English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

The aim of this paper is to examine Charles de Lint’s novel Widdershins (2006), whose main theme is an interspecies war for the American land. The paper demonstrates how, by exploring the themes of Indigenous suffering, belief in species interconnectedness, reverence for the natural world, and approach to trauma, the novel participates in the deconstruction of colonial structures present in the concept of the Anthropocene. The paper also engages de Lint’s novel in a dialogue with the studies on the Anthropocene to prove that, by providing its readers with alternative modes of thinking, fantasy fiction can contribute to the cognitive change required to save our planet from human-wrought destruction. Though Charles de Lint is today recognized as a key representative of urban fantasy, readers familiar with his works know that de Lint’s fiction has undergone a major development since the beginning of his career in the 1980s. The random images of magical creatures secretly inhabiting Ottawa and the fictional city of Newford have evolved into a complex system that combines Indigenous beliefs with European folktales and reflects the composite cultures of Canada and the US. De Lint’s concern with the fate of the underprivileged, initially expressed by his depiction of urban crime and poverty, now focuses on the unequal treatment experienced by ethnic communities. The author also regularly pays attention to the state of the natural world and people’s relationship with nature. The aim of this paper is to investigate de Lint’s novel Widdershins (2006) – in which Native spirits and European fairies 162 Weronika Łaszkiewicz fight an interspecies war for the possession of the American land – in order to demonstrate how this narrative exposes the settler-colonial politics of the Anthropocene. Debates on the challenges posed by the Anthropocene – a term introduced by Paul J. Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer [2000, 17-18] to describe humankind as a geological agent which alters the state of the planet – focus on climate change, exploitation of resources, degradation of the environment, and people’s flawed perception of non-human species, all of which might ultimately lead to the destruction of our world.1 Since these debates typically use words such as (hu)mankind and humanity, they implicitly assume people’s collective responsibility for the creation of the Anthropocene, and then stress the need for unified actions against its further development [Comos and Rosenthal 2019, ix]. While the latter is understandable since the earth is everyone’s shared home, the former means that the blame for the current state of events is divided equally between all communities – including Indigenous communities whose impact on the world is different from that of industrialized Western nations [Comos and Rosenthal 2019, ix-x; Tønnessen and Oma 2016, x-xiii]. Dipesh Chakrabarty [2009, 216] recognizes this fallacy: “does not the talk of species or mankind simply serve to hide the reality of capitalist production and the logic of imperial (...) domination that it fosters?”. Arguing that the concept of human collectivity is “a universal that arises from a shared sense of a catastrophe” rather than something that transcends cultural diversity and is experienced by an individual, Chakrabarty [2009, 222] states that the Anthropocene “calls for a global approach to politics without the myth of a global identity.” Hubert Zapf adds that “the contention that humanity acts as a single unified agent tends to obscure cultural diversity, imbalances of power, and unequal distribution of environmental risk between different parts and cultures of the world” [2019, 3]. Recognizing Anthropocentric discourse as a continuation of settlercolonial politics, Heather Davis and Zoe Todd insist [2017, 763-769] that the beginning of this period should be dated to the year 1610, when European settlers began their exploitation of other lands. This exploitation continues, in various forms, till the present day. Kyle Pows Whyte indicates that, in the 19th and 20th century, Indigenous people suffered other kinds of anthropogenic environmental change at the hands of settlers, including changes associated with deforestation, forced removal and relocation, containment on reservations (i.e., loss of mobility), liquidation of our lands into individual private property and subsequent dispossession, and unmitigated pollution and destruction of our lands from extractive industries and commodity agriculture. [2017, 208-209] 1 To see how the term Anthropocene has evolved to embrace various issues see, e.g., Timothy Clark’s Ecocriticism on the Edge: Anthropocene as a Threshold Concept (2015). Decolonizing the Anthropocene: Reading Charles de Lint’s Widdershins 163 Davis and Todd argue that, once people see the connection between the Anthropocene and colonization, they will realize that “the ecocidal logics that now govern our world are not inevitable or ‘human nature’, but are the