter. It’s what I was trained for. It is my responsibility. If I know how to help you, it is my duty to do so. Seeing the future, casting spells, contacting the dead, those are just minor magics performed toward the main function. Ask Winay why she chose me. I’m just following her instructions—​something I know you don’t understand just yet—​and to perform the level of medicine I speak of means upholding traditions and obligations, not simply jumping at opportunities. In spite of what Wall Street thinks. (161)

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In the end, the spell cast on Obed inevitably backfires, which leads to some intense mental distress. When Obed recovers and becomes discredited, the New Light becomes interested in other candidates, while Ashneon becomes the Medicine Woman replacing the late Tomuck. Thus, Zobel’s work subverts gender stereotypes and shows an Indigenous woman as a leader whose strength lies in ancestral knowledge. Another point worth mentioning is that Ashneon also blurs the boundaries between life and death. Ashneon dies at the end of the novel, joining her ancestors and relations in the form of stars. According to an “Ancient Yantuck Indian Story,” at the very opening of the book, the original prophets were transformed into stars “that they might shine safely from afar” (3). Ashneon’s transformation reflects on the relational worldview, which understands that change is an ongoing aspect of life. Births and deaths are perceived as transformations rather than a beginning or an ending. In other words, life shifts into either spiritual/​ energetic manifestation or material form in never-​ending cycles. Human beings do not cease to exist in death. Hence, Indigenous people interact with both their ancestors and generations to be born. The more human beings align with the cycles of the natural world, the more knowledge is revealed to them. The problem with Oracles being too close to people is that when people discover the sacred knowledge, they tend to destroy it. So when Ashneon becomes a star, she is told, “We may not pass on all our knowledge to the living, only the way to that knowledge—​which takes longer than any single human life time” (157). In the novel, attention is drawn to the relationship between people and the land, which is understood in terms of intimate kinship. When Ashneon dies, Tomuck tells her: “Medicine People are the same everywhere. We all have the universe as well as our own special place, the one born of fire that reconnects us to that burning universe, the place where we meet our bright beginning and our brilliant end. The only real darkness lies in the in-​between—​and you never were much for the in-​between. Welcome home” (158). As previously explained in section 3.3, the land is home to ancestral spirits, which is why the Yantuck mountain is home to Ashneon’s spirit. In her 1995 book The Lasting of the Mohegans, Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel explains the importance of Indigenous people’s relation to mountains, rocks and plants pointing out that “Every nation has a spirit. The Mohegan Spirit moves and breathes within the very rocks and trees of the Mohegan Homeland in Uncasville, Connecticut” (1995, 44). There is a bond between the land and the mind, hence, the land is perceived as living. This seems to align with Vanessa Watts’ idea of Indigenous Place-​Thought, which implies that there is no separation of mind from matter, while the agency is connected to the spirit that exists in all things (see section 3.1 of this book).

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In this context, it is worth mentioning that the Indigenous definition of life is much broader than that of the dominant scientific paradigm. For Indigenous people, life is whatever is imbued with spirit, i.e. whatever vibrates with energy. Hence, mountains, waters, the Earth and entities are perceived as “beinghood,” whereas mainstream thinking reduces things to lifeless objects. Posthumanism seems to have been inspired by Indigenous thought and postulates a deconstruction of separation between the categories of life and death, instead of seeing it as a strict dichotomy, these are conceived as intra-​acting processes. Both Transhumanism and Posthumanism endorse this conception, yet, in varied forms. Certain transhumanists, for example, hold an interest in cryonics, which is the means of maintaining the body of a person who has just died at a low temperature so that they could be restored to health in the future due to scientific advances. Thus, “death” is viewed as a process of dying rather than a final act. Robert Ettinger (1918–​2011), who is often referred to as the father of cryonics, observed in his seminal work The Prospect of Immortality (1962): “Death is not absolute and final, but a matter of degree and reversible” (Ettinger [1962] 2016, 78). Posthumanism comes to similar conclusions yet, using a different approach. The passage between life and death, which coexist, has been depicted through the metaphor of being compost. For instance, the cells in the human body are continually dying and regenerating. In a similar manner, the daily compost of vegetable remnants decomposes and turns into organic humus (or simply rich soil). These examples underline that the human and the soil are inextricably tied, which embraces the idea of posthuman compost. We have deconstructed a fixed notion of death from a transhumanist and posthumanist perspective; it is now time to address the notion of life. Like Zainab Amadahy and Rebecca Roanhorse, Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel presents in her novel non-​humans as a living, active agent, challenging the perception of life and nonlife.

5.2.2 Human and more-​than-​human interconnections in Oracles In Oracles, Zobel not only reflects on the issue of destruction of the land by colonizers but also presents the relationship between Indigenous people (their identity) and the non-​human environment in ways that stress interdependence and peoplehood cannot be separated from an enmeshment with the place. Ashneon lives with medicine people on Yantuck Mountain, centred on the sacred land of Yantucks. It is also a place where the Yantuck Museum is located, founded and run by Winay and Tomuck. The Mohegan writer gives comprehensive descriptions of the mountain, which provides the possibility for Yantuck being and becoming rather than creating a space over which Indigenous political autonomy

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is exerted. The Yantucks do not exercise political control over the mountain area so much as they participate in a process in which the mountain and the non-​humans inhabiting this region lay the foundation for continued Yantuck becoming. Thus, the mountain can be described in Clint Carroll’s words as an Indigenous “sovereign landscape” (2015, 173). In this sense, sovereignty can be understood as the relations and reciprocities that constitute these people and the collective presence through this place. Tomuck says to the visitors of the Yantuck Museum that “The Natives who have always lived here live here still,” he continues, “Our people have lived here forever,” and then explains, “It is our duty to care and provide for the trees, not vice-​versa. They are our ancestors. They were here long before us and will remain long after we are gone” (Zobel 2004, 52–​53,  57). While the mountain seems to shape Indigenous people, the description of the trees in Oracles as “ancestors” further implies an ongoing genealogy of interconnections, participating within an active matrix of reciprocity and relation. This interwovenness appears quite graphically in the images of the blending of the forest with the Yantuck Museum. While speaking with Tomuck about her work with an anthropologist trying to document Yantuck history, Ashneon asks, “Is it my imagination or is this museum not really a museum at all? Sometimes, it seems just like an extension of the woods” (67), realizing later in the conversation, “I think somehow I always knew that the museum and the woods were the same and that these woods hold all that we are as Yantuck people. I also knew that when they go, we go, too” (71). The novel’s depiction of the Yantuck Museum emphasizes the lack of distinction between Yantuck identity and the “the woods,” indicating that the archive of Yantuck nationhood lies in the enmeshments through which the mountain continually makes possible the everyday existence of Yantuck people. The forest holds Yantuck collective being, less as a historical artifact preserved in a case than as the enframing potential for materializing Yantuck future. The Yantuck People and the mountain together form what Marisol de la Cadena has called “a socionatural collective” (2015, 43). Describing Andean modes of Indigenous peoplehood in ways that resonate with Zobel’s vision, de la Cadena notes, “[P]ersons are not from a place; they are the place that relationally emerges through them,” further suggesting that “they are together and as such are a place” (102). In her conversation with Obed, Ashneon encourages him to think about the human body as intermeshed with the more-​than-​human world and inseparable from the environment: “Remember you are a part of this Mountain, you have never really left it, ever. And you will never leave it when you die, either. All the beings that ever lived here live here still, just as surely as the chosen live

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among the stars” (Zobel 2004, 145). The Medicine Woman then makes comparisons between the earth and human body so as to help Obed feel embedded in the environment: “The earth has veins, filled with life-​giving water. Our bodies have veins filled with blood. Feel the blood rushing through your veins. Feel its journey in and out of your heart. Now connect with the Mountain and feel the water in her veins. Feel it rushing, rushing, moving you along its stream” (145). Ashneon further points to the concept of kinship that appears as “an active network of connections, a process of continual acknowledgements and enactment” (Justice 2018, 42). As Ashneon emphasizes, “nature and natural people are linked. Like you and the trees” (Zobel 2004, 145). Such kinship is rooted in obligations to the diverse networks of relations and relationships: “As you can see, this mountain is home to real woodlands, just about the last around. Our people have lived here forever. Many of the trees here are marked, so you can remember their names. Get to know them. Learn what they are used for. Once you do, you will wish to protect them. Each tree has special talents and gifts, just like each of you” (145). It is also noteworthy that trees are represented as lively and vibrant, which resonates with the views of such material ecocritics as Serenella Iovino and Serpill Oppermann, who believe that “the world’s material phenomenon are knots in a vast network of agencies, which can be ‘read’ and interpreted as forming narratives, stories” (2014, 1). In his 2018 book, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, Daniel Heath Justice (Cherokee) discusses kinship as a complex, multidimensional concept, both an act of imagination and a lived experience. Kinship includes non-​biological cultural and community connections, spiritual bonds, as well as political and ceremonial practices that bring people into meaningful relationships. The scholar discusses “kinship” as the concept beyond the superficial idea of human relatedness, connection or biological inheritance. In contrast, Sarah Franklin and Susan McKinnon acknowledge that anthropology is committed to the study of kinship as it helps to understand how human communities are organized and how they interact, while it has also been a “contested analytic concept.” In this view, kinship can be understood as a biological relationship and genetic inheritance, with its various concepts of identity transmitted through ideas of race and DNA. As Justice points out, this kind of kinship is often heteronormative, patriarchal, and assumes narrow limits of belonging, where only certain types of relatedness are considered legitimate or permissible (2018, 74). Daniel H. Justice’s concept of kinship as constitutive relationships which blur the boundaries of belonging aligns with Donna Haraway’s observation that kin “is a wild category that all sorts of people do their best to domesticate. Making kin as oddkin rather than, or at least in addition to, godkin and genealogical

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and biogenetic family troubles important matters, like to whom one is actually responsible.” The scholar intends to “make kin” outside of normative familial (or species-​bound) structures by stating “My purpose is to make ‘kin’ mean something other/​more than entities tied by ancestry or genealogy” (Haraway 2016, 161). Ancestors turn out to be very interesting strangers; kin is unfamiliar (outside what we thought was family or gens), uncanny, haunting, and active. Zobel’s novel also emphasizes the importance of practising care towards more-​than-​humans. In describing the audience for Obed’s performance during Tomuck’s funeral, broadcast over the multisensory wireless network called “the cy,” one of the characters observes, All [N]atives from somewhere, but all abandoning their unique traditions for a generic path absent of accountability to any nagging grandmother, demanding uncle, or judgmental spirit lurking atop an ancestral mountain. It was so much easier to visit other people’s mountains, where the spirits overlook you (89).

To be “[N]atives from somewhere” means possessing “unique traditions,” i.e. practices that originate from and are maintained owing to the history of a particular place, the reciprocities and enmeshments in a given location. To be “accountable” to those sets of relations involves attending to debts and responsibilities that one holds to a range of beings, including mountains, kin, and other-​than-​human entities. Rather than acting generically as stewards to the non-​human entities that happen to surround them, Yantuck persons continually (re)emerge as such through their ongoing located engagement with the various beings on which their continued existence as Yantuck depends. The practice of care is more likely to be extended to the more-​than-​human world when the boundaries of kinship are open. In her Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa asserts that the definition of care should be broadened to the non-​humans in today’s ethics wherein care is still identified “with matters pertaining to the ‘private’ life of humans as individuals” (2017, 139). Keeping with Joan Tronto’s definition as a point of reference, the scholar provides such a definition of care: Care is everything that is done (rather than everything that ‘we’ do) to maintain, continue, and re-​pair ‘the world’ so that all (rather than ‘we’) can live in it as well as possible. That world includes… all that we seek to interweave in a complex, life-​sustaining web (modified from Tronto 1993, 103) (Bellacasa 2017, 161).

Since care is considered indispensable for the coexistence alongside the non-​ human, it is also never self-​evidently given and always in threat. These ideas are very much in line with various Indigenous kinship practices and the literature that considers them, where the spectrum of relatives to whom we are responsible

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reaches far beyond the human and our biological relatives. In her book All Our Relations:  Native Struggles for Land and Life, the environmental activist and Ojibway writer Winona LaDuke emphasizes the significance and range of this dependence and respectful care: Native American teachings describe the relations all around –​animals, fish, trees, and rocks -​as our brothers, sisters, uncles, and grandpas. Our relations to each other, our prayers whispered across generations to our relatives, are what bind our cultures together. The protection, teachings, and gifts of our relatives have for generations preserved our families. These relations are honoured in ceremony, song, story, and life that keep relations close –​to buffalo, sturgeon, salmon, turtles, bears, wolves, and panthers. These are our older relatives –​the ones who came before and taught us how to live. Their obliteration by dams, guns, and bounties is an immense loss to Native families and cultures. Their absence may mean that a people sing to a barren river that which remains and the struggle to recover that characterizes much of Native environmentalism. It is these relationships that industrialism seeks to disrupt. Native communities will resist with great determination. (LaDuke 2017, 2)

That dual challenge—​“the struggle to preserve that which remains and the struggle to recover”—​is central to the work of Indigenous writers and storykeepers, too. It is these relationships and their accompanying obligations that distinguish the ways of the industrialized, commodifying, degrading consumer culture from those that affirm the intrinsic significance of all beings with whom we share this world, and of those elder relations to whom we owe so very much. Zobel’s novel exercises a duty of care to tribal stories, which in turn steward tribal ecologies and tribal relations. Consistently connecting her Yantuck characters not only to earth but also to the oceans, the skies, and to human communities across the globe, the novel has what Ursula Heise calls a “sense of place” and “sense of planet” (2008, 21). The story of the Yantuck is accompanied by short chapters telling ancient stories:  a Yantuck creation story about the creation of the first trees and people; a Greek story about people’s eventual turning away from the trees and birds that are oracles; an Irish story about a giant named Finn McCool; and an ancient Mali story about “little blue beings” who offer deep knowledge that they “were instructed not to share with outsiders, until they were ready for such knowledge” (Zobel 2004, 85). All of these stories have affinities with the characters in the main plot line. In this way, the story represents what scholar Ursula Heise might call Zobel’s “sustained attempt to develop a narrative architecture that might be able to accommodate a view of global systems announcing along with local stories... to address both global ecological risk and global environmental connectedness” (2008, 208). They go, perhaps, even further: in reaching toward the stars (“earthly beings,” we are told, “of great wisdom” who

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have been disguised for their own protection) and in her ability to communicate with the dead, Ashneon participates in cultural narratives and cultural practices that are at the heart of tribal sustainability. In this ethos, intergenerational responsibility is not just about people, not even primarily about people—​it is about the planet itself and the intricate human and more-​than-​human systems on it, around it, and even beyond it. Laguna Pueblo writer Leslie Marmon Silko discusses the impact of this more-​ than-​human generosity on human empathy, imagination, and kinship: The people found the opening into the Fifth World too small to allow them or any of the small animals to escape. They had sent a fly through the small hole to tell them if it was the world the Mother Creator had promised. It was, but there was the problem of getting out. The antelope tried to butt the opening to enlarge it, but the antelope enlarged it only a little. It was necessary for the badger with her long claws to assist the antelope, and at last the opening was enlarged enough so that all the people and animals were able to emerge up into the Fifth World. The human beings could have not emerged without the aid and charity of the animals. Only through the interdependence could the human beings survive. Families belonged to clans, and it was by clan that the human being joined with the animal and plant world. Life on the high, arid plateau became viable when the human beings were able to imagine themselves as sisters and brothers to the badger, antelope, clay, yucca, and sun. Not until they could find a viable relationship to the terrain -​the physical landscape they found themselves in -​could they emerge. Only at the moment that the requisite balance between human and other was realized could the Pueblo people become a culture, a distinct group whose population and survival remained stable despite the vicissitudes of the climate and terrain. (1998, 15)

Stories like this are prevalent in every Indigenous story tradition, though they differ in the details across cultures. Indigenous people learn to be human from the land and other-​than-​human relatives, and our humanity is enhanced and enriched by actively and imaginatively engaging them again and again in a respectful relationship. Daniel Heath Justice reads Indigenous literatures through what he has referred to as “kinship criticism” in his essay, “Go Away, Water” (2008, 147). The scholar elaborates on the way Indigenous works inform the practice of kinship, how it makes us better relatives, and how it helps us understand our obligations to the various networks of relationships with which Indigenous literature is engaged. Indigenous writers articulate kinship in different ways, foregrounding different engagements, with some emphasizing biology and others with more expansive conceptions of kinship. The novel conveys the sense of the relationships that determine who we are; it reminds us of responsibilities, our rights and duties, and the consequences of our actions; it tells what happens when those

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relationships are broken. Stories make us understand that others have identities, loves, fears, desires, and feelings, and that one’s actions can either enrich or diminish their lives; stories remind us that we matter to the world, but humans are not the centre of the universe.

