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Social Science Native American Studies

Defamiliarizing the Aboriginal

Cultural Practices and Decolonization in Canada

by (author) Julia V. Emberley

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Dec 2007
Category
Native American Studies
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802091512
    Publish Date
    Dec 2007
    List Price
    $72.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781442610255
    Publish Date
    May 2009
    List Price
    $49.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442684270
    Publish Date
    Dec 2007
    List Price
    $93.00

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Description

From the Canadian Indian Act to Freud's Totem and Taboo to films such as Nanook of the North, all manner of cultural artefacts have been used to create a distinction between savagery and civilization. In Defamiliarizing the Aboriginal, Julia V. Emberley examines the historical production of aboriginality in colonial cultural practices and its impact on the everyday lives of indigenous women, youth, and children.

Adopting a materialist-semiotic approach, Emberley explores the ways in which representational technologies - film, photography, and print culture, including legal documents and literature - were crucial to British colonial practices. Many indigenous scholars, writers, and artists, however, have confounded these practices by deploying aboriginality as a complex and enabling sign of social, cultural, and political transformation. Emberley gives due attention to this important work, studying a wide range of topics such as race, place, and motherhood, primitivism and violence, and sexuality and global political kinships. Her multidisciplinary approach ensures that Defamiliarizing the Aboriginal will be of interest to scholars and students of cultural studies, indigenous studies, women's studies, postcolonial and colonial studies, literature, and film.

About the author

Julia V. Emberley is an associate professor in the Department of English at the University of Western Ontario.

Julia V. Emberley's profile page