result of a series of decisions that have their origins and reverberations in colonization” [2017, 763]. Hanna Straß-Senol, who studies the colonial underpinnings of the Anthropocene, indicates that “from an indigenous perspective, the homogenizing and universalizing narrative of the Anthropocene discourse has to be problematised” [2019, 117]. Collective contribution to the creation of the Anthropocene is a false conviction that needs to be amended with Indigenous experiences of this period – in other words, the debate on the Anthropocene needs to be decolonized. For Davis and Todd this act of decolonizing “calls for the consideration of Indigenous philosophies and processes of Indigenous self-governance as a necessary political corrective” [2017, 763]. Straß-Senol adds that it is necessary to assess Native communities’ actual participation in the creation of the Anthropocene, the damage they have suffered because of it, and the help they can provide to counter its effects. In order to prove how literature can dismantle the colonial structures of Anthropocentric discourse, Straß-Senol examines Thomas King’s The Back of the Turtle (2014) and Chantal Bilodeau’s Sila (2015), which combine Indigenous mythologies and knowledge with a non-human perception of the world. These works, as Straß-Senol argues [2019, 125-126], illustrate how the Anthropocene – largely a product of the dominant culture and heavy industry [Schwägerl 2014, 64] – can be countered by traditional knowledge that recognizes humanity as just one among the many species inhabiting the planet. Images of the Anthropocene have appeared also in modern fantasy fiction whose repertoire of imaginary worlds, utopias, and dystopias as well as its visions of destruction and rebirth seem particularly effective for speculation about the causes, nature, and consequences of the Anthropocene. Gina Comos and Caroline Rosenthal assert that “[b]y creating ‘imaginative counterworlds,’ literature and other forms of art may not only help make the risks of the Anthropocene more tangible and comprehensible to the individual, but they function as an important catalyst to critical self-reflection and ecological awareness” [2019, xi]. Since fantasy fiction offers “imaginative counterworlds” par excellence and frequently features Indigenous characters, it should be given particular attention in the study of literature’s influence on the Anthropocene and its settler-colonial structures. It should be noted that Indigenous people and traditions are one of the major components of de Lint’s urban fantasy fiction, and they have appeared, e.g., in Moonheart (1984), Svaha (1989), Someplace to Be Flying (1998), Forests of the Heart (2000), and The Wind in His Heart (2017). However, since de Lint is a Canadian writer with Dutch origins [Reid 2002, 51] and does not belong to an Indigenous community, his depiction of Native people – though informed by the writer’s respect and sympathy – raises justifiable concerns about 164 Weronika Łaszkiewicz cultural appropriation. Even a well-intended representation of an Indigenous group is likely to fall prey to what Gerald Vizenor condemns as simulated Native presence generated by the dominant culture [1999, 84-86]. Fortunately, writers, readers, and scholars of fantasy are gaining more awareness of the genre’s ingrained “habits of whiteness” and its highly stereotypical portrayal of various ethnic communities [Young 2016]. Recognizing a similar problem present in de Lint’s fiction, Weronika Łaszkiewicz examines a selection of his works to indicate the writer’s evolving treatment of Native characters and cultures. Łaszkiewicz argues that though some of de Lint’s early stories recycle cliché tropes of nature-wise noble savages and depict Native people as inhabitants of a fantastic world, his later books become more engaged with modern Native Americans and the socio-economic problems of their communities [2018, 233-249]. Widdershins (2006), a fine representative of de Lint’s style and goals, deserves to be added to the analysis of his literary output not only because it provides insight into the author’s thoughts about the challenges of the Anthropocene, but also because it undermines, at least partly, the colonial underpinnings of Anthropocentric discourse. The following paper will demonstrate how, by exploring the themes of Indigenous suffering, belief in species interconnectedness, reverence for the natural world, and approach to trauma and healing, the novel participates in the deconstruction of settler-colonial structures.2 Widdershins, which belongs to the Newford series, consists of two plotlines. The first one follows the territorial conflict between European fairies, who migrated together with the colonists, and the American “cousins,” i.e. original inhabitants of the New World, who can shape-shift into animals. In the course of the novel readers observe how their centuries-old dispute – a projection of the conflict between Native people and th

Decolonizing the Anthropocene: Reading Charles de Lint’s "Widdershins"