Theorizing Native Studies

This important collection makes a compelling argument for the importance of theory in Native studies. Within the field, there has been understandable suspicion of theory stemming both from concerns about urgent political issues needing to take precedence over theoretical speculations and from hostility toward theory as an inherently Western, imperialist epistemology. The editors of Theorizing Native Studies take these concerns as the ground for recasting theoretical endeavors as attempts to identify the larger institutional and political structures that enable racism, inequities, and the displacement of indigenous peoples. They emphasize the need for Native people to be recognized as legitimate theorists and for the theoretical work happening outside the academy, in Native activist groups and communities, to be acknowledged. Many of the essays demonstrate how Native studies can productively engage with others seeking to dismantle and decolonize the settler state, including scholars putting theory to use in critical ethnic studies, gender and sexuality studies, and postcolonial studies. Taken together, the essays demonstrate how theory can serve as a decolonizing practice. Contributors. Christopher Bracken, Glen Coulthard, Mishuana Goeman, Dian Million, Scott Morgensen, Robert Nichols, Vera Palmer, Mark Rifkin, Audra Simpson, Andrea Smith, Teresia Teaiwa

WINNER OF: Frantz Fanon Outstanding Book from the Caribbean Philosophical Association Canadian Political Science Association’s C.B. MacPherson Prize Studies in Political Economy Book Prize Over the past forty years, recognition has become the dominant mode of negotiation and decolonization between the nation-state and Indigenous nations in North America. The term “recognition” shapes debates over Indigenous cultural distinctiveness, Indigenous rights to land and self-government, and Indigenous peoples’ right to benefit from the development of their lands and resources. In a work of critically engaged political theory, Glen Sean Coulthard challenges recognition as a method of organizing difference and identity in liberal politics, questioning the assumption that contemporary difference and past histories of destructive colonialism between the state and Indigenous peoples can be reconciled through a process of acknowledgment. Beyond this, Coulthard examines an alternative politics—one that seeks to revalue, reconstruct, and redeploy Indigenous cultural practices based on self-recognition rather than on seeking appreciation from the very agents of colonialism. Coulthard demonstrates how a “place-based” modification of Karl Marx’s theory of “primitive accumulation” throws light on Indigenous–state relations in settler-colonial contexts and how Frantz Fanon’s critique of colonial recognition shows that this relationship reproduces itself over time. This framework strengthens his exploration of the ways that the politics of recognition has come to serve the interests of settler-colonial power. In addressing the core tenets of Indigenous resistance movements, like Red Power and Idle No More, Coulthard offers fresh insights into the politics of active decolonization.

Native Studies Keywords is a genealogical project that looks at the history of words that claim to have no history. The end goal is not to determine which words are appropriate but to critically examine words that are crucial to Native studies, in hopes of promoting debate and critical interrogation.

In The Black Shoals Tiffany Lethabo King uses the shoal—an offshore geologic formation that is neither land nor sea—as metaphor, mode of critique, and methodology to theorize the encounter between Black studies and Native studies. King conceptualizes the shoal as a space where Black and Native literary traditions, politics, theory, critique, and art meet in productive, shifting, and contentious ways. These interactions, which often foreground Black and Native discourses of conquest and critiques of humanism, offer alternative insights into understanding how slavery, anti-Blackness, and Indigenous genocide structure white supremacy. Among texts and topics, King examines eighteenth-century British mappings of humanness, Nativeness, and Blackness; Black feminist depictions of Black and Native erotics; Black fungibility as a critique of discourses of labor exploitation; and Black art that rewrites conceptions of the human. In outlining the convergences and disjunctions between Black and Native thought and aesthetics, King identifies the potential to create new epistemologies, lines of critical inquiry, and creative practices.

