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Title details for Buffalo Is the New Buffalo by Chelsea Vowel - Available

Buffalo Is the New Buffalo

by Chelsea Vowel
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"Education is the new buffalo" is a metaphor widely used among Indigenous peoples in Canada to signify the importance of education to their survival and ability to support themselves, as once Plains nations supported themselves as buffalo peoples. The assumption is that many of the pre-Contact ways of living are forever gone, so adaptation is necessary. But Chelsea Vowel asks, "Instead of accepting that the buffalo, and our ancestral ways, will never come back, what if we simply ensure that they do?"
Inspired by classic and contemporary speculative fiction, Buffalo Is the New Buffalo explores science fiction tropes through a Métis lens: a Two-Spirit rougarou (shapeshifter) in the nineteenth century tries to solve a murder in her community and joins the nêhiyaw-pwat (Iron Confederacy) in order to successfully stop Canadian colonial expansion into the West. A Métis man is gored by a radioactive bison, gaining super strength, but losing the ability to be remembered by anyone not related to him by blood. Nanites babble to babies in Cree, virtual reality teaches transformation, foxes take human form and wreak havoc on hearts, buffalo roam free, and beings grapple with the thorny problem of healing from colonialism.
Indigenous futurisms seek to discover the impact of colonization, remove its psychological baggage, and recover ancestral traditions. These eight short stories of "Métis futurism" explore Indigenous existence and resistance through the specific lens of being Métis. Expansive and eye-opening, Buffalo Is the New Buffalo rewrites our shared history in provocative and exciting ways.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 7, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781551528809

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781551528809
      • File size: 4972 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Booklist

      May 15, 2022
      Vowel's title riffs on the phrase ""Education is the new buffalo,"" refusing the implicit acceptance of the death of traditional culture in the original phrase. Vowel describes her work as ""M�tis futurist,"" imagining a variety of potential or alternate futures specifically from the context of the M�tis people. There are rewritten histories, such as ""Buffalo Bird,"" where a shape-shifter resists colonialism on both a personal and historical scale, helping the Iron Confederacy halt Canadian expansion. There are also stories of characters dealing with new forms of technology, such as uploading in ""I, Bison"" or ""A Lodge within Her Mind,"" or nanotechnology as a means of preserving language in ""�nisk�h�cikan."" Vowel fills her stories with footnotes and citations as well as providing small ""explorations"" or analyses after each story. Most of this matter provides helpful cultural, historical, or political context, while other notes can come off as overexplaining the intent behind certain choices. That said, this collection is definitely worth a look for anyone interested in sf that engages with settler colonialism and its histories.

      COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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