5.2.3 Reading objects: The significance of Indigenous knowledge In Oracles, Zobel draws attention to the importance of Indigenous knowledge that emerges from sustained interaction with the ecosystem. In the beginning of the story, Ashneon is working with Peter, a non-​Native college professor, on recording the tribe’s medicine traditions. Peter suggests that Ashneon’s family should let her focus on books in order to succeed in academia. However, with time she begins to discover new “old” forms of knowledge and understand that the knowledge offered in the books is limited. The knowledge comes from the land and objects: “[T]he museum was really just woods in disguise,” a place that welcomes mice, spiders and birdsong, and whose largely wooden objects, like the oracle trees of the book’s first ancient story, speak to the young Medicine Woman:“[…] Now I read objects and they speak volumes. Each artifact’s story holds multiple layers. Books are so primitive” (Zobel 2004, 97). What is more, Ashneon attempts to convince her friend that medicine cannot be found in books as well. Instead, she claims that “medicine comes from the earth and sky alone. Mother Earth is the first and only true teacher, the source of real knowledge.” The Medicine Woman-​in-​training believes that journal articles cannot capture the lessons that her uncle Tomuck Weekum gave her or the lessons of “even one object at this museum” (97). Thus, Zobel contrasts Western and Native conceptions of knowledge in her novel. As mentioned in section 3.5.2, Western philosophers’ knowledge is of propositional type, which means it can be written down and transmitted in the form of books. In contrast, Indigenous knowledge is lived and embodied, which means it arises from human experience, actions and observations. Native science is also procedural, which involves a way of knowing how to do something. Another point worth mentioning is that Zobel’s ambivalence about the book suggests the vexed place of written literature in Mohegan cultural and ecological sustainability. Books, after all, are made from trees, and historically, the pulp and paper industry has been an environmentally devastating force in New England, particularly on tribal lands. Zobel is not explicit about presenting the connection between books and environmental and cultural destruction. But she and other Mohegan writers retain a healthy scepticism that books are permanent and literature can “save the planet.” They see books, instead, as biocultural resources,

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dependent on much vaster ecosystems, sometimes contributing to the health of those systems, sometimes implicated in harming them. While prose and poetry in Western literature tend to depict rocks as an inert backdrop to human actions, Zobel depicts matter, including stones, a museum, woods, as possessing self-​organization, being alive, vibrant as well as a source of knowledge. Ashneon describes rocks in the following lines: “These stones are what remains of the ancient past. […] They truly know how to survive. […] Some are a few hundred years old, others tens of thousands. […] These stones know that time is a brobdingnagian sea to be swum only by those who do not crave the safety of any shore […] A journey through time is at once the most challenging and worthiest of adventures” (36). Such depiction of matter results from the Native American worldview, where land is considered an extension of the body, thus, perceived as living. What is more, the concept of matter as vibrant and living aligns with the ideas expressed by the researchers in new materialism, including Jane Bennet and Diana Coole. Additionally, the rocks in the novel internalize a transformational force and Elizabeth Grosz’s philosophy of “nature as becoming,” which means that they constantly develop. Similarly to Roanhorse’s fiction, Zobel’s novel encourages us to think beyond the human-​centric timescale through her description of rocks. Throughout Zobel’s story, Ashneon continues to mutter a limerick looking at the eye of a stone she carries with her: There once was a stone with an eye Through which all chosen spirits could spy Without effort or task It could rip any mask Be it ruse, trick, deception, or lie. (117–​118)

This limerick points to the importance of “seeing” in gaining knowledge. As was mentioned in section 3.2, seeing is the basis of Native American logic; it allows us to understand life, the environment, and the universe. The “Indian Thinking” is “seeing” things while bearing in mind that circles are central to the world and thus knowing that everything is interconnection. Seeing means attempting to understand the relationship between things through observation. In the novel, Medicine Man Tomuck emphasizes the importance of seeing when he tells Ashneon: “Observe. Concentrate. Remember. […] Study the in-​ betweens. […] the images caught in the corner of the eye; pull off the mask –​uncover the real medicine” (118). The idea of seeing and thus reading and understanding objects seems to have inspired the notion of situated knowledges developed by Haraway via a

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metaphor of vision. The vision that Haraway suggests is embodied, partial, and accountable for what one sees and how one organizes what one sees. One needs to learn seeing “technically, socially, and psychically” (1988, 583). Eyes are not passive instruments of seeing, they are actively organizing the world: “ways of seeing” are “ways of life” (583). Subjectivity and vision are both multidimensional, partial, split, heterogeneous, incomplete, “complex, contradictory,” and able to enact only “partial connections” (586). Situated knowledges are not only active instruments that produce knowledge, they are also “the apparatus of bodily production” (595), which links to a discussion on how vision is productive of bodies-​meaning. As Haraway states:  “[B]odies as objects of knowledge are material-​semiotic nodes. Their boundaries materialize in social interaction. Bodies that matter are therefore produced as a consequence of mapping practices”; the boundaries that limit them are tentative, volatile, and incomplete, always open for displacement from within (596). In the novel, Ashneon further emphasizes the importance of seeing by confronting Peter, the non-​Indigenous scientist, and his Western conception of knowledge. She asks him to hold a turtle shell, which now serves as a rattle, found in a museum and tell her what he knows about it: “Let’s see how well your hands can read.” Peter recalls what he has found in the archive: “it is probably seventeenth-​century, a box turtle, cedar handle. I think there may even be some rare Munsee Wolf beans inside. It must have been used in an important ceremony” (Zobel 2004, 95). Then, Ashneon grasps the rattle and having focused her mental muscles, she tells the story that she can read from the object: I am Noquay of the time when our people saw little of white men. This turtle was an old one even then. […] In life, few things drove him to the safety of his shell. He had little fear because his memory held the past and future at all times. […] (96)

After reading the story of a rattle that tells about the turtle, Ashneon concludes that it is the reality she almost missed by thinking knowledge came from books. As discussed in section 3.5, in the linear world of academia, printed documents are considered more important than a retold verbal account. In the novel, Peter appears to be a linear thinker, who relies on archival documents to write history, which is a measurement of the past. In contrast, for Ashneon and Indigenous people in general history can be described as an “experience.” Thus, Ashneon represents an Indigenous “scientist” who is trained in ceremonial protocols, the use of sacred medicine as well as songs, dances and stories. She is a participant in the research, influencing and being influenced, creating questions and processing the response so that they can finally share the information with their community. The Indigenous scientist does not interfere in the cycles, rhythms

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and other natural processes. This is because the balance of relationships that generate life is respected and valued.

5.2.4 Capitalism, Indigenous knowledge and identity While Zobel reflects on the self-​determination of the Yantuck as ontologically connected to the complex matrix of enmeshments, the storyteller also draws attention to the disjunctions among Indigenous people as far as their sense of collective identity is concerned. Ashneon and her family have developed their sense of self in relation to place—​the Yantuck Mountain, which remained to be perceived by some as “the true centre of the universe” (4). However, with the development of capitalism, Indigenous people have been embracing the capitalist lifestyle in order to survive or make huge sums of money. For most Yantuck Indians in the novel, it is Big Rock Casino down in Fire Hollow that gives them the sense of self. Subsequently, the casino has become a symbol of greed, capitalist forces and “the apex” of the reservation (4). The survival of the forests on the Yantuck Mountain cannot be attributed to the Yantuck Indian Tribe. As it is explained in the novel, the forest “remained on their mountain not because the Indians had succeeded in protecting the natural world, but because they had failed at becoming good corporate Americans” (51). The Yantuck Indian Tribe, officially recognized by the settler-​state, does not protect the environment, instead, tribal people seek to achieve “corporate” success and fail in their attempts. Ashneon’s great-​uncle Tomuck notices that many Yantucks “figured being Indian was outdated. Claimed they were going to have an American democracy and vote on everything” (21–​22). Although the casino may provide access to funds that could promote Yantuck sovereignty, such as the raise of tribal members’ stipends, these potential resources depend on the support maintained by non-​Native sources of capital. Indigenous people turn away from the mountain as the source of Yantuck being, which allows them to be acknowledged by Americans and as Americans. Tribal identity, thus, becomes established by settler principles. The (re)definition of Indigenous collective practice and identity through the establishment of tribal sovereignty through the casino as well as imitating non-​Indigenous people, including the “American” political and economic systems, diverts attention from the real roots of Yantuck peoplehood. Therefore, Oracles elaborates on the politics of seeking recognition, i.e. striving to have Indigeneity determined as such by the non-​Native state11. 11 The Mohegans had a complicated history as far as government recognition is concerned. Since they did not hold any treaties with the federal government, they ceased to

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Zobel describes the role of the casino and its impact on the Yantuck Indian Tribe in the context of the documents produced by the tribal administration. While still enrolled in the college, Ashneon collaborates with an anthropologist named Peter, who studies the Yantuck, and the two of them organize their growing “research pile” by “dividing all tribal records into BC, DC, and AC—​ before, during and after the Tribe’s casino” (Zobel 2004, 36). With regard to the documented history of the tribe, the establishment of the casino in the novel is ironically compared to the birth of Jesus Christ, marking the transition to tribal time in ways that emphasize the salvational potential associated with the casino. As a result of New Light’s fascination with the Yantucks and their mysticism, the documents in the tribal archive are put in order, which entails that the papers themselves have much meaning only to the non-​Natives and hold no value to the Yantucks. The Medicine Man contends that “maybe it’s time you started paying less attention to saving what’s written on paper and more attention to saving the source of that paper” (71). Thus, for the Elders, the sense of self is defined in terms of relations to place, in this case, the trees on the Yantuck Mountain. Tribal politics ordered around non-​Native patterns of acknowledgement does not include the ongoing networks of situated reciprocity, which can be seen as the foundations of Indigeneity. In his book, Fictions of Land and Flesh (2019), Mark Rifkin points out that in comparison to the interdependence that forms the Yantuck identity in its relation to the mountain, non-​Native interest in Native people revels an extractive relation to Indigenous knowledge and identity. Zobel’s novel illustrates this point by showing how Indianness acts as a way to promote non-​Native modes of becoming. After casino’s shutdown, no one cared about the Indian dregs who survived on Yantuck Mountain. Like all New England tribes, the Yantuck lacked silver jewellery, painted ponies, and grazing buffalo. They did not even have tipis and their pow wows sucked. They had fought the white man for so long, most of them were too beat-​up to do anything but whine. The Yantuck were simply not tourist-​ready (2004, 14).

Performing Indianness means imitating key features and essential characteristics of a mythic Indian. This requires representing modes of culture that are understandable to non-​Native people. In this way, Native Americans and their ways of living are reduced to fetishized objects. Native populations of New England

be formally recognized by the state of Connecticut by 1872, and were not re-​recognized by the federal government until 1994. (see Mandell 2010)

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have been considered to be disappearing since the 18th century, thus, they were often perceived as “dregs” or remnants (see Den Ouden 2005; Justice 2008; O’Brien 2010). By illustrating non-​Native interest in Indian history and culture, Zobel raises concerns about the misrecognition of Indigenous people, the extraction of their lands, and initiatives meant to civilize them and stifle their culture as well as sense of self. In Edouard Glissant’s terms, non-​Natives wish Indigeneity to be “transparent” to them, so that they can “relate it to [their] norm” in ways that allow for “comparisons” (Glissant 2010, 189–​90). Then, Indian culture is viewed as a resource to be used, but in ways that “respect Indigenous rights as a class of political rights that flow out of Indigenous nationhood” (Turner 2006, 57). Thus, recognizing Indigenous people as possessing traditional knowledge and taking care of the land encourages their exploitation. The casino in the novel seems to have been modelled on one of the biggest casinos in the United States owned by the Mohegan tribe, i.e. the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. The use of sovereign rights by Indigenous people to run such enterprises under the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act has led to racism against Indigenous people in New England. Renée Ann Cramer, an expert on federal recognition and critical race theory, describes a similar case of the neighbouring casino, Foxwoods Resort Casino, managed by the Mashantucket Pequot tribe, the establishment of which elicited controversy and resulted in their identity as Indians being subjected to constant assaults (Cramer 2005, 137). The emergence of the racist stereotype of the casino-​rich Indian was fuelled by casino success and has had an increasingly negative effect on national views toward federal recognition (cf. Porter 2007). As Cramer argues, Native peoples have been accused of not being real Indians and are hence undeserving of the U.S. government’s acknowledgement (2006, 326). In his 2013 paper “Issues of Sovereignty in Indian Country,” J. Kehaulani Kauanui refers to this situation as “the Connecticut effect” (6). This type of anti-​Indian discrimination involves environmental racism as well: settlers, including environmentalists, have claimed that Native people have relinquished any rights to environmental stewardship. Such activists should take into consideration the fact that Indigenous people might receive the benefits but also pay the long-​term costs of such enterprises or that other economic development opportunities may not be offered to them and, in some sense, cornered into managing gaming enterprises. The Mohegans invested some casino revenues in education, including the literary history, and elder housing. For instance, the tribe spends the casino profits on books, including Makiawisug: The Gift of the Little People, which was written by Zobel with Joseph Burac (Senier 2020, 195). Some of these internal debates were discussed by Zobel in her essay, “The

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Accomac Business Model,” where “Accomac” means “the long view from across the water.” She writes: As someone who truly lives and works in the middle of a tribal world, I often see hostility between the proponents of cultural and business interests. That situation exists not because both sides necessarily have different goals, but because many Natives equate good business with the values of the Non-​Indian world. That means that many traditionally-​minded folks feel compelled to oppose tribal business development, because they sense that it is eroding tribal culture. I work in my tribe’s cultural department, so I sometimes hear culture-​advocates saying that they wish our business would go under, so tribal people can focus wholly on culture. This sort of attitude makes business-​ minded Natives defensive. They do not see how they can successfully promote tribal economic enterprises and participate in cultural activities, without exposing themselves to ridicule. Their discomfort often triggers a knee-​jerk reaction, in which they defend non-​Native business practices and values, rather than separating good economics from tag-​along values which are anathema to their own. (Zobel 2009)

As mentioned earlier in section 1.6.1, despite the fact that many Indigenous people have maintained an anti-​capitalist value system, many Indigenous people have been embracing a capitalist lifestyle in order to survive. At the same time, the novel depicts this process and, thus, departs from the representation of Native Americans as “Ecological Indians.” What is more, the novel reflects on different ways colonial culture denigrates Indigenous knowledge. People from other cultures continue to patent and sell Indigenous wisdom for profit. Numerous White “healers” and New Agers holding dangerous and expensive ceremonies are a case at this point. It is also illustrated in the novel after Ashneon is chosen the Medicine Woman, “hundreds of Obed’s kind had flooded the audience. Indian cotton jackets, bold and bright Andean medicine bags, southwestern desert spirit-​charm animals, African trade beads, Tibetan jewellery. An exotic fruit salad of world spirituality, all secreting potent oils that made sneezing around them unavoidable” (Zobel 2004, 89). The Mohegan writer also draws attention to the problem of ethnobotanical knowledge having been particularly vulnerable to theft under settler colonialism—​today in the form of biopiracy and historically in the form of ethnography. Anishinaabe historian Wendy Geniusz, who calls for “decolonizing botanical teachings,” has conducted a careful survey of tribal knowledge published at the turn of the last century by the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE)—​an institution she calls “an integral part of the mechanisms that supported the colonizing structures in North America” (2009, 22). Geniusz shows how ethnographers primitivized this knowledge: describing it as “pre-​literate,” masking or discrediting the expertise of Native consultants; and coercing, misrepresenting or decontextualizing

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Indigenous knowledge—​for instance, by publishing wordlists, which she finds antithetical to Indigenous knowledge-​keeping systems (19). To conclude, rather than propagating the vision of the human as the only rational thing, a vision that contributed to the ecological crisis, M. T. Zobel’s Oracles explores the connection between Indigenous people and the non-​human environment in ways that emphasize interdependence. In contrast to many traditional literary depictions of rocks, they are represented as active, living agents which communicate in a material way. Zobel’s and Roanhorse’s novels challenge us to think beyond oppressive, normative structures and histories. The stories offer new settings in which Indigenous women are the heroes, and Native knowledge is a sacred assertion of power and perseverance.

Chapter 6. Biopolitical futures: Indigenous bodies, Native American DNA and making kin in the Anthropocene Contemporary scientific and technological practices perceive flesh as “raw” material and “industrialized commodity” subject to circulation, experimentation, and transformation. Globalization and biomedical research develop a commercial language of supply and demand which describes human flesh in terms of reusable parts that supply the growing market for human organs, tissue, cells, eggs, and sperm. Biotechnology and genetic engineering modify bodies and species boundaries at a genetic level, while in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene splicing are used to create new bodies. Industries such as cryonics, transplantation, biological harvesting practices, surrogacy services, and clinical labour often develop projects of bioeconomic innovation, where organic and manufactured beings merge. Market and capital are increasingly interested in a biological capacity of a body, including the production of blood, bone marrow, and organs, rather than labour-​power, which demonstrates the capacities of a human. Professor of Science Fiction Media Studies, Sherryl Vint, describes these new biotechnological entities, including GMO animals developed research tools, as “the ongoing real subsumption of life by capital” (2021, 5), which is not only embodied in these products of biotechnology. Thus, it is not merely governance itself that has become interested in the living body, as Michel Foucault demonstrates, but specifically a kind of governance that prioritizes economic metrics. In The History of Sexuality, Foucault notes that “This bio-​power was without question an indispensable element in the development of capitalism; the latter would not have been possible without the controlled insertion of bodies into the machinery of production and the adjustment of the phenomena of population to economic processes” (1990, 141). Commodified life forms exemplify a biotechnological practice based on the human/​animal boundary and applied under neoliberal biopolitics. Although slavery and the sale of human body parts is legally prohibited by Western liberal democracies, there are a variety of ways that bodies are nonetheless for sale. Genetic interventions into tissues and organisms by biotechnology are increasingly oriented toward making them more profitable. Practices of farming shape genetically modified plants and animals to produce desired products, such as enzymes or other biopharmaceuticals. Rosi Braidotti takes this “post-​naturalistic

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condition” as a starting point for theorizing the posthuman, suggesting that whether this new way of thinking about life “results in playful experimentations with the boundaries of perfectibility of the body, in moral panic about the disruption of centuries old beliefs about human.” It is visible in contemporary culture and in the texts discussed in this chapter, Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves (2017) and Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God (2017).

6.1 Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves 6.1.1 Advanced capitalism and exhaustion Georgian Bay Métis writer Cherie Dimaline’s 2017 dystopian young adult novel The Marrow Thieves makes visible the continuity between recent sites of extraction of biovalue and a longer history of dehumanizing and dispossessing Indigenous people. The novel foregrounds the way biopolitical discriminations against Indigenous people link commodification via biotechnology to the extractive practices of colonialism and racial capitalism, continued by other means. The exploitation of biovalue interrogated in The Marrow Thieves has specific and important connections to Indigenous people, who have been objectified by colonial perspectives that conflate them with the natural world—​another appropriable resource—​rather than see them as subjects in their own right. Moreover, by refusing to recognize Indigenous people’s ways of knowing and interacting with their life, such colonial appropriations steal not only the bodies of Indigenous peoples but also their entire way of life. Set in the second half of the 21st century in Canada, The Marrow Thieves presents the impact of advanced capitalism on humans and non-​humans alike. The novel imagines a world in which capitalist exploitation has led to global ecological destruction and killed millions of people around the world. The devastating effects of capitalism on the environment are discussed in the passage below: The EARTH was broken. […] A melting North meant the water levels rose and the weather changed. It changed to violence in some cases, building tsunamis, spinning tornados, crumbling earthquakes, and the shapes of countries were changed forever, whole coasts breaking off like crusts. And all those pipelines in the ground? They snapped like icicles and spewed bile over forests, into lakes, drowning whole reserves and towns. (Dimaline 2017, 87–​88)

The White survivors of ecological catastrophe suffer from severe mental illnesses, including anxiety and the loss of the ability to dream. The novel seems to reflect on this posthuman condition as described by Rosi Braidotti in Posthuman Knowledge (2019), where “we,” the heirs of Western post-​modernity, are

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exhausted, while “they,” the technological artefacts we have created, are more alive than ever. Moments of euphoria at the technological innovations that “we” have produced are alternated with moments of anxiety about the negative impacts of these transformations on both humans and non-​humans. The constant stress caused by fluctuations between euphoria and apprehension leaves us in a state of exhaustion, which has been demonstrated by statistics concerning depression, burn-​out and anxiety disorders. Feeling emotionally and physically drained, overworked and unable to cope are all-​too-​familiar conditions in our fast-​moving, cynically competitive world. The novel presents the embodied subject as a subject whose body and mind are not separated. The body is the foundation of subjectivity, in other words, the subject is grounded in its bodily materiality. The type of embodiment is then conditioned by the type of body materiality one happens to have. Elizabeth Grosz makes this very clear when stressing that the single sex assigned to the human body “(…) makes a great deal of difference to the kind of social subject, and (…) the mode of corporeality assigned to the subject” (1995, 84). Certainly, it makes a difference in which socio-​historical and spatio-​temporal settings one’s body is embedded. As the subject is an embodied one, forces, beliefs, identifications “tattooed on bodies” simultaneously become “constitutive of embodied subjectivities” (Braidotti 2002, 160). The body can be, thus, described as a “play of forces,” on which certain “ideological beliefs” are reflected, which is impacted by social forces, relations, beliefs, identifications and discursive practices. The embodied human subject does not exist beyond those forces, practices or beliefs but finds itself in constant interactions and negotiations with them. As Braidotti explains, this system is demanding and exhausting in that it strives for a goal that is intrinsically contradictory (2019, 15). On the one hand, the technologically integrated society works within the economy functioning 24 hours a day; on the other hand, the society functions through a public discourse of self-​care, and so it necessitates a strong, self-​regulating labour reserve. The inability to obtain adequate sleep is at the heart of tension:  avoiding exhaustion resulting from the never-​ending quest for production, consumption, and perpetual digital connectivity. Subsequently, the population has become dysfunctional and devoid of the restorative power of sleep, “too tired to even sleep properly” (16). Sleep and mindfulness are considered to be essential for improved professional performance and appear to be important topics in management and media. This strategy is often supplemented with the widespread use of medication treating insomnia and anxiety. As a result, chemicals improving mood allow capitalism to thrive.

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The above-​mentioned strategy seems to be reflected in Cherie Dimaline’s novel, The Marrow Thieves, in which White scientists develop and sell an innovative method of dealing with their insomnia and subsequent mental illnesses. They extract the DNA from the bone marrow of Indigenous people, who have maintained the ability to dream so that White people can restore their capacity to dream. The new hospitals established to confine Indigenous people are modelled after residential schools, which were notoriously abusing Indigenous peoples and their cultures in the past. In such detention centres, the members of White society keep Indigenous people and forcefully collect their bone marrow, which results in their death. All Indigenous protagonists in the book have lost their family members, and they run into the northern forests, hiding from the so-​called “Recruiters,” i.e. the members of the Department of Oneirology, which is a government agency seeking to gain their marrow. The story is told from the perspective of different characters. They all stem from various Indigenous nations and are led by Miigwans, an Anishinaabe man. One of them is Frenchie, a young Métis boy who has lost his family and runs away together with a group of young Indigenous fugitives. Kinship relations are an explicit target of attack as well. As a Colorado born citizen of the Cherokee Nation, Daniel Heath Justice underscores in Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, that one of the fundamental purposes of residential schools was to “dismantle Indigenous resistance through a direct, sustained attack on families and the full network of relations and practices that enabled health and self-​determination” (2018, 85). Marrow-​stealing schools function in similar ways: every member of the group’s connections to family members has been broken by the government’s Recruiters, with devastating results for all of them. Frenchie has first lost his father, then his mother, and last of all his brother; Miig has lost his husband Isaac; Minerva, the elder of the group, was feeding her new grandson when the Recruiters “busted into her home, took the baby, and raped her” (Dimaline 2017, 98). Dimaline shows a connection between this biological commodification of Indigenous bodies and earlier acts of colonial violence. The bodies of Indigenous people are now “commodities,” which are transported to the schools as “cargo,” a term reminiscent of the slave trade (102). As one of the characters points out, White people “don’t think of [Indigenous people] as humans” but as commodities that are denied human status (203). They are treated as imprisoned research subjects whose life essence is put into test tubes labelled by the sample’s origin:  “67541B, 23-​year-​old male, Odawa-​Miqmaq,” “46522Y, 64-​year-​old female, Metis,” and “67781F, 15-​year-​old male, Inuit.” Such categorization echoes a settler-​colonial ideology, which portrays Indigenous culture as a remnant of

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a past era, a collection of objects in museum displays. All people and tribes are now condensed into tubes which will transfer the capacity to dream to non-​ Indigenous consumers. As Sherryl Vint points out, Indigenous people in the novel are treated just as other types of fungible life under its subsumption by capital (2021, 90). Harvesting bone marrow and appropriation of Indigenous dreaming also respond to settler-​colonial attempts at appropriating Indigenous lifeways and ecological knowledge. When settlers discover that Indigenous marrow may solve their health issues, they become open to Indigenous ceremonies. Their interest quickly develops into appropriation and commodification: At first, people turned to Indigenous people the way the New Agers had, all reverence and curiosity, looking for ways we could help guide them. They asked to come to ceremony. […] And then they changed on us, […] looking for ways they could take what we had and administer it themselves. How could they best appropriate the uncanny ability we kept to dream? (Dimaline 2017, 88)

According to Miig, it is a continuation of colonial appropriation. While the land was already taken and exploited, now the West attempts to enter their ceremonies and “take what we had and administer it themselves... [to] make ceremony better, more efficient, more economical?” (88). As Sherryl Vint also notices, Indigenous lifeways, including ceremonies, are seen as another resource that settler colonialism may steal, just similarly to how life is subsumed by engineering plants and animals in order to make them more efficient and profitable (2021, 95). Western science is unable to repair the damages or provide an alternative method of dealing with the problem. Climate crises have shown the importance of the Indigenous ecological knowledge suppressed by settler culture, which now faces an “extinction of its own making.” Although they recognize the value of Indigenous knowledge, Western culture remains to perceive the natural environment and Indigenous bodies as objects of extractable biovalue. The government in the novel privatizes and commodifies the ability to dream and transforms it into a product that can bring profit. Indigenous ways of living are regarded as fundamental to personhood; hence, they form an integral part of Indigenous bodies. The extraction process is a practice that organizes life and treats health as a privatized resource, packaging it in a tube which can be sold on the market. By presenting the injustices Indigenous people suffer and the way they are treated in terms of resources, Dimaline’s fiction draws attention to the fact that we live in the age of a certain idea of the human, one enrolled within colonialism and industrialization. As explained earlier in section 1.5 in the context of Sylvia

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Wynter’s work, the vision of the Western bourgeois man as the only representative of the human category can be considered to be the cause of most social and environmental issues, ranging from climate change to racialized violence. Dimaline’s novel illustrates this relationship between a certain definition of the human with questions of economics. Indigenous people in the novel are exploited just like other natural resources because they do not match this generalized idea of a human, hence, they are perceived as “other.”

6.1.2 Indigenous circular storytelling Instead of presenting the events in a linear progression, Dimaline presents history as a continuum without beginning and end. As discussed earlier in section 3.2 concerning American Indian thinking, Indigenous philosophy is shaped by the principle of circularity. It means that the Indigenous experience of time is related to the seasonal cycles on their lands. Indigenous studies scholar, Laura Maria De Vos, refers to this perception of time as “spiralic temporality,” where the present generations recognize their responsibilities to the ancestors and future generations (2020, 42). Indigenous people, in The Marrow Thieves, lose their land for the second time, this time not only due to dispossession but because of an ecological disaster inflicted by the settlers. One of the characters, an Anishinaabe man named Miig, passes the so-​called “Story,” which presents an account of the events leading to the post-​apocalyptic world: Anishinaabe people, us, lived on these lands for a thousand years. […] We welcomed visitors, who renamed the land Canada. […] We lost a lot. Mostly because we got sick with new germs. And then when we were on our knees with fever and pukes, they decided they liked us there, on our knees. And that’s when they opened the first schools. We almost lost our languages. […] Then, the wars for the water came. […] And where were the freshest lakes and the cleanest rivers? On our lands, of course. Anishinaabe were always the canary in the mine for the rest of them. […] The water wars raged on, moving north seeking our rivers and bays, and eventually, once our homelands were decimated and the water leeched and the people scattered, they moved on to the towns. […] The water Wars lasted ten years before a new set of treaties and agreements were shook on between world leaders in echoing assembly halls. The Anishinaabe were scattered, lonely, and scared. On our knees again, only this time there was no home to regroup at. (Dimaline 2017, 26)

This passage points to the continuum of past and current traumas and it implies connections between the legacies of residential schools, past exploitation, and a post-​apocalyptic future. Dimaline refers to the Residential School system, which, as previously discussed in section 1.6.3, was supposed to separate the children from their families and destroy the transmission of Indigenous stories

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and languages from one generation to the next. By creating centres extracting marrow from Indigenous people in such schools, Dimaline links the violence experienced by Indigenous people at schools to the objectification of Indigenous bodies through the extraction of Native American DNA (see section 1.6.4) What is more, Cherie Dimaline presents the current ecological crisis as a continuation of, rather than a break from, the era of colonialism which extends through advanced capitalism. It echoes Kyle Whyte’s views that: Thinking about climate injustice against Indigenous peoples is less about envisioning a new future and more like the experience of déjà vu. This is because climate injustice is part of a cyclical history situated within the larger struggle of anthropogenic environmental change catalyzed by colonialism, industrialism and capitalism –​not three unfortunately converging courses of history. (2016, 12)

As Miig recounts, indeed, after the advent of climate crisis, the Indigenous people of North America were removed from lands that “were deemed ‘necessary’ to the government, same way they took reserve land during wartime” (Dimaline 2017, 88). The practices of extractive industries still impact Indigenous peoples, destroy their lands and lead to forced displacement. As Dimaline illustrates, a large portion of the population would be relocated in a future devastated by extreme weather occurrences, and the so-​called “uninhabited traditional area” would be reclaimed by the dominant society. Thus, the activities of extractive companies result in human rights violations, such as abuses of Indigenous peoples’ right to lands or the ability to decide one’s own economic, cultural, and social development. Thus, the novel presents a vision of a spiralic transformation of the violence settler colonizers use against Indigenous people. In contrast to traditional linear storytelling, Indigenous circular storytelling does not revolve around a protagonist who propels the narrative forward. Instead, the storyteller is at the same time a listener. The novel does not have a chronological order, but it consists of a number of flashbacks or “coming-​to-​ stories,” in which some characters of the group share the circumstances that led to their separation from their communities by the fireplace. As indicated previously in section 3.5, sharing stories means a collective sharing of experience; this type of storytelling can facilitate the healing process for us and our listeners. Oral traditions connect speaker and listener in communal experience and link past and present in memory. In one of the passages in the story, the writer shifts the narrative perspective from Frenchie to a moose that he is hunting. Thus, Dimaline’s work also re-​envisions human and non-​human binaries though a narrative perspective. One of such stories is the background story of Wab, who is an 18-​ year-​old rape survivor. The rape profoundly debilitates her body to the point that

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she gives up running, having previously depended on her strong legs to survive and earn a living as a messenger. What is more, through these female characters, referred to as “the dissenting voice to the way things are” (32), the novel stresses that bodies can carry indelible marks of violence caused by intersecting forms of oppression: racial, colonial and gender violence, but also the violence of climate shift. In contrast to seeing things in a linear manner, dreams are represented in the novel as crucial to Indian thinking and become part of the decision-​making process of thought. In the novel, the protagonist Frenchie has a dream following his encounter with a moose, whom he considers killing so that his family would have enough food to eat. He notices that the moose represents a (hi)story: “It was like he was a hundred years old, like he had watched all of this happen. Imagine being here through it all –​the wars, the sickness, the earthquakes, the schools –​ only to come to this?” (49). Frenchie decides not to shoot him as he believes that it is unjust to kill this animal as a large portion of its meat would be wasted. Thus, he refuses to act like the government that wastes natural resources. In so doing, he differs from the Recruiters extracting resources from the land and Indigenous peoples in a destructive manner. Following his respectful decision, Frenchie is visited by a moose in his dreams (52). The dream helps him make peace with his choice of not killing an animal that would provide his family with food for a week’s time. Dreams function as a space where the mind deals with ethical decisions. As was mentioned in section 3.5 of this book, in every dream one can find some clues about what people wish to understand, hence, Indigenous people have learned to contemplate on what the subconscious mind suggests. Making a decision involves taking the physical and metaphysical factors into consideration. The novel itself has a thematic spiralic structure, which alludes to Indigenous circular storytelling. In the beginning of the novel, Frenchie and his new composite family run away on foot form the city and residential schools to find a safe place. Having learned from survivors’ stories that colonizers are killing Native people, they go through the snow in the woods with backpacks on. They are heading north as Frenchie’s father had suggested: “North is where the others will head. We’ll spend a season up by the Bay Zone. We’ll hole up in one of those cabins up there and I’ll try to find others. We’ll find a way, Frenchie. And up north is where we’ll find home.” “For sure?” [Frenchie asks, and his dad responds,] “Hell yes, for sure. I know so because we’re going to make a home there. If you make something happen you can count on it being for sure.” (6)

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In the spiral temporality, Indigenous people are able to survive and endure the oppression since they know that earlier generations dealt with the settlers’ violence in the past. In the end, Frenchie finds his father who is part of the Indigenous community up north. Their hope for a better future motivates them and helps them in their current struggle. The epigraph of the novel also points to the circular philosophy:  “For the Grandmothers who gave me strength. /​To the children who give me hope” (1). It places The Marrow Thieves in spiralic temporality and intergenerational relations. It suggests that human beings should perceive themselves as part of a larger story and embedded in a web of relations. We must all think of ourselves as living in a certain timespan and think of the future generations to come. Embracing such an expansive understanding of non-​linear time helps us predict futures and understand the context of ecological disasters. This way of thinking extends beyond human relationships and is based on respect for all the things in the world.

6.1.3 Animals and hunting: Complications to kinship Cherie Dimaline also challenges in her novel simplistic arguments about Indigenous people and their relationship with animals (see section 3.6). On the one hand, the above-​mentioned encounter between Frenchie and the moose in The Marrow Thieves may serve as an example of Frenchie’s respectful attitude towards non-​humans. By choosing not to shoot the animal, the protagonist proves that he does not perceive animals as products embedded within capitalist structures, and he does not value them based on their market value. Thus, Dimaline illustrates what Rosi Braidotti might refer to as “transspecies solidarity” based on our environmental embeddedness (see section 2.8.8). Frenchie does not separate himself from the rest of the animal kingdom. He proves that it is crucial to respect non-​human others and “make kin” outside of normative familial (or species-​bound) structures. Hence, Cherie Dimaline appears to be a writer, who respects older definitions of other-​than-​human kinship, where the boundaries between human and the other-​than-​human are more permeable, and the superiority of the human over the non-​human is not assumed. Cherie Dimaline’s novel and the encounter with the moose it illustrates also draws attention to the change in the attitudes toward meat consumption over the centuries. In the past, as well as for many Northern or rural communities today, meat consumption relied on hunters, farmers or ranchers who lived among and slaughtered the animals themselves, so there was an intimacy in both the living and the dying. This kind of empathy towards an animal is presented by Dimaline in her novel. Frenchie’s story also constitutes some sort of criticism of

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Euro-​Western attitudes towards animals, often perceived as some mobile matter without intellect, intelligence, emotion, language, law, and agency; therefore, available to be abused or killed without any moral consequence. These types of animal–​human relations become more widespread with the emergence of supermarkets, factory farming and the perception of meat that is not associated with the horrible conditions of the animal’s brief life. On the other hand, Cherie Dimaline’s novel might also be criticized for supporting hunting and depicting it as ethical. A similar argument is presented by Muscogee Creek-​Cherokee novelist and literary scholar Craig Womack in his essay “There Is No Respectful Way to Kill an Animal” in the context of a close reading of hunting descriptions in Gerald Vizenor’s autobiography, Interior Landscapes, and D’Arcy McNickle’s book The Surrounded. Womack questions the ways in which many Indigenous people, including Indigenous Studies scholars, support the idea of hunting. He elaborates on the ideas concerning kinship, drawing from the work of Indigenous writers. The scholar notes: One response I received to the ideas raised in this essay is that I have disregarded an agreement between animals and humans -​one person called it a treaty -​that allows feeding, to use his exact phrase, of our “kin.” I do not know how animals feel about this treaty, of course, or if they agree that they’d signed it, yet I feel it is valuable to try to contemplate how they might feel about being killed. Animals, not just us humans, have kin, and would do well to imagine them if we want to take into account all-​not some-​of our relations. (Womack 2013, 24)

Further, regarding hunting’s connection to important ceremonial practice, he writes: I can only counter, what about tribes considering nonviolent alternatives? … I can at least think about the fact that my religion, a pretty old one, is called the Green Corn religion, not the breaded and fried pork chop religion. Is hunting the only thing that can make a person Indian? How realistic is that? Anyone living in an Indian community, or even away from one, knows not everyone is going to become a hunter. Some members can exercise personal sovereignty and decide against hunting. (25)

Womack emphasizes that he does not protest against hunting for survival but argues against hunting as an unavoidable good that is immoral and inconsiderate. As pointed out in section 3.6, Indigenous people hunt and eat animals, and not all of them have been doing it “sustainably.” Since hunting is so interwoven with other endangered cultural traditions, Womack’s argument is certainly challenging but deserves some consideration. By describing Frenchie’s hunt for the moose, Dimaline undoubtedly draws attention to the complex relationship between the human and the

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other-​than-​human. Dimaline challenges a namely, other-​than-​human personhood does not imply a naive or romantic conceptualization of the natural world. The Metis writer presents the human–​animal relationship as far from what Braidotti refers to as an oedipalized or fantasmatic relationship with animals (see section 2.8.8). Animals interact with humans as either friends, allies or rivals, which is also reflected in Indigenous old stories and ceremonies, where animals can also become human, or humans turn into beasts, or the offspring of beasts and humans become great heroes or some menacing forces. Genuine relations with the other-​than-​human are vexed rather than inherently benevolent. As religious studies scholar Graham Harvey states in regard to the relational cosmologies of many Indigenous peoples: Animists engage (responsively or proactively) with the real world in which, if they are correct, people must eat other persons, may be in conflict with other persons, will encounter death, and will need to balance the demands made by a series of more-​or-​less intimate and/​or more-​or-​less hostile relationships. Sometimes they draw on established traditions or cultural discourses and practices. Sometimes they have to be innovative and creative. (Harvey 2017, xx)

A thorough understanding of relationality implies respect for other people’s capacity to do harm to one another. Indeed, much energy put into maintaining these relationships is to stop treating other-​than-​humans with disrespect. Relationships are not only positive; certain relationships are rather conflict-​ridden. Dimaline’s story promotes a sustainable way of hunting which aligns with the lessons transmitted by means of Indigenous storytelling. In this context, it is worth mentioning a Cherokee story, which explains the ideas behind the (dis) respectful treatment of animals by Indigenous people. The story tells about the advent of disease and humans being a great threat to other animals. Once small in number, humans used the gifts of hunting they received from the Animals so that the human population could grow steadily; with greater numbers, they, however, began killing without appreciation, slaughtering non-​human others for the pure thrill of destruction. In response to human depredations and ingratitude, the Animal chiefs gathered in council and decided to inflict diseases on humans in order to stop their cruelty. Every contemporary deadly illness is related to that story. When the Animals cursed humans with diseases, the Plants were listening and they felt sorry for us. The Plants offered a cure for each disease, only if we were humble and expressed gratitude for the shared knowledge. That is why Indigenous medicines are often plant-​based, and Indigenous people honour the animals and their sacrifices. (see Justice 2018, 98)

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Heidi Altman and Thomas Belt (Cherokee Nation) note in the context of this story and, generally, Cherokee tradition that “humans are considered to be anomalous, stuck in the midst of supernatural plants, animals, and other beings; guests in a complex spirit world. The spirits, animals and plants have a history of their own before humans are introduced, and the role of humans in the universe is that of odd pieces that must fit themselves into an already functioning whole” (Altman and Belt 2009, 14). Disrespect means a detrimental use of free will and agency; a relationship of respect can be described as affirming and establishing enduring relationships of care. While the disease is the lasting effect of humans’ disrespect, medicine is considered the consequence of our respect. In both cases, the Plants and Animals act independently, according to their own terms. Although the story is significant, it failed to stop Cherokees from engaging in the European deerskin trade in the 18th and 19th centuries. With the increase in Cherokee communities’ dependency on European trade goods, the relational matrix of respect and reciprocity began to crumble. The colonial expansion had even far-​reaching consequences since hunting was the domain of men, and farming was that of women, i.e. their roles reflected the sexual division of labour of first man and woman, Kanati the Lucky Hunter and Selu the Corn-​Mother. Historian Theda Perdue provides this comment on the matter: The commercial hunting economy of the eighteenth century undermined an earlier aversion to the exploitation of the natural world. The Cherokees began to see distinct advantages in killing as many deer as possible for their skin alone, and in a society heavily dependent on the trade, failure to do so condemned one’s family to severe deprivation. A hierarchical worldview began to emerge that gave men dominion over the animals and placed them at the top of a human hierarchy as well. When this world-​view extended to gender, women no longer balanced men. (Perdue 1999, 85)

The original story of the disease still matters, yet, the interpretations have been modified as a consequence of changing circumstances. Indeed, some hunters use the story to justify deer’s mass killing, as the animals had launched the war on humans. This claim could, however, function only when the entire story was not referenced, suggesting either deliberate disregard or limited knowledge, and when women were not engaged in the conversation, as these were the women who collected the medicinal plants. Colonialist economics negatively affected gender complementarity, traditional kinship economies, and respect for older understandings of relational obligations. The “hierarchical view,” discussed by Perdue, is a result of colonial commerce and an extension of missionary activities, which targeted kinship relations in its socio-​religious change of Indigenous

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cultural traditions. The story continues to be told as a caution against denigrating nature. Thus, the story of Frenchie and the moose seems to point to the complicated history of relationships between humans and animals. The novel challenges the stereotypes concerning the Ecological Indian (see section 3.6 of this book) and a romantic conceptualization of the natural world. Frenchie’s behaviour shows respect towards animals and his will to establish enduring relationships of care with more-​than-​humans.

