Abstract
This paper will examine how Canadian and Australian picture books about Indigenous peoples have evolved over the past three decades into texts that imagine the survival of Indigenous languages and land despite colonisation. Drawing on a sample of six contemporary picture books about Indigenous peoples in present-day Canada and Australia, I will explore how these works challenge representations of Indigenous peoples as the Other through complimentary textual and visual techniques that instead Other colonists (Nodelman 29). By positioning European colonisers as foreign invaders who fail in their attempts to erase rather than understand vibrant Indigenous cultures, these texts enable Indigenous communities to symbolically reclaim the land, family, language, and identity taken by colonial forces. Contemporary Canadian and Australian picture books about the European colonisation of Indigenous peoples assert the value of Indigeneity by mobilising a juxtaposition of Indigenous versus non-Indigenous through contrasting shapes and colours that enhance textual differences between colonised and coloniser. While Canadian texts highlight the healing capabilities of Indigenous languages, Australian texts emphasise how symbiotic relationships with the land empower Indigenous peoples, reflecting geographical variations between Indigenous histories in each country that ultimately encourage diverse representations of Indigeneity.
Highlights
This paper will examine how Canadian and Australian picture books about Indigenous peoples have evolved over the past three decades into texts that imagine the survival of Indigenous languages and land despite colonisation
The contemporary Canadian and Australian picture books about the European colonisation of Indigenous peoples examined in this paper employ similar techniques for highlighting cultural differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples and places, their methods for emphasising this dichotomy often vary
While each text visually juxtaposes Aboriginals and colonists using contrasting shapes and colours that assert the value of Indigenous cultures, these oppositions assume a specific significance within every picture book that collectively reveal thematic differences between Canadian and Australian Indigenous children’s literature and, potentially, larger cultural variances amongst Indigenous populations within each country respectively
Summary
This paper will examine how Canadian and Australian picture books about Indigenous peoples have evolved over the past three decades into texts that imagine the survival of Indigenous languages and land despite colonisation. Doris Wolf and Paul De Pasquale suggest that picture books about Aboriginals, like those analysed in this paper, offer Indigenous children and communities “positive affirmation of their cultures and identities” through powerful synergistic verbal and visual representations of thriving Indigeneity despite colonisation (88) These texts employ both word and image to emphasise the value of surviving differences between Indigenous and European cultures and “challenge the dominance of white, middle-class characters and settings” in Canadian and Australian children’s literature (89). The Australian picture books selected for this study differ from my Canadian texts because unlike Stolen Girl and Sorry Day, The Rabbits concludes with Indigenous characters failing to reclaim their land, family, language, or identity after colonisation Though both the author and illustrator of The Rabbits are non-Indigenous Australians—John Marsden is Caucasian while Shaun Tan is Chinese/Malay and Irish/English—much of Tan’s other work, such as Tales from Outer Suburbia (2008) and The Lost Thing (2000), focuses on “displacement and troubled belonging,” reflecting his own experiences as a biracial and bicultural child growing up in a predominantly white community (“Shaun Tan: Straight Talking Dreamer”). Though the Canadian and Australian texts selected for this paper employ common Indigenous-picture-book techniques for expressing Aboriginal values, they more actively protest colonisation by addressing how colonial forces threaten Indigenous environments
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