Ecofeminist ‘lines of convergence’: Remapping the American West in Rebecca Solnit’s Savage Dreams

Abstract

This article examines the ways Rebecca Solnit’s Savage Dreams (1994) (re)maps two key locations in the American West. The text centres on Yosemite National Park and the Nevada Test Site, locations emblematic of histories of colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism and the military in the United States. Considering how Solnit constructs a counter-map of these places, this article argues that by tracing ‘lines of convergence’ on a landscape deemed empty by the dominant culture, Solnit both documents and is part of resistance to power structures upheld by traditional cartography. Using an ecofeminist framework based on drawing connections in the face of the dominant culture’s emphasis on fragmentation and separation, I discuss how Solnit exposes the silence and violence of the map. I then consider the ways she constructs a ‘testimonial network’ that counters both. Finally, I suggest that Solnit’s textual counter-map prompts us to re-read the traditional map on connective, ecofeminist terms.