DEATH, REBIRTH AND CONSIDERATIONS OF THE ‘INDIGENOUS’ IN KATHLEEN WINTER’S ANNABEL
DEATH, REBIRTH AND CONSIDERATIONS OF THE ‘INDIGENOUS’ IN KATHLEEN WINTER’S ANNABEL

Summary/Abstract: This article examines Annabel, a novel by Canadian author Kathleen Winter, through a decolonial lens infused with a consideration of Native Canadian survival, resistance, and rebirth. This reading stratagem enables one to understand how the main character, intersex individual Wayne/Annabel, may suggest how principles of Indigenous resistance can aid an understanding of intersex and gendered identities.. Moreover, this paper brings together a focus on perceived cultural death(a strategy employed historically by the Canadian government, as in the case of residential schools, to justify horrendous policies to ‘save’ Indigenous cultures through assimilation) and intersex/gendered ‘death’ (a death enforced by society’s refusal to accept and give life to the latter via recognition and understanding) in order to suggest how rebirth and a denial of death take place through new theoretical examinations. The article departs from previous readings of Annabel, which, to this point, have focused mainly on the novel’s general call for an acceptance of difference and on its possibility of providing ecocritical commentary. Rather, this paper is a call to embrace and create theories that disregard death (that is, the perceived death of both Indigenous nations and individuals whose intersex identity is not given life by those who adhere to ‘normative’ societal identities) and provide new strategies forreading sexual and gendered identities through a lens shaped by a recognition of the continuance of Indigenous life. In particular, the article revisits the principles of rebirth and resistance revealed by the Canadian Native Renaissance of the 1960s and1970s and blends the latter with a consideration of intersex and gender realities. In doing so, the paper proposes a fresh theoretical outlook and tact for reading intersex and gendered identities through a consideration of Indigeneity.

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