Lagoonscapes

The Venice Journal of Environmental Humanities

Narrative Agency and Storied Becomings in Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves

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Abstract

Set in a future in which North America has succumbed to ecological disaster and the settler-colonial inhabitants have lost the ability to dream, Cherie Dimaline’s novel, The Marrow Thieves, depicts how an ethics of reciprocal care for both humans and more-than-humans offers a means of resistance toward necropolitical colonial narratives of indigeneity. Throughout the novel, Story, dreams, and language are agential, and enact a communal being with such that the characters are able to see themselves not just in the past but also in the present and the future.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: July 12, 2024 | Accepted: Sept. 11, 2024 | Published Dec. 6, 2024 | Language: en

Keywords The Marrow Thieves • Indigenous epistemologies • Agential narrative • Eco-critical dystopia • Land agency

Copyright © 2024 Andrea Ruthven. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/LGSP/2785-2709/2024/02/012