Decolonizing the female Inuit voice in Mini Aodla Freeman’s Life Among the Qallunaat

Abstract

Qallunaat to reclaim Indigenous female identity. The main purpose of this thesis is to examine how Freeman’s autobiographical writing challenges qallunaat assumptions and asserts Inuit female voice. The thesis consists of an introduction, two main chapters and a conclusion. The introduction outlines the historical and literary background of the topic. It also introduces Mini Aodla Freeman and her book and presents the main aim of the thesis. The literature review establishes that autobiography is not a neutral genre but a politically shaped form, and that Indigenous life writing constructs identity relationally rather than through Western ideal of individual self-expression. It also shows that female Inuit voices have been comparatively underrepresented in scholarly analysis, and that the editorial history of the 2015 restored edition is central to any reading of the text. The close reading in Chapter 2 shows that Freeman reclaims Indigenous female identity in two main ways. First, through scenes of cultural encounter, she exposes qallunaat ignorance and paternalism while repositioning Inuit experience as the more reliable ground for understanding. Second, through memory, childhood, schooling and everyday female experience, she shows that identity in the text is formed through care and relational responsibility. Overall, the thesis argues that Life Among the Qallunaat functions both as personal narrative and as cultural preservation, asserting Indigenous female voice through careful observation, silence, memory and the narration of ordinary life. Key words: Mini Aodla Freeman, Indigenous life writing, Inuit literature, autobiography, female identity, decolonization