Mulheres e território: perspectivas ecofeministas na literatura indígena canadense

Women and Territory: Ecofeminist Perspectives in Canadian Indigenous Literature

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship among body-territory, ancestral knowledge, and nature in Canadian Indigenous women’s literature from an ecofeminist perspective. Furthermore, it is based on the understanding that the body, especially the Indigenous woman’s body, constitutes a territory of historical, political, and spiritual inscription, being crossed by discourses of coloniality and resistance. In this sense, it is argued that the violence imposed upon indigenous territories operates in an articulated way with gender-based violence, revealing a relationship of interdependence between body and land. Methodologically, the research is qualitative and comparative, analyzing Jan Bourdeau Waboose's “A Long Time Ago”, and Doreen Jensen’s “The Role of a Traditional Gitxsan Artist,” short stories included in the anthology My Home as I Remember (2000). In addition, the study seeks to examine these narratives through the lens of ecofeminism, drawing on voices such as Vandana Shiva, Alicia Puleo, and Graça Graúna, as well as thinkers such as Nêgo Bispo. Therefore, it becomes evident that in the narratives analyzed, the characters’ bodies are not presented as isolated entities, but as a living extension of the territory, carrying traces of memory, ancestry, and collectivity. Thus, literary writing functions as a practice of (re)rexistence, insofar as it enables the reclaiming of indigenous narratives in the face of colonial structures, acting as a political and symbolic space of resistance.