6.1.4 Unlearning the binaries: “We are all related” Dimaline incorporates the terminology of genetics into her novel in order ultimately to underscore that genetics is ill-​equipped to understand Indigenous ways of articulating kinship and belonging. As discussed earlier in section 1.6.4, this increased interest in the extraction of DNA samples from Indigenous people is discussed by Kim TallBear in the context of the emergence of Native American DNA, which resulted in the objectification of Indigenous bodies in the study of genes and redefining tribal sovereignties. In order to understand what Native American DNA is, it is crucial to consider how Native American bodies have been marginalized historically, as the way they were treated impacted earlier research and continues to affect today’s research. By her references to Indigenous marrow, Cherie Dimaline also suggests that Native American DNA should not be perceived as simply a molecular “thing.” It is also a conceptual apparatus through which humans constitute “life-​organizing narratives: historical, national, and racial narratives,” as well as narratives concerning their family and tribe (TallBear 2008, 236). In Dimaline’s novel, it is the leader, Miig, who tells Frenchie of a power that is embedded in dreams that are caught “in the webs woven in your bones […] You are born with them. Your DNA weaves them into the marrow like spinners” (2017, 22). What is more, Frenchie reflects on the way the ancestral DNA tells stories as much as the land does: I imagined spiderwebs in my bones and turned my palm towards the moon, watching the ballet of bones between my elbow and wrist twist to make it so. I saw webs clotted with dreams like fat flies. I wondered if the horses I’d ridden into this dawn were still caught in there like bugs, whinnying at the shift. (22)

This passage also shows how Native Americans perceive the body as a web of connections, and it is DNA that actually connects all humans and earthly beings. As Gregory Cajete points out in Native Science, humans and other animals cocreate the world, entangled and mutually responsible to one another and to past and future generations. This seems to align with Linda Hogan’s thoughts

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which emphasize that “We come from the land, sky, from love and the body” (2007, 95). Being inextricably linked to the land and other beings is reflected in Indigenous bodies, which biologically recreate this idea of interconnectedness. It appears that bodies and DNA serve as intergeneration and interspecies links, which combine cultural and historical meanings. In his 2001 album DNA:  Descendant Now Ancestor, Native American artist John Trudell points out that “we are all related.” Thus, Trudell refers to Native American ontological concepts that expand the number of beings in relation, including those not commonly believed to contain DNA within traditional genetic science. For Trudell: The DNA of the human. The bone, flesh and blood is literally made up of the metals, minerals and liquids of the Earth. So we are parts of the Earth, we are shapes of the Earth. This is all the things that we are. All the things of the Earth have the same DNA as the human does. Everything of the earth has the same DNA as the human. Everything is made up of the metals, minerals, and liquids of Earth.... And being, we have being. That’s our essence, that’s our spirit. And all the things of the Earth have the same DNA as the human [sic] have so all the things of the Earth have being and spirit. (Trudell 2001)

Trudell’s narrative points to the material connection between all things on Earth through DNA. His statements also suggest a “spiritual” connection, which reflects Native American worldviews. Many ecocriticism scholars also present similar views, where all beings are interdependent. In Ecology Without Nature (2007), Timothy Morton asserts that human beings consist of various non-​human components. According to Morton, our DNA is the stuff that makes us and contains genetic material from viruses. In an interview on The Ecological Thought, Morton points out that all life forms are interconnected through DNA: “We share our DNA with chimps (98%) but also with daffodils (35%). We drive cars that burn crushed dinosaurs. The oxygen we breathe is the excretion of the most ancient bacteria” (2010b, 1 para). This seems to be another case proving that Indigenous people have embraced interconnections and possessed the knowledge that Western scholars are now promoting for a long time.

6.1.5 Healing the land In addition to this analysis of how biocapitalist extraction mirrors older forms of colonial appropriation, Dimaline also shows the resilience and power of Indigenous cultures. One of their elders, Minerva, is captured by government agents but by singing in Cree, she turns the extraction process against those who try to steal her vitality. The Indigenous community in the novel comes to the

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conclusion that they all had undervalued Minerva, who sacrificed her life to set the residential school on fire while the Recruiters tried to harvest her marrow. Minerva’s singing in Cree and its possibility to destroy the residential school not only illustrates the power of Indigenous culture and language but also points to the vibrational experience of the human voice, which is an audible projection of a person and has an affective power. Minerva’s voice can also be understood in terms of what Jane Bennett further describes as thing-​power, i.e. “the lively energy and/​or resistant pressure that issues from one material assemblage and is received by others” (2004, 365). Although Minerva’s voice is elusive as it does not occupy the body for too long, it comes into contact with another body and affects it. Despite the fact that the vocabulary is incoherent, Minerva’s voice carries Indigenous knowledge and language as well as the pain, i.e. felt experience of her immediate relation to the world and others. Thus, the human body—​matter is illustrated as expressive and eliciting sensations as “bodies cone into contact” (365). The Marrow Thieves provides hope not only through the communal bonds the Indigenous characters forge but also through their rediscovery of the ancestral wisdom built into their ancient Cree language, its songs, and the alternative understandings it encodes. As they fire government agents and find others like themselves, the young Indigenous people are educated by Miig in ways of living that were disrupted and almost destroyed by colonial occupation. Thus, the dystopian elements of this future are balanced by the possibility that a return to another way of life, grounded in another conception of what it means to be human, remains accessible. The justice cannot be separated from racial justice or from remediation of the damage of colonialism. Another leader in the novel, Clarence, promises “[W]e can healing the land. We have the knowledge […]. When we heal our land, we are healed also” (Dimaline 2017, 202). Clarence is a curator of Cree and is teaching it to a new generation, an activity he embraces with “pride and an enthusiasm of old potential repurposed.” Indigenous knowledge can play a vital role in sustainable development. Native paradigm includes ideas of constant flux and motion, existence consisting of energy waves, animate beings, space/​place, interrelationships, and everything being imbued with spirit. The author of The Marrow Thieves criticizes the technologies of the future that represent the colonial strategies of control, and presents Native science as an alternative that can help to create the environmental future. In conclusion, the characters realize that their language and their voice have all the power they need, that dreaming in Indigenous languages retains a connection to this other way of being, to Indigeneity as the power to live unalienated, to life as something beyond commodified biovalue. Healing themselves and

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healing the broken Earth will not be quick or easy processes, but the capacity to repurpose human potential toward another of personhood persists and offers hope to all who might seek to ally Indigenous peoples and their values rather than to extract this capacity as biovalue. The Marrow Thieves could be read as a story of dispossession and climate catastrophe; what needs to be stressed, however, is that Dimaline’s authorial focus lies in subverting toxic colonial stories about Indigenous people to voice persistence and survival. In an interview with Carla Douglas and Porter Anderson for Publishing Perspectives, talking about the Métis Nation on the Georgian Bay, forcibly removed from Drummond Island, she explains that removals and relocations of a culture are specific to my community, although experienced in different ways by all Indigenous people. It’s part of our stories. And it’s a huge piece of why we share stories and keep that history intact, just as we’ve kept our culture intact. […] My community has struggled and survived, and I’m enormously proud to be able to carry our voices forward. (Douglas, Anderson, and Dimaline 2017)

Similarly, Daniel Heath Justice stresses the importance of stories of “that which continues, that which remains” (2018, 56), stories about the “now” that subvert dominant colonial narratives seeing Indigenous people as disappearing historical artefacts. North American Indigenous people are more than descendants of those who survived the apocalypse: they are “survivors, too” (5) of the apocalypse of colonization and environmental transformation that continues today. Dimaline also demonstrates that we cannot separate the commodification of specific parts of the body or some of its capacities, ceremonies and dreaming from the risks that attend the commodification of human beings, who are thereby reduced to economic units. Subjectivity experienced only through economic logic isolates us from ways of being that enable both richer human lives and a better relationship with the rest of the material world, which might yet include the capacity to produce liveable environmental futures. Dimaline enables us to see how the commodification of life, especially as it moves from the context of spare parts to become a generalized logic by which lives are deemed worthwhile or not, is the contemporary continuation of colonial extraction. The commodification of life, then, is a political issue with widespread relevance beyond the laboratory and its invented beings.

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6.2 “Make kin not babies”: On cross-​species connections in the Anthropocene Biopolitics involves the regulation of fertility, the norms of sexuality, the shaping of individuals and the managing of populations as well. This subchapter interrogates practices of biotechnology related to pregnancy and reproduction. Taking note of a recent proliferation of speculative texts about compromised fertility and draconian measures to control women’s reproductive freedoms, alongside continued legislative attempts to restrict access to abortion and other tools of family planning, this subchapter reads Future Home of the Living God (2017), which is a speculative fiction work by Anishinaabe writer Louise Erdrich. Speculative and science fiction writers have often addressed reproductive politics and the social, political and technological consequences of pregnancy. Louise Erdrich’s Home of the Living God can be situated among other U.S. women-​authored science fiction, including Judith Merril’s “That Only a Mother” (1948), Miriam Allen DeFord’s “Throwback” (1952), Alice Eleanor Jones’s “Created He Them” (1955), Carol Emshwiller’s “Day at the Beach” (1959), which deal with government control of women’s bodies for reproduction. Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God has also been often compared to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). The misogynist social order in Future Home of the Living God due to the (d)evolution is analogous to Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale as it also allows for the imprisonment of women and their forceful impregnation. These parallels indicate the fragile condition of women, which is also reflected in the popularity of the television series based on Atwood’s novel and released by Hulu in 2017, as well as the publication in 2019 of The Testaments, a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. The recent rise of the radical right in many countries appears to strengthen the oppression of women and creates the need for speculative narratives, such as Atwood’s and Erdrich’s, which demonstrate the coercive mechanisms and encourage discussion around the current policies. Erdrich began writing her novel in 2000 after the Republican George W. Bush Jr. was elected president of the United Stated, and she chose to finish it after the Republican, Donald Trump, won the 2016 election. The writer openly admits that she purposefully selected the date of publication of Future Home of the Living God and points to the political character of her work in an interview with Margaret Atwood: I was furious and worried. I saw the results of electing George W. Bush as a disaster for reproductive rights. Also crucial for me was that we lost on climate change; there was a real chance to keep the lid on carbon back then. […] I guess you could say it felt like things were going backward, devolving on every level. […] I picked up Future Home of

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the Living God again, after the 2016 election, because I needed Cedar. Maybe I’m writing the biological equivalent of our present political mess. […] And of course it feels like things are going backward again. (Atwood and Erdrich 2017)

Erdrich criticizes Bush for “reinstating the global gag rule, which cuts international funding for contraceptives if abortion is mentioned. This, when we face overpopulation” (Atwood and Erdrich 2017). She claims that such measures violate women’s reproductive rights and exacerbate the vulnerability of the vulnerable. After years of focusing on other projects, she decided to finish her novel in 2017, when Donald J. Trump restored the Global Gag Rule, which “cruelly cuts off US funds from international family planning and goes further to eliminate HIV testing, Zika testing, and birth control. Death from unsafe abortions, vaginal maiming, fistula, HIV, and unknown suffering will result, but all that was and will be largely invisible to the American public” (quoted in Martínez-​ Falquina 2019, 166). Erdrich writes in response to current antichoice campaigns, which control young women’s bodies, and presents in her novel a character who must escape from such restrictive politics.

6.2.1 Dystopian future in Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God The novel is set in the unspecified near future and follows Cedar Hawk Songmaker, a 26-​year-​old Native American woman residing in Minnesota. Cedar grew up in a liberal middle-​class affluent adoptive family and was, subsequently, alienated from her original Indigenous culture. Cedar’s Indigeneity is fetishized by her adoptive parents by referring to her as an “Indian Princess” (Erdrich 2017, 4). She is also expected to demonstrate an interest in nature in order to fulfil the stereotypical vision of Indigenous people as living in harmony with nature. Her Indigenous heritage sets her apart from other students at her holistic education school. Nevertheless, her Indigeneity is not rooted in authentic cultural practices:  “I had no clan, no culture, no language, no relatives. Confusingly, I had no struggle” (5). She perceives herself as “a theoretical Native” (4). Her position of privilege distances her from the experience of oppression confronted by North American Indigenous communities. Despite Cedar’s inability to understand the Indigenous struggle, she attempts to honour her Native heritage. As a Catholic, she assumes Saint Kateri Tekakwitha (also referred to as Lily of the Mohawks), the first North American Indigenous saint acknowledged by the Catholic Church. Practicing Catholicism is a symbolic rebellion against her Buddhist and ecologist adoptive parents, Glen and Sera Songmaker, and enables her to define herself regardless of others’ expectations. She now

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works on the publication of a “magazine of Catholic inquiry” called Zeal (6) and learns how to defy her erroneous, stereotyped expectations regarding ethnicity. Cedar’s pregnancy also prompts her to visit the reservation, where she contacts her birth mother, Sweetie, who lives with her husband Eddy, her grandmother and Cedar’s meth-​addled half-​sister. She also connects with her Ojibwa family so that her baby might see and join “the web of connections” that she never had as a child (6). Future Home of the Living God depicts the future of the Earth ravaged by global warming and climate change. Cedar recollects the last snow they had in Minnesota, where winter no longer exists, suggesting that future generations will face enormous losses if the current state of affairs continues. She was eight at that point: “The snow built up on every surface. And I can feel it now, so heavy. […] And I am in it. […] Whiteness fills the air, and whiteness is all there is. I am here, and I was there” (268). The protagonist also mentions that they did not appreciate the time when they could cherish winter, saying that “[they] didn’t know it was heaven” (265). The past before global warming becomes a vision of a paradise. Thus, winter becomes a crucial motif in the story emphasizing the importance of the changing climate. Activists in the novel warn against the upcoming catastrophe by emphasizing that all the species might be on the verge of extinction. The evolution has suddenly stopped and seems to reverse itself. Geneticists have discovered that some plants and animals have been (d)evolving for months. While animal and vegetable species constantly transform, male sex organs are not developing properly. What is more, pregnancies prove to be fatal for many mothers as the developing babies attack their mothers’ immune system, and the babies who survive are born with unusual, not quite human, characteristics, hence, spontaneous abortions become common. Some palaeontologist observes that there is no neat evolutionary narrative to help forecast what will happen, claiming that if evolution is changed, […] we would not see, the orderly backward progression of human types [...]. Life might skip forward, sideways in unforeseen directions. We wouldn’t see the narrative we think we know. [...] [T]here was never a story moving forward and there wouldn’t be one moving backward. [...] We might actually see chaos. (55)

Science cannot explain the reasons for the world running backwards. The palaeontologist argues that our understanding of evolution and extinction has always been incorrect and that it has never been as linear as depicted. Taking advantage of the situation, the Church of the New Constitution replaces the US government and creates a religious state that controls women’s

