"Across North America, Indigenous acts of resistance have in recent years opposed the removal of federal protections for forests and waterways in Indigenous lands, halted the expansion of tar sands extraction and the pipeline construction at Standing Rock, and demanded justice for murdered and missing Indigenous women. In As We Have Always Done, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson locates Indigenous political resurgence as a practice rooted in uniquely Indigenous theorizing, writing, organizing, and thinking. Indigenous resistance is a radical rejection of contemporary colonialism focused around refusing the dispossession of Indigenous bodies and land. Simpson makes clear that the resistance's goal can no longer be cultural resurgence as a mechanism for inclusion in a multicultural mosaic. Instead, she calls for unapologetic, place-based Indigenous alternatives to the destructive logics of the settler colonial state, including heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalist exploitation."--Dust jacket.
Fantastic Guide for Resurgent and Revolutionary Praxis
5 stars
If you live in a settler-colonial country, especially Canada, you need to read this book. If you don't live in a settler colonial country but want to build relationships for emancipation with globally oppressed minorities, this book provides a great guide to do that too. There's really nobody I wouldn't recommend this book to. Even your racist uncle will hopefully get a wakeup call from Simpson's amazingly thoughtful and insightful text.
This is one of the most resonating works I've ever read, forging resistance against the entwined forces of colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, with a radical resurgence centred on living relationships with the land; engaging with stories; constellating with communities that do not replicate anti-Blackness, transphobia, anti-queerness; embracing the foundational Nishnaabeg ethics of consent, noninterference, respect for self-determination, and diversity.
"Heteropatriarchy isn’t just about exclusion of certain Indigenous bodies, it is about the destruction of the intimate relationships that make up our nations, and the fundamental systems of ethics based on values of individual sovereignty and self-determination. The more destruction our intimate relationships carry, the more destruction our political systems carry, and the less we are able to defend and protect our lands, and the easier it is to dispossess."
"…the opposite of dispossession is not possession, it is deep, reciprocal, consensual attachment. Indigenous bodies don’t relate to the land …
This is one of the most resonating works I've ever read, forging resistance against the entwined forces of colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, with a radical resurgence centred on living relationships with the land; engaging with stories; constellating with communities that do not replicate anti-Blackness, transphobia, anti-queerness; embracing the foundational Nishnaabeg ethics of consent, noninterference, respect for self-determination, and diversity.
"Heteropatriarchy isn’t just about exclusion of certain Indigenous bodies, it is about the destruction of the intimate relationships that make up our nations, and the fundamental systems of ethics based on values of individual sovereignty and self-determination. The more destruction our intimate relationships carry, the more destruction our political systems carry, and the less we are able to defend and protect our lands, and the easier it is to dispossess."
"…the opposite of dispossession is not possession, it is deep, reciprocal, consensual attachment. Indigenous bodies don’t relate to the land by possessing or owning it or having control over it. We relate to land through connection—generative, affirmative, complex, overlapping, and nonlinear relationship."
