Hybride heltinner i det litterære Arktis. Dekolonialitet, interseksjonalitet og økokritikk i Nelvana of the Northern Lights (1941 - 1947), White Heat (2011) og Kautokeino, en blodig kniv (2012)

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation, <i>Hybrid heroines in the literary Arctic</i>, is to bring literary studies to the popular literary Arctic through analyzes of Arctic indigenous cultures and lifeworlds. These lifeworlds have to varying degrees been subject to colonial processes, and both social, historical and natural conditions in addition to gender and ethnicity affect the hybrid protagonists' room for maneuver. In the analyses of three popular literary narratives from the Arctic, I examine indigenous cultures and lifeworlds, the female protagonists’ opportunities, and how they maneuver in the Arctic lifeworlds. The analyzes revolve around modernity and colonial structures, nature, and gender. In the dissertation, I draw on modernity theory, ecocriticism, intersectionality, and de- and postcolonial theory, and theorists such as Rauna Kuokkanen, Homi K. Bhabha, and Walter Mignolo are especially important. The dissertation consists, in addition to the theory chapter and the delimitation of the Arctic, of three analysis chapters as well as an account of topics in recent popular literature with an Arctic setting. In the first analysis chapter, <i>Nelvana of the Northern Lights</i> (1941–1947) by Adrian Dingle is analyzed, a comic in which major political conflicts shape the context. In the second analysis chapter, <i>White Heat</i> (2011) by M. J. McGrath is analyzed, a crime novel where the focal point is climate change and man's relationship to nature. In the third analysis chapter, <i>Kautokeino, en blodig kniv</i> (“<i>Kautokeino, a bloody knife</i>”, 2012) by Lars Pettersson is analyzed, a crime novel in which man's relationship to cultural and legal norms forms the framework. I argue that these narratives in various ways "write back" and highlight ecological and/or feminist counter-discourses against established majority perspectives. In that respect, they open up for new conversations and understandings of indigenous women and their lifeworlds in the Arctic in popular literature with a broad readership.