Land Forms: The Literary Jurisprudence of Indigenous Rights in Canada

This dissertation reads contemporary works of Indigenous literature alongside Supreme Court of Canada decisions that interpret Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. By recognizing "Aboriginal and treaty rights" in Canada's foundational legal document, Section 35 signalled a potentially significant change in relations between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian state. This potential has not been realized because in the legal decisions that have since defined Section 35, the Supreme Court of Canada has refused to recognize Indigenous law. My dissertation examines how Indigenous authored-works of poetry, fiction, and drama by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Jordan Abel, Marie Clements, and Shirley Sterling intervene in this refusal through the representation of what I call land forms, other-than-human agents who embody principles of Indigenous law. I develop this concept by building on Indigenous legal scholarship that identifies Indigenous stories as a key source for Indigenous law. I argue that, by representing how land forms are distorted, constrained, or erased by colonial agents, Indigenous authors critique the Supreme Court's reluctance to acknowledge the continuing force of Indigenous legal orders in lands claimed by Canada. By demonstrating how land forms retain agency despite their distortion in Canadian law, these authors model possibilities for Indigenous law otherwise foreclosed in Section 35 jurisprudence. These writers therefore participate in vital debates about Indigenous resurgence and sovereignty currently unfolding in Indigenous studies. I develop this argument through four case studies, each of which pairs a literary text with a legal issue explored in Section 35 jurisprudence. The first chapter reads Simpson's 2013 poem "jiibay or aandizooke" as a critique of the Doctrine of Discovery. The second chapter analyzes representations of temporality in Abel's The Place of Scraps (2013) and R v. Van der Peet (1996). The third chapter examines Indigenous jurisdiction in Delgamuukw v. British Columbia (1997) and Clements' 2003 play Burning Vision. The final chapter tracks shifting legal definitions of Indigenous religious freedom through Sterling's 1992 residential school novel My Name Is Seepeetza. This study contributes to critical conversations in Indigenous literary studies by attending to Indigenous law in literature as a crucial component of Indigenous anticolonial resistance.

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