As a group, our mission was to pursue in the context of our course materials Susie O’Brien’s intervention, “Canadian Literary Environments,” beyond the limits of its five-minute running time. The attraction to O’Brien’s proposed strategy stems from this course’s central themes of intersections and collaboration. Our research dialogue centred itself around questions regarding the factors that permit the conditions described in the case studies and reflected in literature. Beyond this, we discussed how to make issues of environmental racism common knowledge, and whether or not there is a way to use new mediums for this purpose. Finally, we touched on how this all works towards creating a more equitable and representative Canadian identity.
Our research reflected a desire to make sense of the intersections between eco-critical theory and the lived realities of marginalized populations who face systematic oppression within a neoliberal world order. Our annotated bibliography was thus comprised of cases studies focusing on instances of environmental racism, as well as scholarly articles pertaining to eco-critical theory and literary analysis. As we went about our research, we encountered a number of case studies about First Nations communities adversely affected by industrial development or large-scale projects. Windsor and McVey identify projects that are “likely to have negative impacts on the lives of specific groups or individuals” as “‘wicked’ projects” (Windsor & McVey 147) and our research found that First Nations communities face a disproportionate amount of these.
In particular, we looked at a community on the Sarnia River whose water was contaminated by a petroleum plant, and a set of villages forced to evacuate on a moment’s notice to accommodate a dam project. In both cases, the project leads to what Windsor and McVey describe as “place annihilation.” “Place and sense of place… are vital to personal and group identity” (Windsor & McVey 147), they write, and this description places these instances of environmental racism as more than the displacement of peoples, but as attacks on culture and society. At the Sarnia River, for example, traditions involving the drinking of water or activities such as fishing were spoiled due to the contaminated water. Whether “place annihilation” occurs through the total destruction of a dam project or the slow contamination of resources seen at the Sarnia River, it is difficult to imagine the difficulties these communities must live through, but a particularly affecting quote we found from a First Nations chief forced to move because of a hydroelectric dam project greatly helped our understanding:
This land is where we belong – it is God’s gift to us and has made us as we are…The stories the old people told are still alive here… We know where to find all that it provides for us… The spirits around us know us and are friendly and helpful… Those who moved would be strangers to the people and the spirits and the places where they are made to go. (Windsor 149-150)
The issues of environmental injustice and cultural destruction facing First Nations communities are numerous, but John Borrows takes on the daunting task of proposing solutions. Allowing Indigenous participation in environmental discourse would be mutually beneficial, he argues, as their knowledge could help ensure projects are safe and sustainable. For example, a First Nations community would only keep the large fish that they caught from a lake, leaving the smaller fish at the bottom of the food chain to sustain the ecosystem. Fisheries overfished the smaller species, however, and the ecosystem could not withstand the change. Like the chief quoted above, Borrows personifies the land and environment, saying it is treated as a “passive object” and not an “active subject of democracy” (Borrows 446). As the environment does not have a voice or vote, he proposes First Nations communities are best suited to representing it. Borrows knows his vision of an integrated political system is idealistic, but he makes a strong case for why it should be considered; changing the system to allow intersections between Indigenous knowledge and Canadian policy-making would prevent some of the environmental racism First Nations communities face, while improving the overall quality of the resulting projects. He concludes that “First Nations people must no longer be marginalized… by federalist structures. They must have full access to, and participation within, Canada’s institutions” (Borrows 450).
Additionally, our research illuminated ways to think about the production and the analysis of literary texts as engaging in a form of “cultural work,” which positions the writer in the role of “cultural worker-activist” (to use Reed’s term). In contributing to the cultural imaginary, writers and literary theorists engage in essential “cultural work,” which allows the contestation of deeply ideological scripts legitimizing a neoliberal status quo.
