Author ORCID Identifier
0000-0003-3565-1797
Pages
24-28
Document Type
Article
Abstract
[First paragraph] Reading Indigenous poets such as Joséphine Bacon (Innu) and Jean Sioui (Wendat), one is struck by how marvel before “nature” is intertwined with loss and mourning. The experience of loss derives from the interrelated ills of territorial dispossession and environmental destruction caused by settlers’ violent relationship to the land. When reading their verse, we are reminded that today’s Indigenous poets are writing on occupied land. All of us on Turtle Island are writing on occupied land, of course, but it remains easy for settlers to delude ourselves into thinking the land is either everyone’s or rightfully ours. We rarely if ever see ourselves as occupying land that does not belong to us. Facing this uncomfortable truth appears crucial when thinking about what it means to “write the land:” whose land is being written? by whom? and for what purpose?
Recommended Citation
Papillon, Joëlle. "Writing on Occupied Land." Green Humanities: A Journal of Ecological Thought in Literature, Philosophy & the Arts, vol. 3, 2021 , pp. 24-28.
Included in
Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Environmental Studies Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons