An Indian without a Country

Abstract

At heart, this essay attempts to render some ‘lines’ for a short story that speaks to the ‘yes, but no’ of Indigenous citizenship. That story is Thomas King’s ‘Borders’ (King, One Good Story). My aim is to consider the ways in which ‘Borders’ elucidates the constraints of Canadian citizenship for Indigenous peoples and re-imagines citizenship from an indigenous perspective. Beyond that, I hope to suggest some of the ways in which reading this story can help those of us who study and teach indigenous literatures to answer the question memorably put by Cheryl Suzack: ‘how do we put our commitments to indigenous knowledges in the service of new social movements?’ (1).