Centuries-old community planning practices in Indigenous communities in Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia have, in modern times, been eclipsed by ill-suited western approaches, mostly derived from colonial and neo-colonial traditions. Since planning outcomes have failed to reflect the rights and interests of Indigenous people, attempts to reclaim planning have become a priority for many Indigenous nations throughout the world. In Reclaiming Indigenous Planning, scholars and practitioners connect the past and present to facilitate better planning for the future. With examples from the Canadian Arctic to the Australian desert, and the cities, towns, reserves and reservations in between, contributors engage topics including Indigenous mobilization and resistance, awareness-raising and seven-generations visioning, Indigenous participation in community planning processes, and forms of governance. Relying on case studies and personal narratives, these essays emphasize the critical need for Indigenous communities to reclaim control of the political, socio-cultural, and economic agendas that shape their lives. The first book to bring Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors together across continents, Reclaiming Indigenous Planning shows how urban and rural communities around the world are reformulating planning practices that incorporate traditional knowledge, cultural identity, and stewardship over land and resources. Contributors include Robert Adkins (Community and Economic Development Consultant, USA), Chris Andersen (Alberta), Giovanni Attili (La Sapienza), Aaron Aubin (Dillon Consulting), Shaun Awatere (Landcare Research, New Zealand), Yale Belanger (Lethbridge), Keith Chaulk (Memorial), Stephen Cornell (Arizona), Sherrie Cross (Macquarie), Kim Doohan (Native Title and Resource Claims Consultant, Australia), Kerri Jo Fortier (Simpcw First Nation), Bethany Haalboom (Victoria University, New Zealand), Lisa Hardess (Hardess Planning Inc.), Garth Harmsworth (Landcare Research, New Zealand), Sharon Hausam (Pueblo of Laguna), Michael Hibbard (Oregon), Richard Howitt (Macquarie), Ted Jojola (New Mexico), Tanira Kingi (AgResearch, New Zealand), Marcus Lane (Griffith), Rebecca Lawrence (Umea), Gaim Lunkapis (Malaysia Sabah), Laura Mannell (Planning Consultant, Canada), Hirini Matunga (Lincoln University, New Zealand), Deborah McGregor (Toronto), Oscar Montes de Oca (AgResearch, New Zealand), Samantha Muller (Flinders), David Natcher (Saskatchewan), Frank Palermo (Dalhousie), Robert Patrick (Saskatchewan), Craig Pauling (Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu), Kurt Peters (Oregon State), Libby Porter (Monash), Andrea Procter (Memorial), Sarah Prout (Combined Universities Centre for Rural Health, Australia), Catherine Robinson (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australia), Shadrach Rolleston (Planning Consultant, New Zealand), Leonie Sandercock (British Columbia), Crispin Smith (Planning Consultant, Canada), Sandie Suchet-Pearson (Macquarie), Siri Veland (Brown), Ryan Walker (Saskatchewan), Liz Wedderburn (AgResearch, New Zealand).

Clearing a Path offers new models and ideas for exploring Native American history, drawing from disciplines like history, anthropology, and creative writing making this a must-read for anyone interested in the history of indigenous peoples.

Mohawk Interruptus is a bold challenge to dominant thinking in the fields of Native studies and anthropology. Combining political theory with ethnographic research among the Mohawks of Kahnawà:ke, a reserve community in what is now southwestern Quebec, Audra Simpson examines their struggles to articulate and maintain political sovereignty through centuries of settler colonialism. The Kahnawà:ke Mohawks are part of the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois Confederacy. Like many Iroquois peoples, they insist on the integrity of Haudenosaunee governance and refuse American or Canadian citizenship. Audra Simpson thinks through this politics of refusal, which stands in stark contrast to the politics of cultural recognition. Tracing the implications of refusal, Simpson argues that one sovereign political order can exist nested within a sovereign state, albeit with enormous tension around issues of jurisdiction and legitimacy. Finally, Simpson critiques anthropologists and political scientists, whom, she argues, have too readily accepted the assumption that the colonial project is complete. Belying that notion, Mohawk Interruptus calls for and demonstrates more robust and evenhanded forms of inquiry into indigenous politics in the teeth of settler governance.

Critically Sovereign traces the ways in which gender is inextricably a part of Indigenous politics and U.S. and Canadian imperialism and colonialism. The contributors show how gender, sexuality, and feminism work as co-productive forces of Native American and Indigenous sovereignty, self-determination, and epistemology. Several essays use a range of literary and legal texts to analyze the production of colonial space, the biopolitics of “Indianness,” and the collisions and collusions between queer theory and colonialism within Indigenous studies. Others address the U.S. government’s criminalization of traditional forms of Diné marriage and sexuality, the Iñupiat people's changing conceptions of masculinity as they embrace the processes of globalization, Hawai‘i’s same-sex marriage bill, and stories of Indigenous women falling in love with non-human beings such as animals, plants, and stars. Following the politics of gender, sexuality, and feminism across these diverse historical and cultural contexts, the contributors question and reframe the thinking about Indigenous knowledge, nationhood, citizenship, history, identity, belonging, and the possibilities for a decolonial future. Contributors. Jodi A. Byrd, Joanne Barker, Jennifer Nez Denetdale, Mishuana Goeman, J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Melissa K. Nelson, Jessica Bissett Perea, Mark Rifkin