We chose our partner team to be the Voyageurs.
Introduction
There is an undeniable connection between place and story. Geography shapes the stories that we tell, and our connections to stories told by others. We began our research at this intersection. By examining current geographical boundaries through a lens of literature and stories, we aimed to locate commonalities that could be applied beyond those boundaries. We also explored imposed borders and ways that new media technologies enable the creation of literature that moves beyond the boundaries of geography.
To begin the move beyond political, colonial and other imposed geographic boundaries, we argue that we need to broaden what is meant by ‘Canadian literature’, and to be more inclusive of which authors are considered part of the Canadian canon. To broaden our understanding of what is currently and could be included in “Canadian” literature, we chose to dialogue with the Voyageurs, who explored diasporic writing within a Canadian context.
We found that our research overlapped in significant ways, including four main points: connection to “place”, breaking down borders, engaging in dialogue in academic and non-academic settings, and diversifying how we define “literature”. In our Dialogue Summary, we will explore these four points in detail, discuss the actionable outcomes from our conference dialogue and combined research, and provide potential questions for further research.
Main Points
1. Connection to “Place”
As said by Alison Calder (2010), literary analysis that “connects itself to specific places can help us develop ideas about what is going on in the places where we live —what forces are acting on us, and how we might respond” to those forces (114). Therefore, understanding the importance of place can help us understand something about ourselves, and without it, meaning can be misconstrued or lost completely. However, this spatially-oriented view has grown separated from the spaces in which our stories occur. Robert Tally’s idea of Geocriticism functions as a strategy to allow us to reconnect place to space by bringing awareness to the spatial contexts underlying the texts we produce and allowing us to examine how place can form the sociality of the space. The social context of place is also important when exploring the cultural aspects of literature, as was the Voyageurs team’s focus. Cultural diversity of publishing in Canada is narrowed by the disconnect between the stories and places of minority writers and artists, preventing minority stories from being considered part of the “Canadian narrative”, even though, as Tony Bae summed up
“every one of our…cultures that live here makes up the Canadian narrative”.
Re-establishing the connection between space and place can potentially allow meaning to be brought back into the stories which have been separated from their contexts.
2. Breaking Down Borders
In both a physical and social sense, there also exists barriers to the evolution of the ways in which we connect our stories to society and geography. In a geographical sense, a Western format of cartography has imposed socially constructed boundaries which pays no attention to the features and people of the underlying land. For example, the Native Land Digital interactive mapping tool outlines the ranges of all the Indigenous territories across North America. These territories span across the borders which we have established, dividing the once autonomous territories and ignoring the reasons which these traditional territories are shaped the way they are. These borders can be considered to be off shoots of a higher leveled Eurocentric boundary which prevents us from considering the space around us from other perspectives. This Eurocentric boundary also exists on the cultural side, where minority groups are not able to get their work published, for instance, because it does not fit the traditional attributed stereotype, as discussed by Adamson and Monani (2016), or past the “gatekeepers” of the publishing world, who are unable to view the work through anything but a Eurocentric lens. To break down this overarching barrier that exists within Canadian media, public perception around current borders need to change, which can be accomplished through means as simple as a mapping tool, to establishing platforms for minority artists to allow their work to be seen and spread, to critiquing Eurocentric work from a Geocritical view.
3. Engaging in Dialogue in Academic and Non-Academic Settings
While the Voyageurs approached their intervention through “celebrating, promoting, and encouraging the diverse works of our emerging storytellers,” our group examined the physicality of place and region. One area in which our research intersected was in discussions of the ways in which our relationship to culture and identity is often dialogic; in our intervention strategy, we see this through the ways in which Canadians engage in an ongoing conversation between their place of being or “home” and the way they treat it. We identify regionalism as a possible avenue for future Canadian literature understanding not as a traditional description of place, but as a way of expanding upon and identifying our relationship to the land and how we engage more thoughtfully with our landscape, its history, and our changing climate as a means of moving forward in a more respectful relationship with the land (this also gives excellent avenues for embracing more Indigenous work in our cultural cannon, as a relationship to the land has been at the forefront of much of their culture for many years). Similarly, the Voyageurs look at the dialogic conversations we have between our understanding of Canadian identity and other areas of importance or upbringing within the world. For example, embracing diasporic writing allows Canadian literature to better conceptualize their relationship to immigration, globalization, and identity.
It helps address the questions “where are you from?,” “where is home?” and “what raised you?” in a way that does not minimize the role of other cultures in Canada’s current culture on an individual and national level.
It also helps Canada address our own complicated history as a country, which has so often involved theft of Indigenous landscapes, colonization from Europeans, and movement across oceans and countries. Imagining Canada without addressing our relationship to place, and therefore to our multinational histories and identities, would be an incomplete fancification of a unified whole that does not exist. As Maxwell McEachern so eloquently put it, “There seems to be a constant need to find “Canadian” writers in order to claim some sort of culture. I think that is where our intervention strategy aligns with your idea of moving beyond borders. The diasporatic author is able to move beyond borders to bridge the gap and gain new information and knowledge of other cultures within a diverse country.”
