Radical sovereignty, rhetorical borders, and the everyday decolonial praxis of Indigenous peoplehood and Two-Spirit reclamation

Bibliographic Data

ID18997944
AuthorsIan Khara Ellasante (0000-0002-7899-061X, Bates College, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume44
Issue9
Pages1507-1526
Publication date2021-04-07
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnic and Racial Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-9870 • E-ISSN: 1466-4356
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01419870.2021.1906437
OpenAlexW3146033994
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited25

As settler colonialism has forcibly constricted vast expanses of Indigenous lands, criss-crossing them with superimposed borders, it has sought to redraw the boundaries of Indigenous identity by imposing definitions and categories that invariably lead to Indigenous diminishment. Strategic and eliminatory categorization is essential to the settler-colonial imperative. This essay explores settler-colonial exercises of rhetorical imperialism that deploy language, connotation, and categorization to dismantle Indigenous cultural systems. The author discusses the political stake in who is designated Indigenous, the drive to remake Indigenous nations in the image of the settler-state, the enforcement of cis-heteropatriarchal capitalist norms, and assimilationist strategies aiming to disrupt Indigenous formations of gender and kinship. The author argues that Indigenous assertions of peoplehood as a definitional and unifying framework and Two-Spirit as a self-identifier are acts of resistance that they term “oppositional identification” and “contrast mechanisms.” They are exercises of rhetorical and radical sovereignty, tantamount to everyday decolonization

Colonialism · Decolonization · Indigenous · Linguistics · Political science · Politics · Rhetorical question · Sociology · Sovereignty · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Gender Studies · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Law · Rhetoric and Communication Studies

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Open DOIOpen Access