Critical theory and North American indigenous thought

Abstract

In recent years, critical theorists such as Amy Allen and Robert Nichols have aimed to “decolonize critical theory,” by which they mean to make the tradition of critical theory less hostile to, and more compatible with, the ideas and movements of Indigenous peoples. In this article, however, I argue these efforts have failed to consider the relationship of two key elements of critical theory with Indigenous thought: that all normativity is generated immanently to historically and socially located struggle, and that normativity is negatively defined. These two elements, I argue, are not fully endorsed in the work of many Indigenous thinkers. By drawing on the work of a diverse group of contemporary Indigenous scholars, I show, first, that nature is generally a relevant normative category in Indigenous thinking in a way that is irreducible to historical location. Second, I argue that for many Native scholars, right action is not simply a matter of resisting colonialism. While resistance features heavily, of course, I suggest that Indigenous thinking often includes a substantive positive vision of living well that has not—as of yet—been considered by critical theorists.

Wages for Earthwork

“…In one canonical formulation, "settler colonialism destroys to replace" existing Indigenous societies (Wolfe 2006, 388). While this definition is still useful, it is missing the more positive normative content (Piccolo 2023) and material capacities for earthwork that have informed Indigenous accounts of the experience of dispossession. To this point, many Indigenous societies conceive of (settler-)colonial invasion itself as a form of structural domination or servitude over both Indigenous peoples' political and individual bodies and the earth itself (Maracle 2015, 143).…”