Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is an Indigenous (Mississauga Nishnaabeg) writer, musician and academic. She is notable as the author of the several books and papers on Indigenous issues in Canada, and for her work with the 2012 Idle No More protests.^[1]

Simpson released her first album of poetry and music called Islands of Decolonial Love in conjunction with a book of poetry and short stories of the same name in 2013 with ARP Books. She signed with RPM Records, the first Indigenous contemporary music label in June 2016, and her second album f(l)ight releases September 30, 2016.

Life and work

Simpson is a member of Alderville First Nation. She was born and raised in Wingham, Ontario, where her parents still reside, until moving away for university, where she then discovered and explored her Indigenous roots. She writes about contemporary Indigenous issues and realities, particularly from her own Anishinaabe nation, across a variety of genres. Her 2013 book Islands of Decolonial Love was described by CBC Books as "a beautiful, emotional, raw and an important addition to the Canadian library."^[2]

Simpson has collaborated with a variety of Indigenous and non-Indigenous musicians to record and perform stories as song. She is an alum of Jason Collett's Basement Review^[3] and her new album f(l)ight was produced by Jonas Bonnetta (Evening Hymns) with James Bunton (Ohbijou, Light Fires). She regularly performs live with a core group of musician including Cris Derksen, Nick Ferrio and Ansley Simpson.^[4]

Career

Simpson earned a BSc in biology from the University of Guelph and a MSc in biology from Mount Allison University. She obtained her PhD from the University of Manitoba in 1999. Simpson is faculty at the Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning, and regularly teaches at universities across Canada. She was a visiting scholar in Indigenous Studies at McGill University and the Ranton McIntosh Visiting Scholar, University of Saskatchewan. She is a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ryerson University.^[5] Simpson's work positions Indigenous ways of being within Canadian music and literature in the 21st Century.^[6]

Activism

Simpson is active in First Nations social issues, including reform of Canada's Indian Act, gender-based violence and the protection of indigenous homelands.^[1] She was an active participant in the Idle No More protest movement.^[7]

Her philosophy is described as an opposition to what she describes as "extractivism."^[1] This term encompasses the extraction of natural resources from the Earth, the colonial "extraction" ("assimilation") of Indigenous peoples, and the "cognitive extraction" of Indigenous ideas, i.e., cultural appropriation.^[1] She works in the field of Indigenous resurgence and suggests an alternative ideology focused on rebuilding Indigenous nationhood using Indigenous intelligence and local engagement with land and community.^[1]

Writing

Simpson was inspired to write while collecting stories told by Nishnaabeg elders for her first collection, Dancing on Our Turtle's Back.^[8] In 2013, Simpson published The Gift is in the Making, which reimagined traditional stories from the Nishnaabeg. She published Islands of Decolonial Love the same year, a collection of short stories.^[9]

She has worked as an editor for several collections, including: Lighting the Eighth Fire, This is an Honour Song, and The Winter We Danced: Voices from the Past, the Future, and the Idle No More Movement.^[10]

In 2014 her article "Land as Pedagogy" won the 'Most thought-provoking" award in Native and Indigenous Studies. In the same year Thomas King named her the RBC Taylor Emerging Writer.^[8] In 2017, her work This Accident of Being Lost was nominated for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.^[11]

Bibliography

References

External links

• Leanne Simpson
• http://www.leannesimpsonmusic.com/