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lives and commodifies their fertility. They imprison women of childbearing age that are capable of procreation and prolonging humanity in the face of environmental crisis. As a result of the reproductive crisis, the society is encouraged to report pregnant women via the Unborn Protection Society line. Then, the expecting women are moved to “hospitals in order to give birth under controlled circumstances” (72). Women are forced to “try and carry to term a frozen embryo from the old in-​vitro clinics” or “be inseminated with sperm from the old sperm banks” (159). Women also become less visible in the media, while people of colour are completely banned from appearing “in movies or sitcoms [or] shopping channels or […] the dozens of evangelical channels” (44). The new patriarchal order represented in the novel seems to resemble the oppression women have been forced to endure since the emergence of capitalism and witch hunts described by Silvia Federici in Caliban and the Witch (see section 1.2 of this book). Since women’s sexuality was seen as a potential threat to men, women’s bodies and their reproductive powers became controlled by the state and transformed into economic resources. In the world depicted by Erdrich, the Church of the New Constitution introduced regulations (similar to the existing law in the U.S. introduced during Bush Jr.’s presidency as the Patriot Act), which allow to monitor the citizens by means of sophisticated technologies. The system eavesdrops phone calls but also takes control of their personal gadgets. Since all the technology is used as a means of tracking down pregnant women, Cedar destroys all of her devices and relies on old-​fashioned ways of communication. Despite her efforts, Cedar is captured by a woman of colour called Bernice. People go underground in order to avoid oppression, attempting to hide expecting women and transport them North, abandoning their cell phones in favour of more traditional means of communication such as snail mail. As Julia Siepak (2020, 67) points out in her paper on Erdrich’s novel, by designating the street names after biblical verses, religious fanatics impose a new order through cartographic domination, which resembles the process of colonization: “All the street signs were changed overnight. It was a massive project, impressive. Even the streets with numbers got switched” (Erdrich 2017, 101). In the new state, people face food shortages, and the gun market develops as the threat of danger becomes feasible. The citizens are monitored by the system using technological equipment that is already in their households. Meanwhile, Native Americans seize the chance to recover lost lands and decolonize their lives. The apocalyptic future of the United States mobilizes and allies the tribal community on the Anishinaabe reservation to fight for sovereignty. Eddy, Cedar’s Native American stepfather, points out that Indigenous

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peoples are able to adjust to the changing conditions resulting from the process of colonization: “Indians have been adapting since before 1492 so I guess we’ll keep adapting.” “But the world is going to pieces.” “It is always going to pieces.” “This is different.” “It is always different. We’ll adapt.” (28)

Eddy’s beliefs seem to mirror Kyle Whyte’s views about contemporaneity as a dystopia. It also echoes Grace Dillon’s views that “the Native Apocalypse [...] has taken place,” and it is important to create alternate histories and ethnoscapes in which there is “a reversal of circumstances, where Natives win or at least are centered in the narrative” (2012, 8–​9). Dillon refers to the work of Lawrence Gross (Anishinaabe), writing “that Anishinaabe culture is recovering from what he calls ‘post-​apocalypse stress syndrome’ and describes Apocalypse as the state of being aakozi, Anishinaabemowin for ‘he/​she is sick’ and, more to the point, ‘out of balance’” (9). Many Indigenous communities and their cultures have already changed. Erdrich represents their survival and adaptability past such Apocalypse. As Professor of Environmental Studies Stephanie LeMenager notes, “there are people in this world who already have learned to die, and there are people who, faced with anthropogenic climate change, are only just now learning to die” (2021, 229). Although Eddy did not succeed in reforming tribal education after receiving a PhD degree from Harvard, he has the opportunity to fulfil his potential and rediscover his warrior masculinity in the current scenario. Furthermore, the tribal community defends the expecting women: “We are not giving up our pregnant tribal members. Our women are sacred to us” (Erdrich 2017, 227), which emphasizes Indigenous values of reciprocity which are in direct opposition to the dominant mindsets. The novel does not reveal the result of the Anishinaabe struggles. However, it imagines a future in which such a movement can be formed. Thus, Erdrich legitimizes the restoration of lands to Indigenous peoples, exhibiting Leanne Simpson’s decolonial poetics of “land as pedagogy,” which emphasizes the power of stories to challenge settler colonialism (152–​153). Cedar is forced to hide from the authorities, not knowing whom she can trust, including Phil, the father of her unborn child, who warns her, “They’re offering rewards now for anyone who turns in a pregnant neighbour, acquaintance, family member, whatever.” After weeks of seclusion in her house, she is turned in by her partner, captured and transported to a prison hospital where pregnancies are studied, and the few surviving babies are taken away by the authorities.

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Staying there, Cedar engages in hidden practices of protest, such as weaving a belt out of blankets in order to escape. After a while, Cedar escapes with the help of her family members. She finds shelter on the reservation, however, she is discovered by “random pilgrims” and captured again. Cedar’s recapture emphasizes the novel’s dystopian character, in which a woman is unable to free herself from oppression. Cedar keeps the account of her story in the journal addressed to her unborn child. This journal, written despite the ban from the hospital, emerges as the final act of protest. In the end, the woman gives birth to a healthy baby boy, who is taken away from her, and remains in the hospital where she will be inseminated. Thus, her body becomes the property of the dictatorial state. Cedar’s body is defined in terms of genetic data, as the oppressors attempt to determine her child’s genetic background in the midst of the biological crisis. The heroine describes herself as a survivor of epidemics that destroyed Native communities during the beginnings of colonialism: Nine of every ten of us died of measles, smallpox, what-​have-​you. As a descendant of that tough-​gened tenth person I had some natural inherent immunity, but still. (58)

As a result, her genetics have placed her at the pinnacle of the evolutionary ladder. Cedar also attempts to connect her heritage to that of her Asian American roommate referring to their genetic similarity: “We possibly share the major DNA haplotype B marker found in most American Indians as well as people in Ulaanbaatar” (134). One’s ancestry is presented as situated in one’s body and its biology. This fascination with DNA can be linked to genetic studies on Indigenous peoples and the exploitation of their bodies, which Indigenous scholars have strongly criticized (see TallBear 2013b). In the novel, Womb Volunteer centres deal with storing genetic material and persuading people to become donors. Genetic research, which was previously considered unethical, meets with social approval in times of crisis as its attempts to prolong humanity. Cedar’s liberal adoptive mother exemplifies this reasoning: “We should invest in one of those genetics companies. They’ll try to turn this thing around with gene manipulation. It will be big” (54). This may draw attention to already existing companies that are attempting to trace Native American’s origin and whose intention is to explore common human ancestry using genetic data (TallBear 2013b, 26–​27). Erdrich, then, addresses the legitimacy of such institutions and the ethical issues concerning their work.

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6.2.2 Extinction and kinship across species The changes in evolution affect all other species as well. Cedar notes in the first entry of her journal that some animals have stopped breeding while other species develop in unforeseen ways:  “ducks are not ducks and chickens are not chickens, insects are nutritious, and there are ladybugs the size of cats” (90). This situation leads to the emergence of new interspecific hybrids. For instance, Cedar notices a creature that looks as an intersection between a bird and a lizard. She also observes primitive versions of animals, like “a bird about the size of a hawk” (92), and other creatures acquiring enormous sizes, like “a saber-​toothy cat” (104–​105). Thus, the apocalypse can be perceived as a period of prosperity and thriving from an ecological standpoint. Stressing creation in the face of extinction seems to align with Darwin’s view summarized by Elizabeth Kolbert in The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History that “extinction and evolution were to each other the warp and weft of life’s fabric” (2014, 54). In other words, extinction is just part of evolution. Glen, Cedar’s biological father, notices that the genetic changes are anti-​linear in their character: So if evolution has actually stopped, which is by no means fact, it is only speculation, and if evolution is going backward, which is still only an improbable idea, then we would not see the orderly backward progression of human types that evolutionary charts are so fond of presenting. Life might skip forward, sideways, in unforeseen directions. We wouldn’t see the narrative we think we know. Why? Because there was never a story moving forward and there wouldn’t be one moving backward. (Erdrich 2017, 54–​55)

In the novel, evolution aims to create new bodily forms that are unforeseen and undetermined, which seems to align with the thoughts of Elizabeth Grosz in The Nick of Time (see section 2.8.2 of this book). The changes that occur in the environment cannot be controlled or reversed by human subjects and, therefore, they deconstruct the metanarrative of scientific progress characteristic of Western societies. What is more, the emergence of other species decentres the human and draws attention to the agency of non-​humans. In presenting the stories of evolution and extinction as entangled, Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God points to the ongoing interconnections between humans and non-​humans. The novel puts emphasis on making kin through assemblages and “staying with the trouble,” which Donna Haraway explains as “learning to be truly present, not as a vanishing pivot between awful or Edenic pasts and apocalyptic or salvific futures, but as mortal critters entwined in myriad unfinished configurations of places, times, matters, meanings” (2016, 1). She weaves a radical hope in her emphasis on making kin and by drawing on

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Indigenous histories of survival past extinction, highlighting ongoingness rather than finality. In her chapter of Fiction and the Sixth Mass Extinction, Bridgitte Barclay notices how Cedar’s “heart slowly cracks” at the beauty of the world, where numerous species are facing extinction (2020, 68). Barclay refers to the moment when Cedar spends a summer night with her parents. Cedar describes the glow of the sun as “pure nostalgia” and that “antique radiance already sheds itself upon this beautiful life we share” (Erdrich 2017, 61). She emphasizes the temporality of the Earth that she is familiar with. The woman is aware that it will change, but its terminality is what makes it beautiful: Everything I say and everything my parents say, [...] the cries of sleepy birds and the squirrels launching themselves without fear in the high tops of the old maples and honey locusts, branch to branch, all of this is terminal. There will never be another August on earth, not like this one; [...]. The birds will change, the squirrels will fall, and who will remember how to make the wine? (61)

This passage also speaks to Cedar’s belief in the ongoingness of life on the Earth. Human extinction is a story of creation but also of destruction. Eddy also finds the world’s beauty in its larger-​than-​human aspects, decentralizing humanity, emphasizing nature’s ongoingness alongside his own terminality and perhaps the larger human extinction. Near the end of Future Home of the Living God, Cedar reads a portion of his novel that he sent her, entitled “The Pebble,” in which he explains that he was taking a rope to the woods to hang himself when a pebble in his shoe made him stop. He realizes the pebble is billions of years old. When he throws it behind him and begins walking again, it happens several times with different stones. Imagining how the pebbles formed millions if not billions of years ago and how long they have been part of the universe, Eddy takes all of this as not just a sign but of a communication, wondering why the rocks are trying to save him. In thinking through human temporality in the larger story of the universe, Eddy is comforted. While this can certainly be read as anthropomorphizing stones, it actually points to the perception of matter as vibrant and endowed with storied matter. This emphasis on ongoingness in the novel can be read within a larger frame of material ecocriticism, including the weaving of storied matter and making kin, as Donna Haraway defines it. Serpil Oppermann writes that ecocriticism proposes “that we can read the world as matter endowed with stories” (2014, 21). The agency of material and the ways in which the material world interacts are emphasized in various ways, notably in the ways in which defining boundaries are dissolved, and bodies are penetrable. In fact, assemblages are the only path to

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survival past extinction. Serenella Iovino and Oppermann write in the introduction to Material Ecocriticism, The world’s material phenomena are knots in a vast network of agencies, which can be “read” and interpreted as forming narratives, stories. […] All matter, in other words, is a “storied matter.” It is a material “mesh” of meanings, properties, and processes, in which human and nonhuman players are interlocked in networks that produce undeniable signifying forces. (2014, 1–​2)

This is a kind of “staying with the trouble” through assemblages that Donna Haraway argues for in this era of extinction (2016, 1). In Staying with the Trouble:  Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Haraway writes that “many of us are tempted to address trouble in terms of making an imagined future safe, of stopping something from happening that looms in the future, of clearing away the present and the past in order to make futures for coming generations,” but she also writes that “our task is to make trouble, to stir up potent response to devastating events” (1). This hopeful message in the Anthropocene encourages us to face the mess rather than become ignorant. Despite parallels to Atwood’s exploitation of women’s bodies in The Handmaid’s Tale, Erdrich’s novel is more optimistic and hopeful in its approach to evolution and extinction. Atwood argues that while evolution is reversing itself in the novel, “Cedar herself discovers that she isn’t who she thought she was. Yet she does not cease to hope” (Atwood and Erdrich 2017). In Los Angeles Review of Books, Anita Felicelli (2017) agrees that the novel brings hopefulness due to Cedar’s Catholic “moral and religious worldview” and the “choice to treat her unborn fetus as a person, a potential recipient of all her letters.” Bridgitte Barclay also believes that Cedar puts hope in her unborn, and writing to her fetus might be seen as problematic as the fetal agency may reify the conservative ideas that Erdrich writes against (2020, 72). However, Cedar believes for most of the novel that she is carrying a non-​human and still hopes to connect with the creature. Thus, Cedar’s notes to her future baby point to the cross-​species connection. The protagonist has already done some research into the species she might be carrying, including Homo erectus as well as Homo neanderthalensis. When Cedar’s foster mother, Sera, laments about humankind becoming “foraging apes,” Cedar realizes she probably bears one of such creatures. Despite the fact that it might not be human, the protagonist writes to her unborn child that it is still “wondrous, a being of light” (Erdrich 2017, 57). Glen adds that human ancestors actually produced art and their offspring may be intelligent. Such connection with the presumed non-​human unborn is literally making kin. Erdrich makes literal kin of ancestors and different species in Future Home of the Living God, with women

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birthing non-​humans somewhat like our pre-​human ancestors, making kin also “unfamiliar (outside what we thought was family or gens) uncanny, haunting, active” (Haraway 2015, 163). In “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin,” Haraway writes, “The Anthropocene marks severe discontinuities; what comes after will not be like what came before” and argues for a way “to cultivate with each other,” insisting that “maybe, but only maybe, and only with intense commitment and collaborative work and play with other terrans, flourishing for rich multispecies assemblages that include people will be possible” (2015, 160). Those assemblages, ones that Erdrich writes as multispecies but also as assemblages of belief systems and people, are a “stretch and recomposition of kin” and a reacquaintance with ancestors, who “turn out to be very interesting strangers” (163). Cedar’s unborn baby can also be interpreted as queer and/​or monstrous. While many portrayals of monsters and mutants have gotten stuck in an ambivalent spectacle of fascination and horror, norm and deviance, especially in art, the monsters can be thought of as opportunities for a reconceived humane future beyond androcentric notions of the subject. The monstrous has often been considered a figuration of liberation. In “Teratologies,” Rosi Braidotti describes various representations of monsters as a symptom of postmodern “postnuclear sensibility” and a chance for an alternative subject constitution:  “[A] shift of paradigm is in course, towards the teratological or the abnormal/​cultural decadence. […] We need to learn to think of the anomalous, the monstrously different not as a sign of pejoration but as the unfolding of virtual possibilities that point to positive alternativities for us all” (2000, 172). Cedar thinks of her baby in terms of cross-​species connection. Such a baby invites boundary crossing because of our fascination with hybrids and the monstrous. In Queering the Non/​ Human, Noreen Giffney and Myra J. Hird note that the term queer “comes to signify the continual unhinging of certainties and the systematic disturbing of the familiar,” emphasizing that “the unremitting emphasis in queer theoretical work on [...] indeterminacy, indefinability, unknowability, the preposterous, impossibility, unthinkability, unintelligibility, meaninglessness [...] is an attempt to undo normative entanglements and fashion alternative imaginaries” (2008, 4). Thus, queer is employed to dismantle binaries and “reread gaps, silences and in-​ between spaces” (5). In Future Home of the Living God, the queer and non-​human are considered wondrous. One of the pregnant women imprisoned with Cedar in the hospital spreads rumours about the newborns who are supposed to be physically stronger and more developed, but maybe not able to speak at all (Erdrich 2017, 163). Cedar ponders about pre-​human life on the planet and considers whether the

