Dreams in Cathie Dunsford’s The Journey Home
Te Haerenga Kainga
Laura Hildebrand, University of Manitoba

“Together, we have strength, we are part of a new creature emerging, one that will refuse to be abused or made extinct. One that honours the birth-givers, creators, artists and activists” (120). This is the powerful vision of women that Cathie Dunsford presents in her novel entitled The Journey Home/Te Haerenga Kainga. Throughout this novel, she uses the subjugated knowledge of dreams as an alternative discourse to the dominant discourses that affect her main character, Cowrie’s, life, both academically and personally. This development of an alternative discourse is important because it is a replacement for the “knowledge produced by the dominant group [that often…] comes to construct the reality and experience of the subjugated groups;”  Cowrie is a representative of subjugated groups, because she is a woman, a lesbian, as well as a Maori from the South Pacific. Dunsford also shows how using the subjugated knowledge in dreams connects her characters to their mothers, as well as to their female ancestors. The “new creature” of powerful femininity that Dunsford envisions honours birth-givers, creators, artists, and activists, and also values and embraces the power of dreams.
In her novel, Dunsford presents the subjugated knowledge of dreams as an alternative to the postmodern academic dominant discourses about knowledge that Cowrie finds limiting and frustrating. Cowrie, in her research on the literary work of South Pacific lesbian women, identifies “the growing dislocation between the actual lives of women outside the universities and what is theorised inside” (51). Thus, throughout the novel, Cowrie struggles with finding a voice for these women and their work within the academic community at Berkeley, searching for a way to acknowledge the spiritual wisdom of these women within academic discourse. This wisdom includes a recognition of the power of dreams, as Cowrie identifies when she reflects on “the symbol [the half coconut shell] that taught her to follow her dreams, to listen to them and learn from them […] This is the image from her dreams that took her to Hawai’i in search of her grandfather’s family, that lead her to Keo, Paneke and Koana, that they now return for her to take home to Aotearoa” (129). Eventually, by resigning her position at Berkeley, Cowrie shows that she realizes the importance of more traditional feminine knowledges, as opposed to academic conventions. She makes this clear in her letter to Rita, her thesis co-supervisor, where she confidently states: “I firmly disagree that there is only one way to fulfil the requirements of a PhD programme and that this should necessarily involve a reinforcement of Eurocentric and northern hemisphere modes of working” (293).

Dunsford’s exploration of the subjugated knowledge in dreams also represents a way of breaking down the boundaries identified by Kathleen M. Kirby in her chapter entitled “Lost in Space: Establishing the Limits of Identity.” Dreams, and the wisdom that appreciates their power and value, are an alternative to the academic “structure of knowledge inseparable from domination [where…] the empirical subject relates to the world only by objectifying it and viewing it at a cold distance.”  Cowrie, in her work on South Pacific lesbian women’s literature, refuses to relate to the work by objectifying it; she realizes and embraces her subjectivity, the value of her personal approach, and views her subject matter warmly and personally. Dunsford, in her novel, as well as Cowrie, in her research, both resist the ways in which, in academic discourse, “idiosyncrasy and emotionality, physicality and specificity, are increasingly marginalized.”  They both show that “there may prove to be, then, different forms of relating to space than those implied by mapping, ones that continue to be practiced today by those people who literally cannot afford to separate themselves from the ground: the indigenous [and…] women,”  both of which Dunsford characterizes in her novel.

Dunsford also uses the subjugated knowledge of dreams to help Cowrie understand herself, and her relationships, on spiritual and profound levels. Throughout the novel, Dunsford emphasizes the “soul love” between Cowrie and Peta: “they sing their unique dreams in unison, as if one soul creature” (101). As their relationship develops, Dunsford uses Cowrie’s dreams to show the spiritual significance of her connection to and relationship with Peta. For Cowrie, her dreams about herself and Peta serve to heighten the spiritual connection between the two women. When Cowrie becomes afraid of losing Peta to Nanduye, Peta’s best friend from college, she has a recurring dream where she and Peta are standing on a bridge together, holding hands. Peta lets go of Cowrie’s hand, falling into the water, and then becomes a dolphin, swimming away from Cowrie, who remains standing on the bridge, although longing to follow. This dream foreshadows the shifting of Cowrie and Peta’s relationship from one expressed through sexual intimacy to one of intimate friendship. The subjugated knowledge of Cowrie’s dreams serves as an alternative discourse regarding relationships, that one can maintain soul love without sexual intimacy, as Uretsete shows Cowrie when she chides: “Then why is the death of one limb of the relationship with Peta not allowing you to rejoice in the renewal and birth of a new branch?  Don’t you still have your soul love together?”  (243).

