Restoring Relations Through Stories

Renae Watchman (DinÉ and Tsalagi) is Bitter Water, born for Towering House, Bird Clan (Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma), and Red Running Through the Water. She is an associate professor of Indigenous studies at McMaster University and the co-editor of Indianthusiasm: Indigenous Responses.

“Watchman shows how the old stories, maintained over centuries . . . tie together the DinÉ and Dene through ancestral and linguistic connections. The works that are surveyed herein reinforce the import of remembering, retelling, and revising the old stories so that they are germane today.”—Luci Tapahonso, from the foreword "Restoring Relations Through Stories shows how land-based storying among DinÉ and Dene peoples is strong and continues in the twenty-first century and beyond. It demonstrates how Indigenous peoples continue to remain connected to the land and sustain distinctive ways of life through their narratives, lands, and filmmaking."—Lloyd Lee, author of DinÉ Identity in a Twenty-First Century World"Renae Watchman’s Restoring Relations Through Stories introduces readers to the powerful force of 'Hane’tonomy' and the work of DinÉ creatives who refuse misappropriated and inauthentic views by advancing decisive versions of their world. Hane’tonomy provides us all with a new framework for understanding complex works such as Sydney Freeland’s Drunktown’s Finest, Blackhorse Lowe’s 5th World, or Hollywood’s deracinating obsession with the Navajo Nation and Shiprock as a backdrop. It moves toward a meaningful, though potentially daunting, provocation in forging new connections through restorying with ancestral kin of the DinÉ in present-day Canada."—Jeff Berglund, co-editor of The DinÉ Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature