The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.
October’s Book of the Month was selected by Helen Worrell, Subject Consultant for Anthropology.
A short history of the blockade: giant beavers, diplomacy, and regeneration in Nishnaabewin
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
University of Alberta Press, 2021
Available as an eBook via SOLO
Simpson uses four Nishnaabeg stories as an illustration of the politics of blockades in Canada. These stories build on Simpsons theories on generative resistance and Audra’s Simpson’s theory on ethnographic ‘refusal’. This book will be of interest to Anthropology, Sociology, Indigenous Studies, and Geography.
Book Overview
In A Short History of the Blockade, award-winning writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson uses Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg stories, storytelling aesthetics, and practices to explore the generative nature of Indigenous blockades through our relative, the beaver—or in Nishnaabemowin, Amik. Moving through genres, shifting through time, amikwag stories become a lens for the life-giving possibilities of dams and the world-building possibilities of blockades, deepening our understanding of Indigenous resistance as both a negation and an affirmation. Widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation, Simpson’s work breaks open the intersections between politics, story, and song, bringing audiences into a rich and layered world of sound, light, and sovereign creativity. A Short History of the Blockade reveals how the practice of telling stories is also a culture of listening, “a thinking through together,” and ultimately, like the dam or the blockade, an affirmation of life. Introduction by Jordan Abel.
Reviews
“Simpson, a celebrated Indigenous storyteller, artist, and scholar, offers four Nishnaabeg stories from the wisdom of the beaver nation and the foundational teachings of their blockades (dams) as an established practice of world-building resistance. Together, the stories are also a commentary on current issues of social media, lateral violence, binary thinking, and surveillance that house the potential to hinder the generative, relational, and reciprocal nature of Indigenous resistance.”
Morgan Mowatt, University of Toronto Quarterly, August 2023
How can I access it?
This title is available as an eBook which can be accessed from any Bodleian Library computer or used remotely, by logging on to SOLO with your SSO.
What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.
