Decolonisation is a Political Project: Overcoming Impasses between Indigenous Sovereignty and Abolition

Abstract

In this article we seek to intervene in conversations that frame Black abolition and decolonisation as antagonistic political projects. We respond to Garba and Sorentino’s (2020) “Slavery is a metaphor”, which critiques Tuck and Yang (2012; “Decolonization is not a metaphor”) and decolonisation. Our concern is that scholarship in this vein denies Indigenous sovereignty and futurity while unnecessarily characterising decolonisation as antiblack. We contend that ontological, epistemological, and disciplinary traps lead to this problem: reductions, conflations, and taking settler‐enslavers’ word as truth. We suggest that critiques of settler colonial studies shouldn’t be confused with the aims of Indigenous decolonisation, where the former is largely driven by white scholarship and the latter is an Indigenous‐led project rooted in Indigenous epistemologies. We focus on questions of land and sovereignty, gesturing toward framings that are inclusive of Black, Native, and immigrant communities.

Introduction

“…Despite the influence of Patrick Wolfe's model of settler colonialism as elimination, there are indeed cases where the logic of settler colonialism seems to be one of exploitation rather than elimination (Englert 2020) -as for example in the case of white settlers in South Africa exploiting Black mineworkers (see Alami, Chapter 10 and Styve, Chapter 21). An emphasis on elimination should indeed be approached with caution, as it can contribute to the erasure of Indigenous scholarship and discussions of what it means to decolonize ongoing settler colonialism (Curley et al 2022) The entanglements of race, finance and inequality that emerge through settler-colonial projects can also be approached through the lens of racial capitalism -a term that many authors in this collection use (on settler colonialism and racial capitalism, see Randell-Moon, Chapter 14). Before reviewing thought on racial capitalism in more depth, let's take a look at the two terms that make it up.…”

Vulnerability as best practice?

“…Through the practice of "critical autoethnography", "the researcher, more than likely a member of the dominant culture" is thought to be "able to understand herself as an oppressor" (Tilley-Lubbs 2014, 268). In some readings, "radically vulnerable" research practices and writing (Curley et al 2022(Curley et al , 1052Page 2017) can also help the dominant-culture scholar (even if only momentarily) to move away from power, toward a "world of solidarities" (Curley et al 2022(Curley et al , 1052.…”

Body of Evidence: Time and Desire in Embodied Archives

“…The Commission to establish Choctaw Enrollment used interpretation of embodiment, how the interviewer read the body (visually for characteristics that could indicate Blackness), historically (for ancestral enslavement that would indicate Blackness), socially (for social ties that would indicate Blackness), and embodied practices (for language-use that would indicate Blackness) to deny or grant Choctaw enrollment. These interpretations drew on settler-enslaver (Curley et al, 2022) notions that link Blackness with slavery and therefore non-Native, non-sovereign. Harvey's discussion of the Commission's archives illustrates both the embodiment and desire captured in the archives themselves.…”