المستخلص: |
The foundational cartographic narratives embedded in European literature in general, and particularly in 17th and 18th century travel writings that described the newly discovered North American lands, were a significant element of the colonial discourse. The purveyors of these narratives have worked since the beginning of the imperial age to establish the authority of ideologically produced cartographic knowledge. In reaction to the flagrant injustices caused by the colonial cartographic narrative's hegemony, an alternative and contesting postcolonial Native American literature emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. These evolving narratives have sought to interrogate the supremacy of colonial cartography and proposed competing ones. Linda Hogan’s novel Solar Storms offers a pertinent example of this epistemological shift. Employing a variety of subversive narrative strategies, the author seeks to de-center the mainstream colonial maps and to topple down the discursively established paradigms of colonial cartography. This article examines the key counterhegemonic narrative approaches used by the author to redefine the borders of cartographic narratives and to celebrate a counter-mapping tradition that challenges the essentializing assumptions underlying the meticulously crafted imperial discourse.
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