Lands, Bodies, and the Meaning(s) of Consent in Recent Writing by Indigenous Women and Two-Spirit Authors

Abstract:This article examines the concept of consent and its uses in global contexts such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and in local contexts specific to contemporary Canada. It examines how consent has often been wielded to serve settler interests to the detriment of Indigenous people, particularly concerning resource extraction and land theft. It then considers some of the ways discourses of consent related to environmental and sexual violence overlap in Indigenous writing. I argue that taking a closer look at fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by Indigenous Women and Two-Spirit authors Helen Knott, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and Tunchai (T’áncháy) Redvers reveals useful ways to challenge settler ideas of consent premised on capitalist accumulation. In turn, these writers’ works present reformulations of consent that might better protect Indigenous lives and lands through strengthening kinship and governance, and by entrenching resistance to external encroachment when necessary.