Mid Sweden University

The aim of this project has been to analyze Potiki and Tracks through a postcolonial and ecocritical approach, and to argue that environmental injustice caused by land exploitation, the effects of colonialism and the European view of development was the foreground for opposition in both novels. Although the Maori people of New Zealand and the Anishinabe people of the United States are different in their individual characteristics and tribal specificities, they share a similar view of the land as feminine and both novels highlight the fact. Their belief that the land is a mother creates a desire to protect the maternal from exploitation, which also reinforces the indigenous peoples' experience of injustice when their land is taken away or bought. Moreover, the incorporation of capitalism and a proletarian system by the British governments with paid work substituting a self-sufficient lifestyle for the indigenous peoples, caused injustice and opposition. The indigenous workers in both Potiki and Tracks were paid low wages or faced unemployment. Finally, this analysis has shown that it is the ownership of land that causes opposition to arise in Potiki and Tracks together with the environmental injustice and the uneven development to which the indigenous peoples are exposed. This interconnection between the indigenous peoples and land is described in both novels, even though the texts portray different settings and cultures.