Indigenous decolonization describes ongoing theoretical and political processes whose goal is to contest and reframe narratives about indigenous community histories and the effects of

colonial Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French Colonial * Spanish Colonial architecture Automobiles * Colonial (1920 au ...

expansion,

cultural assimilation Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially. The different types of cultural ass ...

, exploitative

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

research, and often though not inherent,

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...

.Smith, L. T. (1999). ''Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples''. Zed Books. Indigenous people engaged in decolonization work adopt a critical stance towards western-centric research practices and discourse and seek to reposition knowledge within indigenous cultural practices. The decolonial work that relies on structures of western political thought has been characterized as paradoxically furthering cultural dispossession. In this context, there has been a call for the use of independent intellectual, spiritual, social, and physical reclamation and rejuvenation even if these practices don't translate readily into political recognition. Scholars may also characterize indigenous decolonization as an intersectional struggle that "cannot liberate all people without first addressing

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonis ...

and

sexism Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers pri ...

." Beyond the theoretical dimensions of indigenous-decolonization work, direct-action campaigns, healing journeys, and embodied social struggles for decolonization are frequently associated with ongoing native resistance struggles and disputes over

land rights Land law is the form of law that deals with the rights to use, alienate, or exclude others from land. In many jurisdictions, these kinds of property are referred to as real estate or real property, as distinct from personal property. Land use a ...

, ecological extraction, political

marginalization Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. It is used across discipline ...

, and

sovereignty Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...

. While native resistance struggles have gone on for centuries, an upsurge of indigenous activism took place in the 1960s - coinciding with national liberation movements in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

, and

the Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...

Methods

Indigenous Postcolonial Theory

Coined by Anna Lees, the methodology of "Indigenous Postcolonial Theory" builds upon and draws clear distinctions from other schools of

postcolonial Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a ...

or decolonial thought. First, the prefix post– doesn’t refer to a period of time, but rather a perpetual ambition of eradicating the

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...

and social power imbalances and effects of colonization that manifest in efforts to culturally assimilate and stereotype Native Americans. Secondly, Indigenous Postcolonial Theory was developed as an alternative method to exercising a broad, blanket critical theory to particularly center indigenous knowledge and values rather than applying a wholesale form of decolonization to Indigenous-specific trauma, strive, love, and joy. Similarly,

Marie Battiste Marie Ann Battiste (born 1949) is an author and educator working as a professor in Canada at the University of Saskatchewan in the Department of Educational Foundations. From the Potlotek First Nation in Nova Scotia, Battiste is the daughter of Mi ...

posits that Indigenous Postcolonial Theory offers a method of deconstructing the layers and intricacies of colonization, its effect, and its underlying assumptions, in a way that Eurocentric theory is unable to do. She says, " PTis based on our pain and our experiences, and it refuses to allow others to appropriate this pain and these experiences."

Survivance, sovereignty, and rhetorical sovereignty

Gerald Vizenor Gerald is a male Germanic given name meaning "rule of the spear" from the prefix ''ger-'' ("spear") and suffix ''-wald'' ("rule"). Variants include the English given name Jerrold, the feminine nickname Jeri and the Welsh language Gerallt and ...

coined the term survivance to characterize the struggle of colonized indigenous communities. Combining the words "survival" and "resistance", he evokes "the duality of how Native Americans have survived brutal

genocides Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lati ...

and continue to resist

white supremacist White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...

laws and culture that are designed to

disenfranchise Disfranchisement, also called disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. ...

and assimilate". According to Vizenor, "Survivance is an active sense of presence, the continuance of native stories, not a mere reaction, or survivable name. Native survivance stories are renunciation of dominance, tragedy, and victimry." Thus, survivance is defined as "the resistance (of) colonial tendencies to resign indigeneity to the past by characterizing an ongoing state of being in response to colonizing efforts." According to King, Gubele, and Anderson, the study and "decolonization" of Native American Indigeneity "requires an understanding of the importance of

to American Indian nations…" In this context, he defines sovereignty as including the localized self-determination of a people, as well as the political authority of nationhood and the recognition of equal-status with similarly sovereign international peers. King, Gubele, and Anderson believe that not only is this crucial for political purposes, but it's crucial for cultural and religious purposes, as well: "For Native nations, this kind of a nation is defined by a peoplehood, a concept that has its roots in the preservation and prospering of the community and binds its members together in cultural and often religious terms." Citing the history of changes in US legislative terminology that sequentially redefined indigenous "nations" to "tribes" and "treaties" to "agreements", Stephen R. Lyons sought to generate a standard of "rhetorical sovereignty". Lyons looks at what he identifies as being "the communicative practices of the colonizer", and how consequently, indigenous representations and freedoms are constrained, as a result. He says, "Rhetorical sovereignty is the inherent right of peoples to determine their own communicative needs and desires in this pursuit, to decide for themselves the goals, modes, styles, and languages of public discourse." In essence, the ambition of Indigenous rhetorical sovereignty is the desire to give rhetorical control, and thus representational control, to Indigenous ethnic groups.

