Keah Hansen is a doctoral candidate in the Communication and Culture program at York University. She previously completed her Master’s of Arts degree in English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, and her Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature at McGill University. She currently studies the intersection of affect and finance and is bilingual in English and French.
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Abstract
Many Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples contend that the Canadian government has failed Indigenous peoples in addressing missing and murdered Indigenous women and in encouraging Canadians to respond to the Calls to Action made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In my paper, I examine how two Indigenous graphic novels—Deer Woman by Elizabeth LaPensée, Will I See by David A. Robertson et al.—and one non-Indigenous-authored graphic novel—Secret Path by Gord Downie and Jeff Lemire—provoke empowerment and shame, respectively, in their readers, in order to incite action to counter failures of the government in addressing colonial violence. While pre-existing work has addressed Indigenous storytelling through graphic novels (Tiger) and the potential of graphic novels to represent trauma for justice (Crawley and Rijsijk, Donova and Ustundag), my paper is novel in examining how emotionality in graphic novels can function to subvert government inaction in addressing violence against Indigenous peoples.
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