ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that ‘decolonizing’ the canon is a situated process that involves putting pressure on the fairy tale’s relationship to other genres and the uses to which different communities of practice put it. It focuses on links and gaps between metaphorical and material decolonization. Decolonization is a complex and ongoing practice that involves “psychological, spiritual, spatial, political” flows of change. It is a process that includes, in fact demands, a paradigm shift in education, disciplinary formations, and research methods. ‘Decolonizing’ the fairy-tale canon as a scholarly project often assumes a postcolonial stance, and while this stance does not relegate colonialism to the past; it can feed a desire to ignore present-day settler colonialism. Postcolonial and indigenous artists are hardly the only ones to mix the fairy tale with other genres in the mass cultural system or to do so in a range of media, extending from print literature to games and television.