4. Diversifying How We Understand “Literature”
Another way in which our understanding of place intersected with the Voyageurs understanding of embracing new cultural identities in Canadian writing came through a discussion of form. We discussed the ways in which many new and diverse authors and artists in Canada find their audience through non-traditional forms or through an understanding of a “literary” canon that moves beyond the boundaries of the page. In our interpretation, this involved analyzing the ways in which hypertext and new media expand our ability to connect with a specific place, and can immerse the reader in different styles of storytelling. One example may be the use of podcasts to create a form of oral storytelling that can be widely shared, another may be the use of self-publication through social media in order to bypass potential barriers to publications for minorities, like Rupi Kaur’s use of Instagram to share her often diasporic poetry. Similarly, we had an interesting conversation with the Voyageurs about how diverse Canadians are also finding novel mediums through which to share their stories, particularly in an in-depth discussion of theatre. We discussed how theatre creates an engaging conversation between an individual and an audience, and how that storytelling becomes immersive as it is “taken up” by the actors and places the audience in the position of witnessing the complete storyline, making it a more vulnerable form of story performance. Despite this, many artists continue to face barriers when they do not conform to “majority” storytelling, or do not create theatre that is targeted to a broad audience. Often, minority artists then bear the burden of advertising their work in addition to creating it. Sean Dyer summarized this nicely when he said “The only way to combat non-inclusivity, is to write new work, but the only way to get new work presented, is to have a wide commercial appeal.” In this way, non-majority creators still have to expand and push borders to get industry to recognize that there are multiple understandings of a “Canadian” story or upbringing. Both groups agreed that promoting diverse writing could be a way to unify our understanding of Canadian identity, not by promoting one perspective or value, but by creating a respectful environment where individuals can express their own stories and we can foster understanding and empathy.
Conclusion
Through our research and our dialogues with the Voyageurs, we have been able to identify a variety of intervention strategies to improve on today’s constructs of Canadian literature and create a more inclusive space for diverse, emerging artists.
Many of our interventions take the form of supporting artists, authors, and activists in their work.
The first step is as simple as attending their shows, purchasing their work, and sharing that work with others. Further steps include creating and supporting platforms which allow new, diverse, and subversive work to be created, such as inclusive theatre and publishing companies. It is also important for us to be interacting with the work of artists on deeper levels—through listening, self-examination, and dialogue with others. We identified technology and digital spaces as exceptional mediums for change: digital media allows artists to bypass gatekeepers and structures which privilege some while disadvantaging others; and new, digital platforms allow for the dissolution of borders.
Although our strategies aim to make change within arts spaces, particularly within the “cannon” of Canadian literature, these spaces are also inherently political and the issues we see in them are closely tied to societal issues. Thus, our strategies must reach outside of arts communities and work to change Canada’s political landscape. We must push governments to change their policies so that they centre the needs of Indigenous nations and minority groups who are currently systematically disadvantaged. Further, we must also push them to increase funding for artists, so that new work can be created and shared more effectively.
Many of our intervention strategies are based in activism, such as joining Indigenous led movements for climate action, supporting Indigenous nations in their calls for sovereignty, and working to protect their land against violent industry. The importance of this work is evident in the links we have drawn between space, land, stories, and people: they are interconnected and hold a great influence over each other. Importantly, we also believe it is essential for us to address and dismantle discrimination and oppression when we see it in action in our communities, including when we see it coming fromcommunity members with status and authority.
These interventions can act to break down outdated definitions and misconceptions about what Canadian literature is, or what it should look like. Instead, a diversity of works from the many cultures around us should be published and elevated in order to make meaningful changes to structures of contemporary Canadian literature.
Future Research/Questions for Further Research
- In what ways could academic and critical definitions of “literature” be expanded to include works with hypertext and other forms of new media?
- In what ways can we combine technology, geography, and literature to begin redefining the Western concept of “borders” within the educational system?
- I would like to compile a more extensive list of organizations and arts companies working today to dismantle hierarchies of power within arts communities to share and expand upon with others
- We have extensive evidence of the ways in which landscape and geography shaped the history of Canadian literature, and are currently shaping Canadian literature in new ways. In what ways can literature in turn shape geography? Does the way we write about land impact how we conceptualize and engage with it? What power does the way we write about land and space have over the directions of future policy and decision-making regarding Canada’s environment?
Works Cited
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Neary, Lynn. “To Achieve Diversity in Publishing, a Difficult Dialogue Beats Silence.” National Public Radio. 20 Aug. 2014, https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/08/20/341443632/to-achieve-diversity-in-publishing-a-difficult-dialogue-beats-silence. Accessed 8 April 2019.
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Decolonizing Ourselves 