Volume V Special Issue IV October 2025

Name of Author : Vitsino Haikam, Prof. Sivasish Biswas

Title of the paper : Remembering Native Identity through Environmental Consciousness in Leslie Marmon Silkos Gardens in the Dunes

Abstract: Leslie Marmon Silkos Gardens in the Dunes 1999 intricately ties ecological memory to the survival of Native identity in the wake of colonial disruption. Through the Sand Lizard peoples devotion to planting and seed preservation, Silko depicts how the gardens carried the memory of ancestors, suggesting that Indigenous ecological practices function as cultural archives. The novel resists Western exploitation of nature by emphasizing a symbiotic relationship with the environment, one that preserves spiritual balance as much as sustenance. Critics such as Krista Comer note that Silkos work resituates ecological thinking in Native epistemologies Comer 112, enhancing the novels role in eco critical discourse. This paper argues that Gardens in the Dunes reclaims Native identity through environmental consciousness, demonstrating how spiritual, ecological, and cultural continuities can survive despite displacement. Ultimately, Silko positions the land itself as a text of survival, memory, and resistance against colonial erasure.

Keywords : Native Identity, Environmental Consciousness, Ecological Memory, Colonial Disruption, Resistance.

DOI :

Page Number : 251-256