Dispatch by Mackenzie Dunnett, Mount Allison University
Mackenzie Dunnett attends Mount Allison University as an Honours student in Women’s and Gender Studies with a minor in Philosophy.
In March, I attended the Marie Hammond-Callaghan Lecture at Mount Allison University as the 2024 recipient of the Marie Hammond-Callaghan prize based on an essay I wrote about women and marginalized people who participate in the political far-right movement. Similarily, Dr. Erin Morton’s lecture, titled “Seeing Like a Settler: Taylor’s Version” touched on topics such as white privilege, colonialism, and the appropriation of Indigenous cultures via the circulation of representations and images that are intended to capture the ‘beauty and freedom’ associated with white girlhood. Using the artistic depictions in Taylor Swift’s Folklore album, Dr. Morton argues that, through a settler worldview, white women tend to appropriate Indigenous and racialized cultures by using imagery that coopts cultural practices in the name of reminiscence. In other words, white women often claim a nostalgia that is directly attached to the appropriation of Indigenous and racialized cultures.
Dr. Morton argues that this phenomenon of appropriation is a form of escapism in which white women reminisce about pre-colonial times to escape cisgender, heteronormative, and patriarchal norms. White women often attempt to escape patriarchal harms by immersing themselves in materials and art that coopt Indigenous cultural practices, aesthetics, and representations that are distant from Western social standards and expectations.
Avoiding the perpetuation of such systems of oppression requires an analytic of complicity in which artists, producers, and consumers critically reflect on the messages they are communicating through their art and entertainment. While it is easier to criticize outright oppressive actors for the perpetuation of white supremacist ideology, it is equally important that we criticize ourselves and the artists that we support in terms of the ways in which they may discursively, aesthetically, or materially reproduce colonial agendas.
Mackenzie Dunnett
However, one of the key lessons I learned from Dr. Morton’s lecture is that just because these ‘nostalgic’ representations might aid some white women in escaping Western patriarchal norms, it does not mean that this phenomenon is not harmful. Although the imagery of the Folklore album appears beautiful, aesthetic, and escapist, to some, it is associated with violence and disposability to many Indigenous communities. It is easy to point our fingers at outright, publicly oppressive actors (such as Donald Trump) for the perpetuation of settler colonial systems (as Taylor Swift herself has been praised for). However, in doing so, we miss our own opportunities to examine ourselves and how we are also complicit in the perpetuation of these systems via the materials that we create and consume.
Dr. Morton’s lecture broadened my perspective on Canadian Studies by introducing me to what she calls “the analytic of complicity.” She described the academic, political, and personal value of examining and critiquing the things we are perpetuating materially, discursively, and aesthetically. In the name of feminist allyship and Indigenous resurgence, we must make a constant effort to reflect on our own locations as scholars and artists as we think, produce, and publish. I will carry the lessons I learned from this lecture very closely throughout my academic career, and I intend to dedicate myself and my future academic endeavors to self-reflection, critical thought, and resistance to complicity.
Dispatchers in Canadian Studies are undergraduate students who attend events related to the study of Canada and report on what they witness and learned through blogposts. This initiative is in collaboration with Brock University, Mount Allison University, and Trent University.