ARW250 (Who Gets to Draw the Maps) Discussion Board
It is important to note that the title of Lee Maracle’s piece does not end with a question mark. Rather than being phrased as a question, it is phrased as if completing an action, a predicate of sorts, such as, [It is the monarch] who gets to draw the maps. If we think of it this way, we can see how Maracle’s essay is really one about who has power and control. What is most interesting, however, is that the people who existed for millennia in a certain place are thought by those, who only entered that place recently, to be unfit for such responsibility.
What I am speaking of here is not really about maps, but rather the direction and dominion that the colonial order has established for itself in relation to the power to locate and name the position of lesser beings. The colonial order directed its people to touch the earth in the name of the monarch, rename places, people and things, and establish the monarch’s order as the only power broker on this island. That is their story and they are sticking to it. (79)
As Maracle speaks of geography, she also speaks of words and stories, because the topographical details on a map are one type of storytelling, and the toponymical details are another; however, both combine to write (graph) and name (nym) places. It is interesting that British Columbia, which is name checked in the essay’s subtitle, “In and out of Place in British Columbia,” is almost a story in and of itself. It tells a colonial story of European conquest and naming, “British Columbia,” but Maracle shows that it is a shifting and unstable one with “in and out of place.” Things are not as simple as they might seem.
Paying close attention to the approach that Lee Maracle takes in illustrating that colonialism attempts to erase past history, discuss how her essay is adept at illustrating that “The exclusion of Indigenous people in all aspects of the cultural, social and academic maps of Canada reduces us to visitors within the boundaries of our nations” (70-71). You must always use direct quotes and page citations from the texts to support your points.
And don’t forget these words from the assignment page: You must always use direct quotes and page citations from the texts to support your points.