The Sovereignty of Critique (original) (raw)

The I/Indian Not-In-The-Textbook: Native/Indigenous Post-Structuralism, Critical Methodologies, Epistemologies, and Tribal Realities as Agency toward the Decolonization of the Territorial Divide In American Indian Studies Courses

Indian Journal of Management and Language, 2021

This article focuses upon how, within American Indian Studies courses, there is a necessary border crossing between territorialized Native and non-Native students. Taking the literal borders of Indian reservations, and repositioning these realities as a metaphor for critical epistemological deconstruction, I argue that there is a necessary educational border crossing which is necessary for Native/Indigenous equity and socio-political justice to be realized and acquired as cultural currency. As students within these courses begin to understand, embrace, and challenge American Indian Studies (AIS) courses, and the dynamics of the discipline, there is a self-defined border crossing between, and within, the Native/Indigenous ideological territories, and literal, physical reservation borders, which the curriculum represents. Each student may – or will – find their own point of critical Native/Indigenous inquiry, from which they are challenged and welcomed to embrace, as well as depart fr...

Beyond epistemic provincialism: De-provincializing Indigenous resistance (with Ahenakew, Cooper and Hireme) (2014)

This article is part of a transnational collaboration between Indigenous scholars concerned about the provincialization of Indigenous struggles within modern metaphysics. This can be seen at work in notions of land as property, tribe as (modern) nation, and sovereignty as anthropocentric agency grounded on rational choice. Drawing on critiques of modernity articulated by Latin American scholars, as well as Indigenous scholars exploring the limits of current forms of political resistance, we argue that this modern metaphysics generates a form of politics that neglects an important existential dimension of Indigenous heritages. We use Indigenous education as an example to affirm that epistemic provincialization has been both necessary and problematic in the current context. We argue that the limitations of strategies for recognition, representation and redistribution need to be complemented by existential insights that can revitalize possibilities of existence based on ancestral wisdom and on the urgency of considering our shared fate in a finite planet facing unprecedented challenges. (2014)

A Note on Decolonization, Poststructuralism, and Method in Indigenous Critical Theory

Journal of Multidisciplinary Research at Trent, 2021

The meaning of the word 'decolonization' is rapidly changing in Canada. Today, the word has re-penetrated the psychology of mainstream Canadians. And, with mainstream society now finding the term effective and useful for advertising products the synonymity of the term with 'anti-colonial' is becoming a problem. Decolonization appears to be a decolonial term, but when I carefully critique its ideological usage by settler colonials, I find it's almost guaranteed that the contemporary usage of the term will come full circle. As it enters the mainstream market economy, the term gets structured primarily by profit motives rather than community values. Very soon, popular usage of decolonization will once again refer to a matrix of settler colonial values, rather than the independent community-based processes which grassroots Indigenous and anti-colonial peoples have used. As decolonization terminology becomes popular in Canada's mainstream, it will methodologically contradict the grassroots’ anti-colonial aspirations. In this paper, I've tried to understand how Indigenous people might be influenced by the structuralist patterns of thought in anti-Indigenous or modernist knowledge frameworks, I have looked at how bureaucratic institutions reinventing decolonization use the ideology of profit to assimilate Indigenous peoples using old progress ideologies that drive the historical master-narrative of settler colonial nations like Canada. The final section looks at how those ideologies produce categories of identity that promote a progress narrative that is continuing to seek the assimilation of Indigenous peoples into the settler colonial system's public market economy. Here I've advocated for a post-structuralist method for comprehending Indigenous decolonization movement.

From Indigenous Literatures to Native American and Indigenous Theorists: The Makings of a Grassroots Decoloniality

Latin American Research Review, 2018

From the coloniality of power to the decolonial swerve, US-centered decolonial academics concur with the foundational points introduced by Peruvian sociologist Aníbal Quijano. Nevertheless, they seldom cite Latin American Indigenous or Native American intellectuals’ decolonial perspectives, or examine specific bodies of critical thinking emerging in hemispheric Indigenous communities. In turn, a diversity of Indigenous paradigms and methods are appearing in the Americas, either as literary texts or critical works. Indigenous or Native American writers and theorists are often political actors, working within their respective grassroots movements, or writing to advance specific goals of their own communities. This article will emphasize Native American and Indigenous decolonial issues framed from a critique of contemporary Indigenous narratives. Their views both enrich and complicate Western decolonial theorists’ assumptions. Examining their production provides continuity to the polit...

Beyond Epistemic Provincialism: De-provincializing Indigenous resistance

AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 2014

This article is part of a transnational collaboration between Indigenous scholars concerned about the provincialization of Indigenous struggles within modern metaphysics. This can be seen at work in notions of land as property, tribe as (modern) nation, and sovereignty as anthropocentric agency grounded on rational choice. Drawing on critiques of modernity articulated by Latin American scholars, as well as Indigenous scholars exploring the limits of current forms of political resistance, we argue that this modern metaphysics generates a form of politics that neglects an important existential dimension of Indigenous heritages. We use Indigenous education as an example to affirm that epistemic provincialization has been both necessary and problematic in the current context. We argue that the limitations of strategies for recognition, representation and redistribution need to be complemented by existential insights that can revitalize possibilities of existence based on ancestral wisdo...

213 Mapping the Field of Anti-Colonial Discourse to Understand Issues of Indigenous

2016

ABSTRACT. In this paper, I examine some of the past and current issues in anti-colonial discourse by briefly reviewing the ideas of thirteen anti-colonial scholars from different regions of the world. I relate these ideas to the discussion of knowledge production and indigenous knowledges. I also examine some critical areas that require more attention from future decolonizing scholarship and practice. With respect to scholarship, these critical areas include: the ques-tion of agency; the ambivalence towards Euro-American thought; recognizing the dynamism among knowledge systems; language accessibility; integrating indigenous ways of knowing, and dismantling the academic regime. In addi-tion, I suggest that the questions of decolonizing one’s spirit and recognizing the importance of spirituality, often ignored, are very important to integrate in decolonizing practice. This paper concludes by challenging anti-colonial scholars to open possibilities for ourselves and others by “walking...