O objetivo desta tese é estudar as autobiografias de três escritoras aborígenes canadenses: Beverly Hungry Wolf, Lee Maracle e Maria Cambpell, à luz de teorias sobre temporalidades das narrativas. Entende-se aqui a narrativa como um espaço temporal no qual as escritoras incorporam e presentificam a figura das avós (grandmothers), o que torna a literatura produzida por elas uma ponte entre o individual e o coletivo, o estético e o social, o pessoal e político. Essas autobiografias apresentam três temporalidades: o presente do passado, em que a memória é o elemento principal na constituição da identidade; o presente do presente, em que a visão da experiência do sujeito motiva uma ação; e o presente do futuro, que aponta para uma expectativa no discernimento das responsabilidades frente à comunidade e ao poder político estabelecido. Para tal, lançaremos mão das teorias de Ricoeur sobre temporalidades em diálogo com a teórica indígena Kim Anderson e outros teóricos que conformam a fortuna crítica das autoras e da literatura indígena canadense e norte-americana. / The aim of this thesis is to study the autobiographical novels written by three Canadian aboriginal female writers: Beverly Hungry Wolf, Lee Maracle and Maria Campbell under the light of theories about temporalities on narratives. We take narratives as temporal spaces on which the writers incorporate and presentify the figure of their grandmothers, a device through which their literature becomes a bridge between the individual and the collective, the aesthetical and the social, and the personal and the political. These autobiographies present three temporalities: the present of the past, on which memory is the main element in the identity constitution; the present of the present, on which the vision of experience motivates action; and the present of the future, which points to an expectation on discernment of responsibilities towards the subjects community and the established political power. The theoretical background is based on Ricoeurs theories on temporalities in dialogue with Indigenous theoretician Kim Anderson and others who build up the critical reception of these authors and of Native Canadian and Native American literatures.

O objetivo desta tese é estudar as autobiografias de três escritoras aborígenes canadenses: Beverly Hungry Wolf, Lee Maracle e Maria Cambpell, à luz de teorias sobre temporalidades das narrativas. Entende-se aqui a narrativa como um espaço temporal no qual as escritoras incorporam e presentificam a figura das avós (grandmothers), o que torna a literatura produzida por elas uma ponte entre o individual e o coletivo, o estético e o social, o pessoal e político. Essas autobiografias apresentam três temporalidades: o presente do passado, em que a memória é o elemento principal na constituição da identidade; o presente do presente, em que a visão da experiência do sujeito motiva uma ação; e o presente do futuro, que aponta para uma expectativa no discernimento das responsabilidades frente à comunidade e ao poder político estabelecido. Para tal, lançaremos mão das teorias de Ricoeur sobre temporalidades em diálogo com a teórica indígena Kim Anderson e outros teóricos que conformam a fortuna crítica das autoras e da literatura indígena canadense e norte-americana. / The aim of this thesis is to study the autobiographical novels written by three Canadian aboriginal female writers: Beverly Hungry Wolf, Lee Maracle and Maria Campbell under the light of theories about temporalities on narratives. We take narratives as temporal spaces on which the writers incorporate and presentify the figure of their grandmothers, a device through which their literature becomes a bridge between the individual and the collective, the aesthetical and the social, and the personal and the political. These autobiographies present three temporalities: the present of the past, on which memory is the main element in the identity constitution; the present of the present, on which the vision of experience motivates action; and the present of the future, which points to an expectation on discernment of responsibilities towards the subjects community and the established political power. The theoretical background is based on Ricoeurs theories on temporalities in dialogue with Indigenous theoretician Kim Anderson and others who build up the critical reception of these authors and of Native Canadian and Native American literatures.

The reorientation of federal state policy on Canada's relation to Indigenous peoples that occurred in the years 1969-1974, although heralded as progressive, inaugurated not so much an age of liberation, restititution, and reconciliation as a bureaucratic and institutional framework for perpetuating settler-colonial processes of dispossession and assimilation. This was a period of intense struggle both within and without Indigenous politics, as activist dissidents to the increasing institutionalization of negotiation with the colonial state were branded as pathological and dangerous "Red Power" militants and phased out from mainstream political discourse. As they lived through the contradictions of these processes, three such militants turned to writing autobiographies that would become foundational influences upon the development of Indigenous literature in Canada: Maria Campbell's Halfbreed, Howard Adams's Prison of Grass, and Lee Maracle's Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel. These autobiographies, which explicitly spoke to the writers' political and activist experiences and positions, occupy a complicated position in Indigenous literary history. Often relegated to a bygone moment of polemic, bitterness, and resentment, they have been more or less systematically misread or dismissed as works of literature by literary critics. This thesis proposes that considering these works in their formal and narrative specificity, as well as constituting a literary-critical and literary-historical end in itself given the dearth of scholarly attention paid to this period of Indigenous/Canadian history in general and these works in particular, can open up productive theoretical and critical insights into two ongoing disciplinary concerns: dismantling ongoing scholarly investments in colonial premises about and usages of narrative, subjectivity, and history; and envisaging possible relations between Indigenous literature(s) and literary study and anti-colonial political processes, especially processes of activism and movement-building toward decolonization.