Fictional Maps of Indigenous Canada : Indigenous Literary Cartographies in Canadian YA Literature

This thesis examines the fictional mappings of Indigenous Canada in Mi’sel Joe and Sheila O’Neill’s My Indian (2021), Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves (2019), and Wab Kinew’s Walking in Two Worlds (2021). These works of Young Adult literature are published in a context where spatial experiences continue to be affected by the settler colonial history of Canada and where struggle for sovereignty extends to the publishing industry that has a need for more diverse literature for children. While the novels have received relatively little academic attention, they are of interest in a literary cartographic analysis because these coming-of-age narratives form mappings from Indigenous points of view and imagine alternatives to the colonial map of Canada. These literary maps create spaces for Mi’kmaw, Métis, and Anishinaabe identities to form and as YA novels they guide the young protagonists and readers to find their way in the world. Previous studies in literary cartography have tended to focus on maps of the empire, and maps have often been understood as Cartesian maps expressing imperial power in literature. Including Indigenous spatial practices expands the understanding of mapping, communicates knowledge and stories previously excluded, supports Indigenous peoples’ intellectual sovereignty to represent their homelands, and moves away from colonial frameworks of Western cartography. My analysis draws from Annita Hetoevehotohke’e Lucchesi’s conceptualizations of ancestral, anticolonial, and decolonial mapping. My Indian connects readers with ancestral mapping practices developed before colonial contact and questions the objectivity of colonial mappings. The Marrow Thieves is read as anticolonial mapping as it depicts strategic use of ancestral and colonial mapping practices during a genocide. Walking in Two Worlds explores the reinvention of Indigenous cartographies through digital maps, which makes it an example of decolonial mapping. The mappings are formed through graphic maps and depictions of space and spatial practices.

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