Svitlana Kot
PhD student, English Philology Department, Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University, Mykolaiv, Ukraine. ORCID: 0000-0002-1462-1276. Email: svitlana.kot@chmnu.edu.ua
Volume 12, Number 1, January-March, 2020 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n1.01
Abstract
In light of rapidly spreading urbanization and the constant growth of indigenous populations living in cities, urban Indian narratives emerge as a means to battle simulations and invisibility of Native Americans in the city by demonstrating stories of resistance, survival and identity preservation. Native American literature written in the city and about the city plays an essential role in reimagining and redefining indigenous space and its representation in modern American culture. This study aims to contribute to this growing area of research by exploring urban space in novel Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich, a Native American writer. Despite apocalyptic symbolism and fictional nature, this novel is both an indigenous perspective on the city space and a reflection of urban Indian experience. By employing an interdisciplinary coordinate system and combining spatial analysis with the transcultural approach, eco-feminism and Foucauldian analysis of power distribution, this study offers some critical insights into Native American vision of urban nature and future, as well as culture, gender, politics, and ecology, while also demonstrating that indigenous people are active thinkers involved in urban discourse.
Keywords: dystopia, eco-feminism, Native Americans, transculturalism, urban space.
