Psychopathic Cultures: Sexual and Lateral Violence in Contemporary Chicana and Métis Women's Writing

The chapter examines the memoir Mean (2017) by Chicana author Myriam Gurba and the novel The Break (2016) by Métis writer Katherena Vermette. Through textual analysis, the chapter shows how these two writers resist dominant ideas concerning “psychopathy” that perpetuate gendered, raced, and classed stereotypes. The chapter argues that these authors unsettle psychopathy as something situated in the individual to depict the United States and Canada as psychopathic structures that create the conditions for certain forms of violence to flourish. Vermette and Gurba’s work contributes to the body of Indigenous and Chicana writing that rejects, rewrites, and resists misleading images of violence.

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.432...