5 The Same Space
Themes:
Fake Intimacy, Gentrification, Toronto vs. Tkaronto, Diaspora, Capitalism
Disciplines:
Counselling, Creative Non-fiction, Land Law, City Planning, Economics
Guiding Questions:
- Elliot’s university professor asked her class, “Why do you think I included Indigenous literature in a diaspora course?” Elliot’s answer was, “Because Indigenous people are almost always put in a position where they’re displaced on their own lands” (p. 45). Do you agree with her answer? Why? Why not? What does “diaspora” mean to you?
- Elliot talks about “fake intimacy” and leading a “double life” making it hard to talk to her friends about her problems. What is your experience of this? How can you avoid fake intimacy?
- On page 49, Elliot writes about how Toronto was once Tkaronto that was Dish With One Spoon territory. What does this mean? On the same page, she writes about the different way settlers look at land/space? How do these views differ? Can they ever be reconciled?
- The animated short by Amanda Strong, Biidaaban (The Dawn Comes) (2018), based on Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s writing, features a character from the old Tkaronto world when an Indigenous youth joins forces with a 10,000-year-old Sasquatch to revive ceremonial sap harvesting in suburban Ontario. How does it portray the old history amongst the new? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWjnYKyiUB8
- How can Indigenous people survive and thrive in the “shiny neon and collapsed boundaries of big city capitalism” (p. 44)?
- The chapter ends with a call: Perhaps one day this neighbourhood, this city, this country, will finally hear its neglected past whispering… Acknowledge it, then make something new, something beautiful, something that will make everyone proud (p. 51). How could this ever happen? What would it look like? How can cities and countries plan for this?
- Elliot refers to one of her writings as not so much being a piece of creative non-fiction as it was an exorcism (p. 50)? What does she mean?
- Is some work too personal, too private to be shared? Would this fall under the category of “I suffered for my art and now it’s your turn?”
- How could some of your own creative non-fiction be considered an exorcism? What could be some of the positives and negatives of this?