Unsettled

by Erin Manning

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.

180 pages, Paperback

Expected publication March 20, 2026

About the author

Erin Manning is a professional photographer, teacher and television personality living in Los Angeles, California. Television viewers know Erin best as the digital photography expert and host of DIY Network’s Telly-award-winning TV series The Whole Picture. She has also appeared as the techno-lifestyle guru on Enable Your Home and is the author of Portrait and Candid Photography, and Make Money With Your Digital Photography, published by Wiley. She helps people understand photography and technology by translating technical mumbo-jumbo into everyday words and by facilitating their learning with a clear, friendly teaching style.

Erin first fell in love with photography at age seven when she discovered a book entitled The Family of Man. That early encounter with images of people from all over the world shaped the direction she was to take with her photography – capturing moments with and between people.

Whether in front of the camera or behind it, photography has always been a part of Erin’s life and synthesizes her experience and education in art, technology, and entertainment. She specializes in lifestyle imagery for clients such as AT&T, Bank of America, Disney, various lifestyle magazines, healthcare organizations and individuals. Erin spent several years honing her craft by working as a commercial, portrait, and stock photographer, as well as working for Getty Images, and completing a degree in Studio Art/Graphic Design from Loyola Marymount University.

Erin serves on the Board of Directors for the Digital Imaging Marketing Association and is a member of the American Photographic Artists, Women in Photography International and the Los Angeles Digital Imaging Group, whose purpose is dedicated to advancing the art and science of digital imaging.