For instance, T.V. Reed and Cheryl Lousley give us models for discussing literature through an eco-critical/ post-colonial framework. Lousley examines Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water, while Reed investigates Leslie Marmon’s Silko’s Almanac of the Dead. Both Reed and Lousley are committed to investigating the “politics of representation” in these two novels. According to these scholars, both Almanac and GGRW are actively engaged in an “un-making” and a “re-making” of representations of Indigenous people and of the natural world. In doing so, these texts challenge a legacy of literary canonical exclusion and historical erasure implicated in the colonial project. Reed and Lousley remind us that language and modes of representation, whether it be in art of literature, are far from neutral. Almanac and GGRW undermine colonizing discourses which remain embedded in neoliberal policy today. Thus in thinking about the linkages between cultural production, theory, and activism, we can argue that a writer is a “cultural worker-activist” insomuch as they have the ability to challenge normative cultural scripts implicated in the legitimization of oppressive social structures. Mason et al. make an effort to link their emphasis on theory with a realization of these “critical reflections” outside of an academic, theoretical realm. Mason et al.’s “Introduction to Postcolonial Ecocriticism among Settler-Colonial Nations” links eco-critical practice to “non-literary events” in a attempt to connect theory with policy, and policy with application. Additionally, Reed’s ideas surrounding “environmental justice cultural criticism” are played out in very real ways in the drafting of the “17 Principles of Environmental Justice,” compiled at the first National People of Colour Environmental Leadership Summit. Alston’s piece outlines the monumental nature of this summit which sought to address cases of environmental racism.
In order to complete our research dialogue, our team decided to partner with Angela, Fiona, Jamie, and Whitney’s group, which focused their research project on Neoliberalism. Our partner group aimed to take a non-partisan stance on what we saw as the unifying element in most cases environmental racism, to “consider what [neoliberalism and governmental influence] will do (and what it has so far done) to the publication of Canada’s literature” (“Neoliterature”). The group defines Neoliberalism as “an approach to economics and social studies in which control of economic factors is shifted from the public sector to the private sector” (“Neoliterature”), and focused their studies on how neoliberalism affects the world of Canadian literature and Canadian literary publishing. They noted that “[the interventions] that interested [them] focused on a collaboration between people from different backgrounds with varying ideas” (“Neoliterature”).
This aligned with our own interest in the intersecting space between postcolonialism and ecocriticism, which O’Brien’s intervention deeply takes into consideration. Both of our topics also have roots in the political and cultural realm outside of academia, which further drew us towards partnering our team with their research. Though we highlighted distinctly separate issues in our respective research endeavours, one thread that wove itself between both of our areas of research was the idea of marginalization in the face of a more mainstream society. Many of the articles we found for our research, such as John Borrows’ “Living Between Water and Rocks: First Nations, Environmental Planning and Democracy”, analyze how First Nations peoples are marginalized and excluded from Canadian mainstream society; Borrows’ article examines various exclusions of First Nations communities from Canadian policy-making. The group we partnered with also narrowed their discussion of marginalization to research involving policy-making, but their studies discussed how Canadian literature and publishing is threatened and diminished by the overwhelmingly American-centric culture of mainstream international publishing, as well as how Canada’s worldwide literary standing is influenced by pervasive myth of Canada “fearing excellence” (York 99). While it was interesting to see that both of our groups were deeply influenced by this idea of marginalization, it was particularly fascinating from a research partnership vantage to see how the neoliberalism group took this common thread of interest and wove it into their fieldwork in a different way than we did.
Furthermore, while our research group focused more on scholarship involving the Canadian environment and its relation to marginalized groups in the face of a neoliberal society, the other group focused on neoliberalism’s effect on Canadian cultural production and output. In other words, our research seems to diverge and run parallel to one another, but the amelioration of the problem lies in the convergence of these two streams. Instances of exploitation like those mentioned in the case studies typically occur in rural areas to already marginal demographics and as a result of the remoteness of these instances, they receive startlingly little attention outside of academic discourses. What has been shown in Neoliterature’s annotations is that opening up the market allows for outside influences (foreign markets) to dominate and suppress the organic cultivation of a national identity.