Narrative, counter-storytelling, and testimonies

Thomas King states in his book ''The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative'' that stories have a substantial impact on the human condition and humans’ constructed reality as a whole. They frame human relationships, perspectives, and moral codes. As King, Gubele, and Anderson put it, "The stories we tell each other tell us who we are, locate us in time and space and history and land, and suggest who gets to speak and how." Similarly, the stories that are widely disseminated or suppressed indicate similar societal expectations and limitations. Norman Denzin, Yvonna Lincoln, and Linda Smith, in their book titled "Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies", assert that "The

Euro-American European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent E ...

canon and its continuance of Greco-Roman traditions has deliberately marginalized indigenous stories that manifest in practices of theorizing, speaking, writing, and making", and that the telling of such stories would provide "alternatives to and challenge dominant narratives", thus becoming counter-narratives to them.

Linda Tuhiwai Smith Linda Tuhiwai Te Rina Smith (née Mead; born 1950) was a professor of indigenous education at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealandolove, sexual encounters, … ndwar and revenge." Indigenous testimonies are a means and practice of pushing back against oppression and suppression by providing oral evidence about a painful experience or series of experiences. Linda Tuhiwai Smith writes that testimonies are contingent on a formal structure, a supportive atmosphere and audience, and upholding "a notion that truth is being revealed ‘under oath.’"

Food sovereignty

It has been speculated that food sovereignty is a means of providing a path towards decolonization. Its definition, in recent years, has been noted to be highly modifiable due to its dependency on the context of the circumstances to which it is applied. In indigenous context, where sovereignty does not serve the right meaning and political intent, the concept of food sovereignty sometimes does not follow the traditional meanings of each individual word. It has been discussed and theorized in the indigenous context of the concept that food sovereignty is also an effort of reclaiming culture and former relationship to land; it has also been noted that, as a situational concept, food sovereignty in the traditional sense may have underlying traces of capitalist or colonialist interests. Food sovereignty's adaptable definition in the context of indigenous decolonization, in relation to the reclamation of culture, is then highly hypothesized to be a strong route towards decolonization.

Implications of Western knowledge production and epistemologies

scientists and academics have and continue to take advantage of knowledge from and about

Indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

communities (whether in publications or through new pharmaceuticals), those Indigenous communities are excluded from control over the nature and usage of the newly created knowledge. Thus, Indigenous communities are spoken for and become the indigenous "other" as those institutional systems and structures reproduce a knowledge that "becomes a commodity of colonial exploitation". This continues to reinforce the privileging of Western knowledge and epistemologies over non-Western or Indigenous funds of knowledge (or

traditional knowledge Traditional knowledge (TK), indigenous knowledge (IK) and local knowledge generally refer to knowledge systems embedded in the cultural traditions of regional, indigenous, or local communities. According to the World Intellectual Property Organ ...

) in Western

academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

. This privilege manifests itself when, according to Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, "Indigenous knowledge systems are too frequently made into objects of study, treated as if they were instances of quaint folk theory held by the members of a primitive culture." Indigenous decolonization seeks a dramatic shift in the subject of academic inquiry. Rather than comparing Indigenous knowledge systems in comparison to empirical Western values, Indigenous decolonization aims to reverse this perspective so that Western funds of knowledge are subjected to due examination and study en route to restoring Indigenous knowledge, traditions, and culture. There are specific advantages to applying Indigenous decolonization to practices and situations involving Indigenous peoples over alternative critical lenses such as critical theory, or more specifically critical race theory. According to Denzin and Lincoln, critical theory’s broad tenets of liberation and sovereignty are far too generalized for this application: "Critical theory must be localized, grounded in the specific meanings, traditions, customs, and community relations that operate in each Indigenous setting." Otherwise, a critical theory that disregards context and embraces ubiquitous characteristics of social movements cannot guide meaningful change when applied to a specific Indigenous context.

In art

Robert Harris - A Meeting of the School Trustees

Indigenous artists have been using art as a form of activism for many years. Jarrett Martineau and Eric Ritskes say that art forms are never separate from our political forms and "Indigenous art thus occupies a unique space within settler colonialism: both as a site for articulating Indigenous resistance and resurgence, and also as a creative praxis that often reinscribes indigeneity within aesthetic and commodity forms that circulate in the capitalist art market". Art can be used in political struggle to bring attention to important issues and to better convey the experiences of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous artists attempt to work outside of the binary of colonialism in their art. Martineau and Ritskes describe Indigenous art as "the ''generative'' expression of creativity, not the violence of colonial domination, and it is in Indigenous art's resistant motion to disavow the repetition of such violence that it recuperates the spirit of ancestral memory and place, and forges new pathways of re-emergence and return".

References

{{Indigenous peoples by continent European colonization of the Americas Decolonization Independence movements Indigenous peoples