Uranium Mining, Interdisciplinarity, and Ecofeminism in Donna Smyth's Subversive Elements

• Published in: Canadian literature no. 243; pp. 40 - 58
• Main Author: Beverley, Andrea
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Vancouver Pacific Affairs. The University of British Columbia 01.01.2020
• Subjects: Activism; Activists; Alcoholism; Allusion; Authorship; Autobiographies; Bibliographic literature; Canadian literature; Ecofeminism; Feminism; Geopolitics; Laurence, Margaret; Learning; Literary canon; Literary characters; Literary devices; Literary influences; Mining; Misogyny; Narrative structure; Narrative techniques; Narratives; Newspaper industry; Novels; Plot (Narrative); Poetry; Publishing; Publishing industry; Readers; Source materials; Uranium; Women; Writers; Writing; Canada; Nova Scotia Canada
• ISSN: 0008-4360

Upon learning that several multinational corporations were searching for mineable uranium in Nova Scotia in the late 1970s, citizen groups quickly formed to oppose such prospecting (Leeming 103; Smyth, "Uranium" 10). Given the nation-state's longstanding and ongoing capitalist and colonial exploitation of the land, there is a substantial literary corpus depicting resistance to, and the effects of, natural resource industries. Antiextractive, anti-colonial works by Indigenous writers are foundational to this corpus; examples related specifically to uranium include David Groulx's mining poems in A Difficult Beauty, Richard Van Camp's "The Uranium Leaking from Port Radium and Ray Rock Mines Is Killing Us" and Clements' Burning Vision, mentioned in my introductory paragraph. [...]it includes a whole other narrative plotline and addresses a wide range of other themes and topics.