Work · Indigenous Philosophies
As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance
Argues that settler colonialism is a structure of dispossession and that Indigenous freedom requires “radical resurgence”: land-based ways of life and knowledge, the rejection of extractivism and of heteropatriarchy, and solidarity with Black struggles.
Introduction
The book appeared in 2017 in the Indigenous Americas series of the University of Minnesota Press and received the Best Subsequent Book award of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. Simpson analyses settler colonialism as a structure of dispossession that targets land and Indigenous bodies, in particular the bodies of women and of queer and two-spirit people. Taking up Glen Coulthard’s concept of grounded normativity, Simpson calls for “radical resurgence”: a refusal of recognition and reconciliation as offered by the state, of extractivism in all its forms – including the extraction of Indigenous knowledge – and of heteropatriarchy, and a return to land-based practices, Nishnaabeg intelligence and relationships of consent. A chapter on “constellations of coresistance” looks for alliances with Black radical thought and other struggles. The book combines theory with stories and experiences from Simpson’s own community.
Connections
Builds on
- Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence and a New Emergence2011 · Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
- Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition2014 · Glen Sean Coulthard
More works by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Sources: Wikidata
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