It strikes us that one possible way to reduce the tragic instances that populate our own annotations would be to create a space where the output of cultural material (in the form of literature) is not so fiercely dependent on how economically lucrative it is. The internet is an equitable space in which these issues can be raised free of economic constraint, but the lack of monetary gains to be made from online self-publishing is a serious deterrent. Beyond this, people tend to treat documents not sanctioned by established publishing firms or printed on sites without notoriety with less credulity than they would something published in print.
So where does this leave us? Stuck between two imperfect modes of publishing. The important stories, the stories that catalyze action in readers, may be left to languish somewhere in the interstices. Obviously, the ambitions of this conference are lofty (as they need to be), but if any difference is to be made in reality, our demands must be modest. It would be ideal if people became more politically engaged and would speak out about environmental racism before it affects their own land, but this requires a degree of involvement beyond the purview of most ordinary citizens. Additionally, those who are affected by environmental racism are those who experience the most socio-economic barriers and institutional discrimination, which oftentimes work to impede their participation within the political sphere. We undeniably have a long way to come in better understanding the intersecting systems of oppression that contribute to cases of environmental racism, however, our research has also revealed potential arenas of change, at both the level of policy and of cultural production. What we can hope for is a more ethically motivated consumption of popular culture. Books, movies, music, and so forth are agents of political socialization- they encourage us to act and influence our beliefs. In line with this notion, we feel that there is a need for further study concerning online self publishing versus mainstream publication, as well as the potential of universalizing access to online databases. We need to realize that the spheres of art and politics are not wholly separate, and perhaps not the best, but the most paradoxically realistic way to generate change is to do so on the page, in fiction or in journalism, first.
WORKS CITED
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Avery, Laura, Hayden Cook, Max Miller, and Hava Rosenberg. “Canadian Literary Genres Research Blog.” Canadian Literary Genres Research Blog. UBC Blogs. Web. 14 Aug. 2015.
Borrows, John. “Living between Water and Rocks: First Nations, Environmental Planning and Democracy.” The University of Toronto Law Journal 47.4 (1999): 417-468. Web. 14 Aug. 2015.
“I’m Not the Indian You Had in Mind.” National Screen Institute. March 2012. Retrieved August 14 2015.
King, Jamie, Whitney Millar, Angela Olivares, and Fiona Wei. “Neoliterature.” Neoliterature. UBC Blogs. Web. 14 Aug. 2015.
“Leslie Marmon Silko.” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation. Web. 14 Aug. 2015.
Lousley, Cheryl. “‘Hosanna Da, Our Home on Natives’ Land’: Environmental Justice and Democracy in Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Essays on Canadian Writing 81 (2004): 17-44. Web. 14 Aug. 2015.
McVey, J.A. and J.W. Windsor. “Annihilation of Both Place and Sense of Place: The Experience of the Cheslatta T’En Canadian First Nation within the Context of Large-Scale Environmental Projects”. The Geographical Journal 171. 2 (2005): 146-165. Web. 14 Aug. 2015.
Mason, Travis V., Lisa Szabo-Jones, and Elzette Steenkamp. “Introduction to Postcolonial Ecocriticism Among Settler-Colonial Nations.” A Review of International English Literature 44.4 (2013): 1-11. Print.
Milz, Sabine. “Canadian Cultural Policy-making at a Time of Neoliberal Globalization.”ESC: English Studies in Canada 33.1 (2007): 85-107. Web. 14 Aug 2015.
O’Brien, Susie. “Canadian Literary Environments.” Canadian Literature 204 (2010): 118. Literature Resource Center. Web. 14 Aug. 2015.
Reed, T.V. “Toxic colonialism, environmental justice, and Native resistance in Silko’s Almanac of the Dead.” MELUS 34.2 (2009): 25+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 14 Aug. 2015.
York, Lorraine. “”He should do well on the American talk shows”: Celebrity, publishing, and the future of Canadian literature.” Essays on Canadian Writing 71 (2000): 96. Web. 14 Aug 2015.