From Dystopic to Decolonial

Skrynsky, Hannah; Skrynsky, Hannah

doi:https://doi.org/10.3828/extr.2020.17

Reconciling the (In)Determinate Dystopia of Eden Robinson’s “Terminal Avenue”

Skrynsky, Hannah

Extrapolation (2020), 61, (3), 317–336.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/extr.2020.17
Language: English
Pages: 20

Abstract

This paper looks to Haisla-Heiltsuk writer Eden Robinson’s short story “Terminal Avenue” (2004) as a literary example of what Canada’s future might look like if the collectively felt anxiety that underpins settler society remains unchecked. I analyze “Terminal Avenue” as a work of speculative fiction that represents what I term the genre’s “ideology of indeterminacy” as a politically productive condition under which Indigenous/settler relations in contemporary Canada can be reassessed. My analysis builds on the work of settler scholars David M. Higgins and Conrad Scott published in Extrapolation, vol 57, nos. 1-2, 2016.

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