Unsettled

Explores what it means to be claimed, not just by blood, but by history, land, and the fragile web of human connection.

To belong is never a simple matter. For Erin Manning, ancestry has always been more of an entanglement than a strict lineage: a collection of stories, fabulations, and echoes of the past. Unsettled is a deeply personal and philosophical exploration of ancestry, identity, and belonging, particularly within the context of Québec’s settler-colonial history and its complex relationship with Indigeneity.

Here Manning describes her relationship with a close friend, R., who has lived a life shaped by poverty, subsistence farming, and a profound connection with the land. When R.’s mother bequeaths him their family land, he is left to navigate the tensions of inheritance, loss, and belonging. In an attempt to connect to R.’s Indigenous background, Manning offers to trace his genealogy. Soon, questions of what it means to “bestow” Indigeneity from an ancestral perspective begin to loom. Manning explores and critiques the practice of usurping Indigeneity in Québec, where claims of Métis ancestry are often leveraged for social or political gain, ultimately reinforcing whiteness and colonial structures rather than dismantling them. Through the lens of personal relationships, historical analysis, and philosophical inquiry, Unsettled challenges conventional notions of ancestry, property, and identity, while advocating for relational belonging over bloodline essentialism.