The Turn to Indigenization in Canadian Writing: Kinship Ethics and the Ecology of Knowledges

Abstract

This article heeds the recent shift in cultural criticism and creative writing toward imagining “a functional ecology of knowledges in Canada” (Coleman, “Toward” 8) that takes its conceptual lead from Indigenous epistemologies. Through close reading Thomas King’s novel The Back of the Turtle (2014), Wayde Compton’s short story collection The Outer Harbour (2014), and Daniel Coleman’s nonfiction book Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place (2017), the article connects Indigenous notions of kinship to the turn to trans-systemic epistemologies in contemporary Canadian literature and criticism. My analysis draws on Indigenous theories of kinship underlying Indigenous resurgence and decolonization and sets them in conversation with King’s reflections on storytelling and world-building, Compton’s theoretical charting of African Canadian space as Afroperipheral within diaspora criticism, and Coleman’s self-retraining to redefine settler belonging and knowledge. This analysis concludes that, by promoting an awareness of the interdependence between the natural environment, humans, and other-than-human beings that is central to Indigenous epistemologies, these works contribute to the shift toward the construction of an ecology of knowledges and hold the potential for renewed decolonizing efforts, social justice, and environmental sustainability.