any scholars in Native studies have argued that the field has been co-opted by broader discourses, such as ethnic studies or post-colonial studies. 1 Their contention is that ethnic studies elide Native claims to sovereignty by rendering Native peoples as ethnic groups suffering racial discrimination rather than as nations who are undergoing colonisation. These scholars and activists rightly point to the neglect within ethnic studies and within broader racial-justice struggles of the unique legal position Native peoples have in the United States. At the same time, because of this intellectual and political divide, there is insufficient exchange that would help us understand how white supremacy and settler colonialism intersect, particularly within the United States. In this paper, I will examine how the lack of attention to settler colonialism hinders the analysis of race and white supremacy developed by scholars who focus on race and racial formation. I will then examine how the lack of attention to race and white supremacy within Native studies and Native struggles hinders the development of a decolonial framework.
Queer studies highlights the importance of developing analyses that go beyond identity and representational politics. For Native studies in particular, queer theory points to the possibility of going beyond representing the voices of Native peoples, a project that can quickly become co-opted into providing Native commodities for consumption in the multicultural academic-industrial complex. The subjectless critique of queer theory can assist Native studies in critically interrogating how it could unwittingly re-create colonial hierarchies even within projects of decolonization. This critique also sheds light on how Native peoples function within the colonial imaginary—including the colonial imaginary of scholars and movements that claim to be radical. At the same time, Native studies can build on queer of color critique's engagement with subjectless critique. In the move to go “postidentity,” queer theory often reinstantiates a white supremacist, settler colonialism by disappearing the indigenous peoples colonized in this land who become the foils for the emergence of postcolonial, postmodern, diasporic, and queer subjects. With respect to Native studies, even queer of color critique does not necessarily mark how identities are shaped by settler colonialism. Thus a conversation between Native studies and queer theory is important, because the logics of settler colonialism and decolonization must be queered in order to properly speak to the genocidal present that not only continues to disappear indigenous peoples but reinforces the structures of white supremacy, settler colonialism, and heteropatriarchy that affect all peoples.
This paper analyzes the connections between sexual violence and colonialism in the lives and histories of Native peoples in the United States. This paper argues that sexual violence does not simply just occur within the process of colonialism, but that colonialism is itself structured by the logic of sexual violence. Furthermore, this logic of sexual violence continues to structure U. S. policies toward Native peoples today. Consequently, anti-sexual violence and anti-colonial struggles cannot be separated .[Rape] is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear -Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will Rape as "nothing more or less" than a tool of patriarchal control undergirds the philosophy of the white-dominated anti-violence against women movement. Anti-violence activists generally understand rape solely as gender violence. This philosophy has been critiqued by many women of color, including critical racist theorist Kimberle Crenshaw, for its lack of attention to racism and classism. Crenshaw analyzes how male-dominated conceptions of race and whitedominated conceptions of gender stand in the way of a clear understanding of violence against women of color. It is inadequate, she argues, to investigate the oppression of women of color by examining race and gender oppressions separately and then putting the two analyses together because the overlap of racism and sexism transforms the dynamics of both. Instead, Crenshaw advo-
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