“A Long Story” of appropriation: Beth Brant and postcolonial feminism in Canada

Abstract

The concept of postcolonialism with regard to Canada seems to be more complex than in other cultures because it needs to include the three founding nations (First Nations People, the French and the English), and at least two races (red and white) with a variety of ethnic perspectives of numerous immigrants (Moss 2003, Hammill 2007). The offi cial cultural mosaic policy was designed to lead to cultural decolonization and decentralization in Canada. However, while white people, however heterogeneous, can merge into a homogenous nation, other races remain visibly diff erent, which allows for the existence of the imperial (white) center and the distant (colored) margin. For this reason, feminism in postcolonial countries overlaps with nationalism as a subversive activity aiming at a redefi nition of the power relations between the margin and the center, while in Canada particularly the postcolonial feminist writing criticizes the position of the First Nations women within the decolonized but still dominantly patriarchal and hegemonic corporate society generally intolerant towards the indigenous population. Multiple marginalization of native Indian and Métis women is a historic fact in Canada. The author, Beth Brant, believes the situation basically remains the same to this day. Her own marginalized position of woman, Métis and lesbian, which she projects onto her female characters, off ers itself as material for research to answer the question as to how gender, race, and class function in a colonial and postcolonial discourse, which is also the aim of this paper.