Preserving Intimate Relationships on Nishnaabeg Territory: Decolonial Love, Women and Radical Resistance in Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s Stories and Songs
Résumé
This chapter explores selected stories and songs from Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s collections, Islands of Decolonial Love (2013) and This Accident of Being Lost (2017). As a Michi Saagiig Anishinaabeg writer, academic, and activist from Canada, Simpson posits that emotional, intimate, cultural, and spiritual connections to the Anishinaabeg Nations, their ancestral territory, ancestors, other-than-human beings, and their culture are vital tools to resist persisting and pervading colonialism. Beginning with an examination of the mother-daughter relationship, Simpson imagines female speakers and addressees positioned centrally within a complex web of interconnected relationships that are simultaneously intimate and political, personal and communal in nature.