“We Story the Land”: Louise Erdrich and Indigenous Literary Decolonisation

Abstract

This article undertakes a decolonial reassessment of literary hierarchies through a focused study of Native American literature, with a particular emphasis on the works of Louise Erdrich. At the intersection of Indigenous epistemologies, feminist ethics, and ecocritical praxis, the study examines how Native American writers dismantle Eurocentric modes of authorship, authority, and narrative legitimacy. Louise Erdrich, a prominent voice among contemporary Indigenous authors, employs storytelling not as a stylistic choice but as an epistemological act deeply embedded in community, memory, land, and survivance. Through a detailed analysis of novels such as Tracks, Love Medicine, and The Round House, the paper argues that Indigenous storytelling challenges linear temporality, Cartesian subjectivity, and colonial spatial politics. Erdrich’s characters, especially Indigenous women like Fleur Pillager and Geraldine Coutts, are custodians of ecological knowledge and intergenerational resistance. These texts are not simply narratives but repositories of Indigenous law, environmental ethics, and oral history. The study further connects Erdrich’s work with allied Indigenous authors—Joy Harjo, Linda Hogan, and Tommy Orange—to foreground a collective resistance to settler colonial erasure. It also argues for a reimagined pedagogy that includes Indigenous modes of reading, listening, and witnessing. By integrating theoretical insights from scholars such as Leanne Simpson, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Qwo-Li Driskill, and Gerald Vizenor, the article offers a critical methodology for decolonising literary studies. Ultimately, this research repositions Indigenous literature from the margins of academic discourse to the centre of a decolonial and restorative literary future, where stories are not only told but also lived, remembered, and honoured.