Resisting Settler Colonial Erasure Through Collective Memory

Memory plays a significant role in preserving the history, knowledge, and cultural practices of a land, particularly in the context of colonialism, migrations, and dispossessions. In this context, this study examines Sheela Tomy’s Valli: A Novel with particular attention given to how memory is embedded in the social, cultural, and ecological fabric of Kalluvayal, the village in which the novel is set. Drawing on Maurice Halbwachs’ theory of collective memory, Jan Assmann’s distinction between communicative and cultural memory, and Patrick Wolfe’s theory of settler colonialism, the study examines how individual memories, shaped through social interactions and cyclical cultural practices, become incorporated into collective memory and how such collective memory challenges the cultural and historical erasure produced by settler interventions. While existing scholarship on Valli has examined themes of Indigenous displacement and environmental concerns, limited attention has been given to the relationship between collective memory, the land as a mnemonic space, and settler colonial process. Adopting a qualitative approach, this analysis finds that Valli represents land as a repository of lived experiences, intergenerational knowledge, and cultural practices. The preservation and transmission of memory enable the tribal community to challenge dispossession, ecocide, historical amnesia, and cultural erasure. By foregrounding the lived realities, the novel challenges dominant narratives that legitimize settler intervention and presents memory as a means of sustaining cultural continuity and resistance.