Dreamscapes as Sites of Resistance: The Unconscious State, Decision-Making and Community- Formation in Indigenous Speculative Fiction for Young Adults

Indigenous YA exposes younger audiences to the ongoing and brutal effects of colonial oppression, while at the same time, it tends to highlight community-formation as a form of resistance to a structurally unequal world. By focusing on two recent examples of Indigenous YA, Darcie Little Badger’s (Lipan Apache) Elatsoe (2020) and Angeline Boulley’s (Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, Anishinaabe) Firekeeper’s Daughter (2021), this article examines how dreams function as spaces of resistance and community-formation. Both novels feature young protagonists who, in the wake of a loved one’s death, take on the role of detectives. Their dreams become crucial investigative tools, specifically because they establish spiralic time and thus disrupt Western notions of linear temporality. Instead, they offer a site for intergenerational contact where Indigenous knowledge systems offer inspiration and guidance. Thus, the knowledge remembered or learned in dreams empowers the protagonists to solve the case and to offer some healing to their communities. By interrelating Indigenous terminologies, storytelling devices, and epistemologies, these dreamscapes serve as sites of resistance to colonial power.