Mino-Bimaadiziwin as Critical Theory: Reading Atwood’s Speculative Fiction Through an Ojibwe Lens

This presentation follows the path blazed by First Nations and Native American scholars who have argued for the value in using Indigenous epistemologies as critical theories in a largely non-Indigenous academic context.

Following their research and practice, it uses the Anishinaabe epistemology of Mino-Bimaadiziwin (“the way of the good life”) to read Margaret Atwood’s speculative novel, MaddAddam. Some may question the relevance of Indigenous studies in this novel due to the near-absence of non-white characters in the trilogy; others may question the relevance of Margaret Atwood to the conversation of Indigenous studies in light of the criticisms brought against her fiction and non-fiction for the (stereotypical or appropriative) representation (or lack thereof) of Indigenous people and cultures and due to her participation in debates regarding the supposed claims of Native identity made by Canadian authors. Nevertheless, this presentation argues that reading MaddAddam in terms of Mino-Bimaadiziwin highlights the epistemological significance of the novel’s inventive use of discourse and unusual (for Atwood) representation of nonhuman life. Reading the novel in terms of Anishinaabe epistemologies not only illuminates the critical value of these ways of seeing the world, but highlights the ways in which non-Indigenous philosophies like post-structuralism and post-humanism are indebted to marginalized fields of theory which preceded them, often by centuries. As such, this talk has three goals: to provide an in-depth narratological analysis of one of Atwood’s most popular novels; in doing so, to offer an alternative theoretical approach to the novel which includes Native epistemologies; and to do the necessary work of academic decolonization by challenging the commonly accepted wisdom of who produces theory and to whom it is applied.