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@article{184437,
author = {N. Thamizhini},
title = {Urban Voices and Rural Whispers in Tiddas by Anita Heiss: Spatial Dialectics in Contemporary Indigenous Narratives},
journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
year = {2025},
volume = {12},
number = {4},
pages = {2089-2100},
issn = {2349-6002},
url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=184437},
abstract = {Anita Heiss’s Tiddas disrupts spatial binaries between the urban and the rural to foreground a new narrative of Indigenous identity rooted in both continuity and change. This paper explores the spatial dialectics at play in the novel, where “urban voices” represent agency, visibility, and negotiation, while “rural whispers” evoke ancestral ties, cultural memory, and spiritual rootedness. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s spatial theory, Edward Soja’s Thirdspace, and Indigenous Australian frameworks of belonging and Country, the article analyses how Heiss’s characters navigate multiple spatial registers to reframe Aboriginal womanhood in the 21st century. The study argues that Tiddas not only affirms urban Indigeneity as a legitimate cultural space but also positions rural consciousness as a powerful, albeit subtle, presence shaping identity and ethical decision-making. Through close reading and theoretical synthesis, this research shows how contemporary Indigenous narratives negotiate spatial complexity to assert identity, community, and cultural resilience.},
keywords = {Anita Heiss, Tiddas, spatial dialectics, urban Indigeneity, rural memory, Indigenous literature, Lefebvre, Thirdspace, Aboriginal identity, contemporary fiction},
month = {September},
}
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