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human intellect is abnormal. According to Cedar, evolution is the result of past failures and human intelligence can be seen as one of those failures. She assumes that human consciousness is “being reabsorbed into the boundless creativity of seething opportunistic life” (67). She sees the alterations as a step forward, telling Sera that humans may have started to “absorb new and genetically appropriate material,” comparing it to parthenogenesis (54). Bridgitte Barclay observes that illustrating intelligence as a step backwards and forward in evolution decentralizes humankind in the storied matter of the earth (2020, 73). Indigenous cosmovisions and Donna Haraway’s work on how to move forward in the Anthropocene are useful in emphasizing the ways in which Future Home of the Living God creates hope in weaving materialities, in assemblages, in a palimpsest Earth. In the introduction to Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies, Joni Adamson and Salma Monani define cosmovisions as “conceptions of entangled human relations with more-​than-​human worlds” (2017, 3), and they incorporate Julie Cruikshank’s explanation that “such narratives have long worked as an imaginative force for thinking about the origins and [ongoing evolutionary] transformation of the world and its inhabitants” (2005, 99). That focus on entanglement and ongoingness calls to mind Haraway’s work on her word for the Anthropocene—​the Chthulucene. In “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin,” Haraway writes of our era, I also insist that we need a name for the dynamic ongoing sym-​chthonic forces and powers of which people are a part, within which ongoingness is at stake. Maybe, but only maybe, and only with intense commitment and collaborative work and play with other terrans, flourishing for rich multispecies assemblages that include people will be possible. I am calling all this the Chthulucene—​past, present, and to come. […] Chthulucene […] entangles myriad temporalities and spatialities and myriad infra-​active entities-​in-​assemblages—​including the more-​than-​human, other-​than-​human, inhuman, and human-​as-​humus. (2015, 160)

Both Indigenous cosmovisions and the Chthulucene offer ways of reading the Anthropocene’s material entanglements as places of hope.

6.2.3 Embodied experience as a pregnant woman Cedar’s first-​person description of her embodied experience as a pregnant woman also makes the story about her body and her lack of choices in the theocracy. She thinks of herself in terms of her body and how to live free in the body of the Other. In “Climate Change and the Struggle for the Genre,” Stephanie LeMenager points out that “the privilege of not thinking of oneself as embodied, as matter overwritten and writing history, is a privilege lost to all humans, [...]

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in the era of climate change” (2021, 229). The lack of this privilege underscores the issues of power and boundaries. However, recognizing oneself as part of species might also be crucial for understanding global climate change, as it leads to seeing oneself as part of species exercising its destructive force on the planet. As LeMenager adds, “To know oneself as embodied in a deep, evolutionary sense may bring about both a profound remembering of ecological enmeshment and an invitation to forget one’s specific history or relationship to power” (230). Cedar’s pregnancy, which is inextricably linked to her evolutionary embodiment and entanglement, helps her free from the boundaries of power and think about human power in a more nuanced way, where there are no hierarchies. Future Home of the Living God makes some parallels between its protagonist and the biblical Mary figure. Cedar carries a baby that is crucial for the fate of the human species, since it may be one of the only “originals” left, meaning it is a child not affected by the evolution (Erdrich 2017, 245). At the same time, Cedar is a normal “woman, a dweeb, a geek, a pregnant degreeless dilettante,” whose body “is accomplishing impossible things” (66–​68). The process of growing life is represented as a miraculous event. Cedar points out in her journal, Imagine what it was like for the young woman, Mary, to feel the extraordinary kicks and shocks of her unborn child and to know that she harboured a divine presence, the embodiment of God’s Word. Yet, what she felt was probably little different from what all pregnant women have felt, throughout time, ever since we could both feel and be aware of our feelings. This bewildered awe for the mysterious being we harbour certain borders on a mystical apprehension… pregnancy is a wilderness of being… In this wild state the markers are so ordinary and mundane that the grandeur I feel as well seems delusional. Perhaps at all times and in all countries women with children are actually at risk. At some level we are quite insane. (67)

Like Mary, Cedar creates a force that is supposed to impact the future of humanity. The human body can also be seen as a territory where “zoe,” i.e. “the idea of life carrying on independently of, even regardless of and at times in spite of, rational control,” and “unfolding of biological sequences,” operates (Braidotti 2002, 132). The generative power and force of zoe is associated with life as a creative, productive and continuous process. Thus, “zoe-​body” has the potential to produce life. Hannah Arendt’s concept of “natality” and “natal power” aligns with such a vision of life and the human body. “Natality” is “the most general condition of human existence,” but it is also referred to as “the constant influx of newcomers who are born into the world” (Arendt 1998, 8–​9). The human body is not only equipped with mortal power (potestas), but also with natal power (which can be compared to potentia) and is entitled to creativity, production, generation, and to begin life. “The life span of man running toward death would

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inevitably carry everything human to ruin and destruction if it were not for the faculty of interrupting it and beginning something new, a faculty which is inherent in action like an ever present reminder that men, though they must die, are not born in order to die but in order to begin” (246). According to Arendt, to be born indicates the ability to act, thus, natality means action which is “(…) inherent in all human activities” (9). While Cedar is imprisoned by the state, which uses her body for procreation, she notices the creative and resilient power of nature prevailing despite of exploitation of women. Pots are filled with “nameless plants,” while other “accidental plants are pushing into the prison as well” and “every day there is an even thicker green profusion” of plants “across the fences, across the razor wire, even along the glass towers of the guards, rearing into ferocious sunlight” (Erdrich 2017, 258–​259). The act of Cedar’s giving a birth to a baby points to her interconnectedness with the environment: One by one the saints entered the room. Over the next hours thousands of spirits were admitted. We were surrounded by a jungle of plants… I could see myself reflected in the stainless steel panels. I was in an ocean shooting sparks of light. The waves were pain. I was flung up, dashed down. Over and over to infinity and then when I thought I must have died, I took a breath, and I was surprised. The ocean also took a deep breath. The day was gone… The pushing went on forever, until, with a violence I didn’t know was in me, I pushed you out. (264)

Cedar is represented as part of the natural environment. She is connected to the ocean, taking the same “deep breath” and experiencing the same waves. The ocean’s power helps her push her baby out. Erdrich blurs the binaries between human and non-​human, depicting the body as part of the environment. The writer also disrupts the way of perceiving the mind and soul as detached from the body. As her baby grows inside her, Cedar becomes more aware of the interconnectedness of body and soul. Cedar listens to an Indigenous song, of which one of the lines is “the soul is not in the body. The body is in the soul” (264). Cedar can also be perceived in terms of a new philosophical subject, “The Pregnant Posthuman,” which is a concept introduced by a reproductive justice scholar, Rodante van der Waal in Posthuman Glossary. This subject is referred to as “the daughter of Donna Haraway’s cyborg and Rosi Braidotti’s posthuman, of Lyotard’s ‘she’, the inhuman feminine philosopher, as well as Hannah Arendt’s natal subject” (2020, 368). She is also a singular subject capable of giving birth, who is “in a singular plural state and in an intimate experience with the new, the relational, plurality” (368). Rodante van der Waal also points to the switch in focus from the natality of a human being to the possibility of giving birth to

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another human being: “Birth is the forgotten or unconscious mark of the beginning of a linear individual life, while pregnancy, the upcoming event of birth and the possibility of giving birth, function as the foundation of the new life in the middle of a human life, in the body of a conscious subject” (369). Thus, the subject becomes intersubjective and embedded. Louise Erdrich captures this type of deep relationality by depicting the relation to the yet unknown. It involves making the body anew again within the borders of one body and transgressing them at the same time. Erdrich presents such an act of one’s body creating millions of new cells and forming a new body within one’s self. The birth of a new human being by Cedar binds mother and child to nature, the universe, and God. Cedar finds joy in the integrative force of motherhood: And the sky has bloomed, it is verdant with stars. I’ve never seen stars like this before. Deep, brilliant, soft. I am comforted because nothing we have done to this earth affects them. I think of the neurons in your brain connecting, branching, forming the capacity I hope you will have for wonder. They are connecting, like galaxies. Perhaps we function as neurons ourselves, interconnecting thoughts in the giant mud of God. (Erdrich 2017, 106)

Thus, the body in the novel stands for the materiality of billions of various cells, including neurons, genes and chemical substances, including neurotransmitters and hormones, to mention a few. The body involves countless connections, interactions and transmissions. It is also the material constituting the basis of cognition, emotion and memory. As Braidotti points out, With reference to molecular biology, genetics, and neurology –​to mention just a few –​ the body today can and should be described adequately and with serious credibility (…) as a sensor, an integrated site of information networks. It is also a messenger carrying thousands of communication systems: cardiovascular, respiratory, visual, acoustic, tactile, olfactory, hormonal, psychic, emotional, erotic. Co-​ordinated by an inimitable circuit of information transmission, the body is a living recording system capable of storing and then retrieving the necessary information and processing it at such speed that it can react ‘instinctively’ (…) The body is not only multifunctional but also in some ways multilingual: it speaks through temperature, motion, speed, emotions, excitement that affect cardiac rhythm and alike (2002, 230).

The body is responsible for transmitting information between the sensing organs, which take part in the processes of thinking or reasoning. It also enables the experiencing of emotions and remembering. The body can also be described as an “eco-​logical entity,” which means that it connects with its environment (Braidotti 2008, 182). The materiality of the body remains in motion, and there are not only different internal interactions, but the body also encounters

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its surroundings (2006b, 145). Thus, if the body is “(…) a script written by the unfolding of genetic encoding [but also] a text composed by the enfolding of external prompts” (80). Louise Erdrich’s novel illustrates the body as an assemblage of elements, which bump into each other and undergo metamorphoses. Erdrich’s vision of the body aligns with Braidotti’s thoughts on the body as a field of forces, which are in constant becomings. However, Erdrich’s perception of the human body as embedded in the network of interconnections results from her Indigenous heritage and Native American worldview, where the body is an open-​ended system. Thus, Rosi Braidotti’s or Hannah Arendt’s considerations on the body reveal what has been known to Indigenous people for ages.

6.2.4 Science and religion Since humanity has come “to the end of science” and may never have answers about the (d)evolution/​(de)extinction, Cedar resorts to both science and religion to make meaning of the world. Cedar describes herself as not only “a walking contradiction, maybe two species in one body,” but also “an insecure Ojibwe, a fledgling Catholic […],” and a “searcher who believes equally in the laws of physics and the Holy Ghost” (Erdrich 2017, 64). She writes a Catholic newsletter, but at the same time, she mocks Christians, believing that the current situation indicates the end of times. During her journey to meet her biological mother, she points out that everything is relatively normal except for some end-​of-​the-​ world rhetoric, including a sign saying “Future Home of the Living God” in a “bare field, fallow and weedy, stretching to the pale horizon” (13). The banner that Cedar encounters on her way to the reservation is exhibited there by a religious organization to warn people about the impending apocalypse. Rather than seeing solitude in the rapture and a Christian God, Cedar notices bareness stretching to the horizon and blames God for the chaos. Her hope is based on the idea of evolution rather than the meaning attributed to Catholicism. At the same time, Cedar often seeks scientific explanations rather than religious ones. For instance, when thinking about the causes of the evolutionary changes, Cedar speculates with her partner about the science of the (d)evolution/​(de-​)extinction, recalling biology classes, where they learned that “genetic mishaps” are “knitted in right along with the working DNA,” allowing for adaptability (107). What is more, in the novel, Louise Erdrich also deconstructs and remakes the holy, especially in the context of Cedar’s Ojibwe Grandma Virginia. When Cedar tells her that she is pregnant, Grandma tells her numerous stories with absurd plots, including the Story of the Two-​Faced Child, When the Frogs Sang Like Birds, the Nun Who Fed Her Baby to a Sow, an Avalanche of Fish. Cedar

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recognizes that Grandma Virginia’s tales are frequently repeated, and what matters, perhaps, is the storytelling itself rather than the circumstances in which they are told. By making kin between science and the myths, Erdrich creates another assemblage in the novel. Thus, Cedar weaves together science and religion, which echoes the argument of Indian-​born American scholar Subhankar Banerjee in Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies. The researcher states that science and religion can work together despite the fact that “science [...] has been suspicious of religion (and vice versa)” (2017, 70). Banerjee points out that in Indigenous traditions, “the two have often worked side by side” (70). Although Christianity is often said to be an anthropocentric religion, Pope Francis’s encyclical letter “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home” (2015) shed new light on the relation between religion and the environment since the document focuses on the care for the natural environment. Dissemination of both Pope’s encyclical and Indigenous stories can be crucial for the changes on the political stage concerning environmental changes. This idea seems to align with Erdrich’s novel, which can be considered a call for the transformation of the global climate debate for Catholics and non-​Catholics. The coexistence of religion and science can give rise to hope for continued survival. There is a need for coalitional politics, where the ethics of liveability draws attention to the human and non-​human alike. Such a combination of belief systems promotes local knowledges that Grace L. Dillon refers to in Walking the Clouds:  An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction as “Indigenous scientific literacies.” It means that Indigenous sustainable practices constitute a science “despite their lack of resemblance to western taxonomic systems of thought” (2012, 7). Dillon notes, In contrast to the accelerating effect of techno-​driven western scientific method, Indigenous scientific literacies represent practices used by Indigenous peoples over thousands of years to reenergize the natural environment while improving the interconnected relationships among all persons (animals, human, spirit, and even machine). Some of its features include sustainable forms of medicine, agriculture, architecture, and art. (7)

Combining local knowledges, science, and stories allows for new ways of perceiving the material entanglements and living past extinction.

Conclusions “You see my problem. The history I offered to forget, the past I offered to burn, turns out to be our present. It may well be our future” (King 2012, 192).

