Life Writing, Positions, and Embodied Criticism: Relating to An Antane Kapesh's and Mini Aodla Freeman's First-Person Narratives

While in standard literary analysis discussion of one's position is rarely identified and discussed, it is, I suggest, a necessity in Indigenous studies, a corrective for the fixation on Aboriginal identity that is already examined keenly, regularly discussed, legislated, regulated, questioned, dismissed, debated, and defended, typically in response to questions from a member of the public or from a querying public institution.

—Reder, "Introduction"

On different occasions, Indigenous writers and colleagues have asked me, "So, what is your story?" or "Why are you doing this research?" These questions confirmed the importance of relational quality in Indigenous scholarship, in which positioning oneself is common. Discussing one's position is necessary, as Deanna Reder (Cree-Métis) notes, not only because it redresses the damage done through extractive, arrogant, and colonial research practices, but because it follows Indigenous protocols (Archibald; Kovach; Reder, Âcimisowin 77). I first learned about the politics of location from feminist practice. Significantly, it is feminist contextual and political approaches that brought me to the field of Indigenous literary studies. Undertaking the task to situate myself as a feminist Québécoise, while also bearing in mind the lines of power and privilege that pass through me as a subject, I soon became aware of my ignorance about colonial history and about the historical and contemporary presence of First Peoples in what is referred to today as Québec and Canada. As I worked on my dissertation project, I set out to rethink Indigenous–settler relationships through reading Indigenous women's writing.

Working in the field of Indigenous studies transformed my understanding of the politics of location. I realized that my positioning had mostly remained detached from my embodied experience, which remained absent from my writing. In fact, despite the feminist principle that the personal is political and theoretical, the inclusion of personal forms of narrative did not break through the academic standard of objective scholarship. Indeed, I had not been trained to include personal stories in my academic writing. However, I soon came to understand the value of personal criticism in a different way. Margaret Kovach (Plains Cree and Saulteaux), for instance, draws a distinction between "feminist inquiry [which] includes sharing experience" and "tribal epistemologies [which] cannot be disassociated from the subjective" (Indigenous 111). She argues that, in Indigenous inquiry, "critically reflective self-location gives opportunity to examine our research purpose and motive. It creates a mutuality with those who share their stories with us" ("Situating" 97). These words influenced my learning process as a settler scholar reading Indigenous literatures, as well as my efforts to rethink my literary relationship with Indigenous women's life writing—specifically, with regard to the writings of An Antane Kapesh (Innu) and Mini Aodla Freeman (Inuk).

I do not remember when I first heard of An Antane Kapesh's Eukuan nin matshi-manitu innushkueu/Je suis une maudite Sauvagesse (I Am a Damn Savage).¹ The original 1976 edition, which I found in the library at the University of Toronto, with its hard navy blue cover, was exactly the type of text I was looking for: a version of Québec's colonial history from the perspective of an Indigenous woman who had lived it.² A few months later, one of my professors suggested that I read Mini Aodla Freeman's memoir, My Life Among the Qallunaat (1978).³ Kapesh and Aodla Freeman both describe drastic changes that occurred in the second half of the twentieth century—not so long ago—when the province of Québec suddenly showed a strong interest in its northern territories. Notably, the authors address the relationship between the Innu and the white people,⁴ the Inuit and the qallunaat,⁵ respectively. Both accounts express weariness, largely due to the impossibility of practicing traditional ways in a time of forced deculturation while, at the same time, affirming Innu and Inuit knowledge production and transmission.

The significance of Kapesh's and of Aodla Freeman's contributions to the field of Indigenous women's writing is unquestionable. Moreover, [End Page...