Abstract
The volume as a whole explores how creative representations remain sites of ongoing struggles to engage with animals in indigenous epistemologies. Whether as animist gods, familiars, conduits to ancestors, totems, talismans, or co-creators of multispecies cosmologies, animals act as vital players in the lives of cultures. From early days in colonial contact zones through contemporary expressions in art, film, and literature, the volume traces these developments with a unique emphasis on Southern Africa and North America—historical loci of the greatest ranges of species and linguistic diversity—in order to help to situate how indigenous knowledges of human-animal relations are being adapted to modern conditions of life shared across species lines.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Works Cited
Adamson, J., and S. Monani (eds.). 2016. Ecocriticism and indigenous studies: Conversations from earth to cosmos. London: Routledge.
Haraway, D. 2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press.
Huggan, G., and H. Tiffin. 2010. Postcolonial ecocriticism: literature, animal, environment. London: Routledge.
Kim, C.J. 2015. Dangerous crossings: Race, species, and nature in a multicultural age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Moolla, F. (ed.). 2016. The natures of Africa: Ecocriticism and animal studies in contemporary cultural forms. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.
Swart, S., and L. von Sittert (eds.). 2007. Canis Africanis: A dog history of Southern Africa. Leiden: Brill.
Wolfe, C. 2012. Before the law: Humans and other animals in a biopolitical frame. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Woodward, W. 2008. The animal gaze: Animal subjectivities in Southern African narratives. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Woodward, W., McHugh, S. (2017). Introduction. In: Woodward, W., McHugh, S. (eds) Indigenous Creatures, Native Knowledges, and the Arts. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56874-4_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56874-4_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-56873-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-56874-4
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)