As it has been argued in this book, the disembodied and disengaged subject withdrawn from its body and separated from the natural world can be attributed to the “logic of patriarchy.” This logic is based on a set of dualisms, such as man/​woman, culture/​nature, mind/​body, reason/​emotion, in which a higher value is put on the “male,” “reason,” “mind,” rather than on “female,” “emotion,” “body.” Privileging culture over nature has resulted in an instrumental use of the body and environment and led to ecological degradation. The above-​mentioned metaphysical assumptions also have lethal connotations for people who are perceived as others and coincide with the category of negative difference: women, Indigenous peoples, people of colour, and the lower classes. In Western thought, they have been defined as creatures closer to “nature” and hence as being outside the domain of rationality, subjectivity, and agency. The perception of Indigenous peoples as Others has led to exercising colonial dominance over Indigenous people and has been the basis for federal policies and societal treatment of Indigenous people. In the analytical chapters of this book, I have discussed how North American Indigenous female writers reveal the implications of dualistic thinking in their selected speculative fiction. Their works speak to the processes of colonization and respond to several colonial policies, which attempted to destroy Indigenous communities, their diversity and their autonomy. Colonialism has also negatively impacted Indigenous spirituality, knowledge systems, languages and cultures. Despite the displacement and marginalization, Indigenous people survived the colonial expansion. The novels discussed present capitalist expansion as a continuation of colonial expansion around the world. Industrial corporations and governments use Indigenous lands and sacred places for economic growth. The stories discussed in the book illustrate the consequences of the activities of extractive industries, such as mining and oil drilling. The extraction projects of industrial companies have led to environmental degradation, and forced displacement of Indigenous people, to mention a few. What is more, the novels discussed seem to criticize the idea of biopower, i.e. a political economy that includes strategies focusing on the regulation of human and non-​human

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life forms. In the novels, animals, plants, bacteria, and humans are increasingly being valued and organized according to their utility. Moreover, the economic activities and colonial interventions in American Indian societies have also transformed Indigenous ideas of power relations. Since “nature” was subjugated by “men” in Western thought, Indigenous men and women were to be submerged in Western hierarchies. The novels comment on the contemporary condition of Indigenous women emphasizing their ongoing oppression and the prevalence of patriarchal structures. Female characters are represented as victims of sexual violence, which appears to be an ongoing assault against Indigenous women. Moreover, the Indigenous authors establish parallels between the corporate commodification of the environment and the oppression of women in a patriarchal society, which reflects ecofeminist aesthetics. Zainab Amadahy’s The Moons of Palmares additionally reflects on the contemporary condition of lower classes emphasizing how workers are forced to constantly maximize their “efficiency.” Therefore, the bodies of workers can be compared to being treated like other “natural resources.” Thus, the Indigenous female writers demonstrate how the same oppressive patriarchal conceptual framework that motivates corporations to degrade the environment leads them to enact policies that exploit and subjugate disenfranchised groups, including women, minorities, and people in poverty. It can be also concluded that the authors discussed in the book make use of fantastic motifs and imaginative constructs to expose social inequalities and address social and ethical issues. Although speculative fiction is considered a non-​mimetic genre, it provides readers with fresh perspectives and commentary on real-​world concerns by offering alternative or imagined worlds. Instead of presenting the events in a linear progression, the writers present history as a continuum without a beginning and an end. The past and present bear almost the same meaning when a government’s legitimacy derives from the ongoing occupation of stolen land as well as questionable interpretations and violations of Treaty negotiations. Such a perception of time results from Native American philosophy in which “circle” occupies an integral role. Cycles and circles are regarded as the temporal and spatial ordering principles in American Indian traditions. Circularity orders all facets of American Indian life, including social and communal, epistemic and religious ones. American Indians have learned to live without the clock for many centuries; instead, they guided their lives according to nature. Hence, as mentioned in section 3.2, in the Indian mind, history appears to be a continuum without a beginning or an end; thus, the past is a part of the present. Subsequently, in their speculative fiction, Indigenous female writers imagine futures that are intimately connected to the past. The authors employ a temporality which does not dismiss Indigenous traditions

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as outdated but combine them with futuristic ideas and settings. As a result, Indigenous futurisms challenge the Western linear perception of time and progress. Indigenous writers depart from Indigenous realism and the traditional representations of the colonial past, instead, they have turned to speculative fiction to refer to colonial history, represent its influence on the present situation of Native Americans and depict decolonized visions of the future. The speculative fiction discussed in this book counters attempts at the erasure of Indigenous people through narratives that emphasize the “inevitability” of colonization. Instead, these novels recognize Indigenous communities as strong and resilient in the past, present, and future. In their novels, Indigenous writers disconnect from the dominant representations of femininity and masculinity and contest white privilege and other racialized conceptions of a human subject. Thus, they decolonize our imagination through disengagement from the institutions of power. Therefore, Indigenous speculative fiction can be considered an intensive practice aiming at inventing new ways of thinking. It involves dis-​identification from anthropocentric values, which entails the loss of familiar ways of thinking and representation in order to make room for creative alternatives. As discussed in section 2.8.8, Deleuze would refer to such a process as an active “deterritorialization.” The narrative mode of science fiction allows the female writers to voice their objection to the existing political, economic, environmental imperialisms and assumptions otherwise limited by a realist narrative frame. Therefore, speculative fiction exposes its readers to numerous “social problems” that Indigenous communities experience today. What is more, the Indigenous female writers experiment with the narrative mode of science fiction. For instance, Cherie Dimaline implements Indigenous circular storytelling, which does not revolve around a protagonist, in contrast to traditional linear storytelling. Instead, the novel consists of a number of flashbacks in which different characters share their stories, which help connect with others and facilitate the healing process for us and those around us through a collective sharing of experience. Moreover, feminist science fiction offers authors possibilities for the creation of a female hero in a world and future in which women are not confined by the standards and roles existing in reality. For instance, in Trail of Lightning, gender stereotypes are subverted, while in Resistance, Zainab Amadahy additionally introduces different sexualities. In Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God, gendered oppression is exaggerated as women’s rights are abused by relegating women to the roles of machines bearing children to further the human race. Furthermore, Chapter 5 discusses how the novels reimagine Western heroism by creating female Native American protagonists whose images differ from

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the oppressive Western ideal of a hero, the world-​maker. Indigenous female writers characterize Indigenous women as heroes who exert agency along with the land that is a participating actor rather than a passive background to the hero’s quest. As a result, Indigenous speculative fiction leads to cognitive estrangement, which makes the audience question the dominant status quo and present alternative views that can move society in the direction of gender equality. At the same time, the novels demonstrate the struggles of female Indigenous heroes against different boundaries imposed by the traditional Western hero story. During their journeys, the protagonists learn to embrace their Indigenous heritage and connection to their ancestral lands, thus, presenting an alternative perspective on heroism and its intersections with race, gender, and environmental issues. Thus, the novels discussed take part in the ecofeminist process of rewriting the old stories of heroism that focus on the conquest of the Other. The novels discussed also challenge the stereotypical assumptions about Indigenous people and technology. Although the writers illustrate how technology may serve as a means of oppression, it can also liberate and empower women and Indigenous people. Since Western science is unable to provide an alternative method of dealing with environmental and health problems, in the fictional Indigenous communities, traditional knowledge can coexist together with scientific knowledge. The characters of Resistance resort to both traditional Indigenous healing practices, ceremonies and Western medicine and Indigenous Elders provide spiritual guidance for the community members, who gather their own food and sustainably produce energy. Zainab Amadahy not only draws attention to the ways bodies are embedded within ecosystems and social systems but also to the importance of spirituality. For American Indians characters, spiritual practices constitute an ongoing dialogue with the world. A strong sense of spirituality entails ethical responsibility toward the more-​than-​human world. What is more, Louise Erdrich weaves together science and religion, which are both essential for introducing changes on the political stage concerning environmental changes. Such a combination of belief systems allows for new ways of perceiving material entanglements. As discussed in Chapters 5 and 6, Rebecca Roanhorse and Cherie Dimaline draw attention to the complex relationship between humans and animals. In Trail of Lightning, the boundaries between human and animal are porous, which alludes to American Indian legends illustrating non-​human beings as persons. The writers promote relationships of care with more-​than-​humans; nevertheless, Dimaline’s novel challenges the stereotypes concerning the romantic conceptualization of the natural world. Since animals are also a food resource, Indigenous people intend to establish “sustainable hunting” as a way to balance animal

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populations. They also criticize Euro-​Western attitudes towards animals, often perceived as some mobile matter without intellect and agency; therefore, available to be abused or killed without any moral consequence. Indigenous writers represent coalitional bonds with the human and more-​than-​human others in their environments and argue for an environmentally sustainable and healthy relationship between the body and the earth. Unlike in traditional literary depictions of botany, plants exert material agency just as the humans who interact with them. The novels of Zainab Amadahy, Rebecca Roanhorse, Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel and Louise Erdrich illustrate an expanded definition of agency that includes the non-​human “actants” with whom humans co-​constitute the world. Such a conception of agency is considered to be the basis for reconsidering problematic dualisms that cast nature, the non-​human, and matter as “unable to convey any independent expression of meaning” apart from human intention (Iovino and Oppermann 2014, 2). By illustrating plants and rocks as active, the Indigenous writers deconstruct the separation between life and death, instead, they represent those categories as intra-​acting processes. Matter is thus represented as vibrant and alive, which results from the Native American worldview, where land is considered an extension of the body, thus, perceived as living. What is more, the concept of matter as possessing agency aligns with the ideas expressed by the researchers in New Materialism, including Jane Bennet and Diana Coole. Furthermore, by presenting plants and rocks as living beings, the novels discussed encourage to rethink the notions of animism, which has been used to describe primitive belief systems attaching life or soul to the inanimate. Many contemporary scholars advocate for a more respectful definition of animism, thus, attempting to recognize life and agency beyond the human. I do not encourage herein, however, neoprimitivism or a return to “nature” since the concept of “nature” is highly debatable. The novels discussed depict a vision of the human as situated within a constant flux of material flows. For instance, Resistance draws attention to the interconnectedness by emphasizing that various “natures” exist within the human, like the wild bacteria. Further, Marrow Thieves illustrates DNA as actually connecting all humans and earthly beings. It appears that bodies and DNA serve as intergeneration and interspecies links, which combine cultural and historical meanings. Moreover, in their novels, Indigenous writers present the relationship between Indigenous people and the non-​human environment in ways that stress interdependence. They present an active network of connections between humans and plants, mountains, and animals. Such kinship includes non-​biological cultural and community connections, spiritual bonds, as well as political and ceremonial practices that bring people into meaningful relationships. Louise Erdrich’s Future

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Home of the Living God exemplifies kinship and deep relationality by presenting a pregnant woman carrying a baby of unknown species. The body in the novel represents the materiality of billions of various cells, including neurons, genes and chemical substances, to mention a few. The body involves countless connections, interactions and transmissions. It is also the material constituting the basis of cognition, emotion and memory. Furthermore, Zainab Amadahy demonstrates that the body is vulnerable to the substances and flows of its environments, including industrial environments and their economic forces. This type of trans-​corporeality exemplified in The Moons of Palmares emphasizes the material interconnections between bodies and places, and challenges the nature/​ culture divide. The selected novels challenge the rational triumph of mind over body, which is responsible for the instrumental use of the natural environment and the oppression of women, Indigenous peoples, people of colour, queers, and the lower classes. By presenting humans as organic beings embedded in nature, Indigenous fiction may help overcome humans’ alienation and estrangement from nature. The sensations and emotions experienced through our bodies need to be reaffirmed so that people begin to develop a caring relationship with nature. Such a representation of the relationships between the human and non-​human is related to Native American philosophy, where kinship is rooted in obligations to the diverse networks of relations and relationships. Relatedness is considered to be the most important for understanding the traditional American Indian worldview. Native Americans’ reciprocal relationships with the environment permeate every aspect of life, from spirituality to making a living and resulted in a different way of seeing the world, what could be called a more “environmental” way of seeing it. The significance of this relationship is emphasized in the stories, which are also a source of traditional knowledge passed from generation to generation. Although many American Indians have been educated in mainstream public schools, Native Americans remaining close to their traditions still perceive the world from an Indigenous perspective. This logic is rooted in their natural ethos and their belief in the old ways of life that remain to be practised in the 21st century. Numerous Indigenous scholars have criticized settler scholars for claiming that they have discovered the entanglements of “nature” and “culture,” which many Indigenous thinkers have known for millennia. Indeed, this book has pointed out the intersections between Indigenous scholarship and feminist new materialism. The concepts which seem to have been inspired by Indigenous thought include the ideas of non-​human agency, naturecultures, transcorporeality, assemblages, the coexistence of life and death, intra-​actions, situated knowledges, to mention

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a few. Similar concepts can be found in Indigenous studies literature, where an ontology that encompasses non-​human agency and more-​than-​human relations has long served as a starting point for analysis. While the current literature in the Eurocentric canon focuses on justifying the idea of non-​human agency, contemporary Indigenous philosophy frequently assumes the existence of pervasive non-​human agency. Indigenous scholars have struggled to find a way to enable these ontologies to be acknowledged in their academic work. In contrast, Western researchers drawn to new materialist arguments create a new vocabulary to challenge the familiar language of social science in order to establish a space where objects can express their vitality. Writing this book has been an attempt at drawing on both Indigenous scholarship and theories of New Materialism to help understand these knowledge ways and grow new knowledge. These traditions should be in a relationship rather than in conflict, which has contributed to the conflicts between settler governments and Indigenous communities. The novels discussed in this book also comment on the need for cooperation between Native science and Western science. As already mentioned, in Resistance, the garden community relies on both modern (techno-​)science and Indigenous knowledge, and reinforces the values of cooperation and reciprocity rather than rivalry. In the fictional Indigenous communities, traditional knowledge coexists together with scientific knowledge. The characters resort to both Western medicine and traditional Indigenous healing practices as well as the spiritual guidance of Indigenous Elders. This book not only points out the intersections between Indigenous scholarship and theories of New Materialism, but it also discusses the differences between Western and Native conceptions of knowledge and a researcher. The contrast between a Western and Native scientist is addressed by the North American Indigenous writers in their novels. While Western philosophers’ knowledge can be transmitted in the form of books, Indigenous knowledge is lived and embodied; it arises from human experience, actions and observations. Western scientists are represented as linear thinkers relying on archival documents to write history, whereas for Indigenous people, history can be described as “experience.” An Indigenous “scientist” is a participant in the research, trained in ceremonial protocols and the use of sacred medicine. The Indigenous scientist does not interfere in any natural processes because the balance of relationships creating life is respected and valued. In Returns: Becoming Indigenous in the Twenty-​first Century, James Clifford wrote that “We need stories (and theories) that are just big enough to gather up the complexities and keep the edges open and greedy for surprising new and old connections” (2013, 160). Speculative fiction created by Native American

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women seems to respond to those needs. It challenges the anthropocentric approach to more-​than-​humans and deals with ethical and political concerns by illustrating how the world is made of complex entanglements. Speculative fiction itself may not change colonial policies, but it challenges us to think beyond oppressive normative structures and histories. The novels discussed offer a new setting in which Indigenous people are the heroes, and Native knowledge is an assertion of power and perseverance. This imagination, where Native women are leaders and Native children are raised proud of their cultural heritage, can help us create a better world.

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