Emma LaRocque
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Emma LaRocque | |
|---|---|
| Born | 2 January 1949 Big Bay, Alberta, Canada |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | |
| Thesis | Native Writers Resisting Colonizing Practices in Canadian Historiography and Literature[1] (1999) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Native studies |
| Institutions | University of Manitoba |
| Notable works | When the Other Is Me (2010) |
Emma LaRocque (born 1949) is a Canadian academic of Cree and Métis descent. She is a professor of Native American studies at the University of Manitoba.[2][3]
She is also a published poet, writing brief and imagist poems about her ancestral land and culture.[4] LaRocque's works have focused on topics such as Indigenous identities, contemporary Indigenous literature, postcolonial literary criticism, decolonization and resistance, and Indigenous representation in Canadian history, literature, and popular culture.[5]
LaRocque has published works in numerous fields. Her work advocates for Indigenous literatures as resistance, and brings misrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in Canada to light. LaRocque is also known for her deconstruction of the "civilized/savage" dichotomy, which she problematizes in relation to her own Métis identity.[6]
LaRocque was born in the remote community of Big Bay, Alberta, near the town of Lac La Biche. She came from a family of fur trappers, and was one of the first in her family to receive a formal education.[4] Despite her parents' uneasiness toward their daughter's enthusiasm for education, the author-to-be "howled [her] way into school".[7] Though English was not LaRocque's first language, this did not impede her from excelling in her early education.[7] After she completed high school, LoRocque worked as a counsellor for juvenile criminal offenders.[5] LaRocque also worked as a teacher at the Janvier 194 reserve until 1971, when she moved to the United States to attend Goshen College, Indiana.[8]
