An Ecocritical Study of Indigenous Resistance in Louise Erdrich’s The Night Watchman
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Date
2025-07-13
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UNIVERSITY OF MOHAMED BOUDIAF- M’SILA
Abstract
Abstract
In a time of ongoing environmental crises and Indigenous marginalization, literature becomes a vital space for reclaiming land, memory, and cultural identity. Louise Erdrich’s novel The Night Watchman is a significant example of Native American literature that portrays resistance in the face of colonial domination and oppression. Set against the backdrop of the 1950s Termination Era, the novel explores how land, identity, and traditional knowledge become central to Indigenous resistance. By utilizing this novel as a corpus, this dissertation intends to demonstrate how Indigenous resistance is expressed through a deep relationship with land, nature, and ancestral knowledge, emphasizing the cultural and ecological ties that colonial forces attempt to sever. Drawing on the frameworks of Ecocriticism and Ecocolonialism, and engaging with concepts such Arne Naess’s concept of deep ecology, Rob Nixon’s theory of slow violence, and Gerald Vizenor’s concept of survivance. This research reveals how colonial policies enact gradual ecological and cultural violence, while Indigenous narratives serve as acts of resistance and survival that reclaim land as a vital source of resilience and continuity
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Keywords
Keywords: Deep Ecology, Indigenous, Ecocriticism, Ecocolonialism, Resistance.