Cowrie and Peta’s relationship, and the soul love they maintain for each other after they free themselves from the dominant discourses regarding their sexuality and intimacy, represents an alternative discourse regarding sexuality. As Jana Sawicki describes in her book entitled Disciplining Foucault: Feminism, Power, and the Body, feminists must, “rather than generalize on the basis of the stereotypes provided by ‘dominant culture,’ […] explore the meaning of the diversity of sexual practices to those who practice them, to resurrect the ‘subjugated knowledge’ of sexuality elided within dominant culture.”  With the subjugated knowledge of her dreams, Cowrie is able to understand her relationship with Peta on a spiritual level, as she makes clear when she agrees with Peta, who states: “You carry me with you, and you are with me. That’s the nature of soul love, whether it is or is not expressed sexually as well” (265).

Dreams, in this novel, also serve as an important connection to the mothers and female ancestors of the characters. Mere, a mother figure for Cowrie, wisely advises Cowrie: “Cowrie, you must follow your heart, listen to your dreams. They will tell you where to go, how to do it. This is all I know. It worked for my mother and her mother. It’s the best I can offer” (140). When Cowrie listens to the subjugated knowledge of her dreams, she is not only resisting academic convention, and listening to her inner self, she is acting within a feminine tradition of wisdom and health. However, Cowrie is afraid of the power of her dreams. She says, in response, to Mere: “I do listen to my dreams, take note of them. But right now, they are telling me my best friend might be transforming into a dolphin, and swimming away from me, not how to complete my research” (140). Nonetheless, by the conclusion of the novel, Cowrie realizes the value of the subjugated knowledge of her dreams. She also realizes that she will need new words, a new discourse, to express this understanding: “words that tell of the silent places where cultures mix and overlap, where loving can also mean letting go, where too much giving can oppress as much as no giving, where learning to receive is also a gift” (295).

Audre Lorde, in her article entitled: “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” also identifies this need for change. She profoundly states how “the future of our earth may depend upon the ability of all women to identify and develop new definitions of power and new patterns of relating across difference. The old definitions have not served us, nor the earth that support us.”  For Cowrie, the “old definitions” and dominant discourses of postmodern academia are not useful, and do not support her or her relationships. She needs alternative discourses, and subjugated knowledge, for example, the knowledge present in her dreams, to complete her research on the literature of South Pacific lesbian women. This is a difficult task, but as Kuini, Cowrie’s friend, states: “You’ll get heaps for daring to challenge biculturalism—but go for it, Cowrie. You always were a boundary breaker” (5).  However, Dunsford shows that Cowrie’s role is to not only break boundaries, “but also to build bridges between isolated islands and the mainland” (185).

Vijay Agnew explores in detail what it means for women of minority groups to break boundaries and build bridges by creating alternative discourses regarding their lives and histories, in her book entitled Resisting Discrimination: Women from Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean and the Women’s Movement in Canada. She shows that, as Cowrie realizes at Berkeley, “the exclusion of a subjugated group from a body of [in this case, academic] knowledge or ‘discourse’ is a technique by which those in power consolidate and perpetuate their domination.”  Dunsford clearly shows this exclusion in her novel through the difficulties Cowrie faces in getting recognition and acknowledgement for her work. Nonetheless, as Cowrie herself does at the end of the novel, now “women from Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean have begun documenting their own histories, sometimes disputing the analyses of other researchers. Their work represents their desire to become active, participating subjects of their own history.”  Cowrie’s work with South Pacific lesbian women’s literature is an example of this desire to become an “active, participating subject.”

Dunsford, in The Journey Home/Te Haerenga Kainga, identifies the power in this participation in the creation of dominant discourse when she states: “We women have always had the real power, the inner power […] It is we who have true strength, who possess the secret of continuing life” (8-9). Dunsford uses her novel, itself an example of subjugated knowledge, as it is published by the independent feminist press, Spinifex, and the characters within it, to uncover one example of the “true strength” of women: their subjugated knowledge, especially that found in dreams. She embraces this alternative to the dominant discourse of western academia. In the new creature of womanhood that Cathie Dunsford envisions, she sees “boundary-breakers of the present who give birth to the future” (120), and this is truly her gift to us: this powerful vision of the future.