Settler Colonialism + Native Ghosts: An Autoethnographic Account of the Imaginarium of Late Capitalist/Colonialist Storytelling by Rowland Robinson A thesis presented to the University Of Waterloo in fulfilment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2020 ©Rowland Robinson 2020 Examining Committee Membership The following served on the Examining Committee for this dissertation. The decision of the Examining Committee is by majority vote. External Examiner: Kyle Powys Whyte Professor of Philosophy, Michigan State University Supervisor(s): Suzan Ilcan Professor, Sociology and Legal Studies Jasmin Habib Associate Professor, Political Science Internal Member: Rashmee Singh Associate Professor, Sociology and Legal Studies Internal-External Member: Linda Warley Associate Professor, English Language and Literature Other Member(s): Daniel O'Connor Associate Professor, Sociology and Legal Studies ii Author’s Declaration I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this dissertation. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. iii Abstract This dissertation is an Indigenous, decolonial, and autoethnographic account of the genealogical formation and function of Nativeness within biopolitical formations and racializing assemblages, as well as the visual, ontological, narrative, and affective imaginings of the northern bloc of settler colonialism (the United States and Canada). As an autoethnographic work it centres my own lived and embodied experiences to chart the corridors of settler-colonial power and knowledge production, in particular my experiences as a diasporic, urban and liminally enrolled Native person, and the very real, and at times overwhelming, affective burdens that come with such a positionality. In doing so this work situates my journey within the structures of settler colonialism, and in particular against what the late Patrick Wolfe referred to as the “logic of elimination,” as well as what many scholars have identified and referred to as the Coloniality of Power and the Colonial Order of Things. Further, it works to centre Indigenous resurgence, insurgence, decolonization, self-determination, and a politics of refusal. In thinking through in particular the centering of practices of refusal, this work proposes and engages in a kind of methodological-pedagogical-praxiological movement of autoethnographic refusal, where the dissertation begins its first of two narrative movements by charting Indigenous damage narratives within frames of political ontology, biopolitics and racializing assemblages, visuality, and community loss and disruption, before moving towards actively no longer telling those stories. The second narrative movement of this iv dissertation moves then from telling of my own stories of damage under settler-colonial regimes of power/knowledge, towards theorizing about Native damage narratives, most especially why they are so readily consumed within digital, filmic, and academic settings and the economies of late capitalism/colonialism. This is referred to within as the imaginarium of late capitalist/colonialist storytelling. In doing so, it continues to ask fundamentally onto-existential questions about Natives through frames of Savageness and Wildness, temporality, and what the late cultural theorist Mark Fisher referred to as the Weird. v Acknowledgements I would like to extend my deepest thanks to my family, friends, colleagues, comrades, and professors who have supported me throughout the trials and tribulations of forming, planning, and writing this dissertation, as well as my doctoral studies generally these past five years. This work would not even be possible without you. Thank you. Special thanks must of course go to my committee members, who have read this dissertation and its chapters, sometimes over and over again, guiding me, helping me stay on track, and at other times helping me to see threads that I did not even know I was pulling on. Thank you to Drs. Rashmee Singh and Daniel O’Connor of the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies, to Dr. Linda Warley of the Department of English Language and Literature, to Dr. Kyle Powyss Whyte of Michigan State University’s Department of Philosophy, and to my two Co-Supervisors, Drs. Suzan Ilcan, of Sociology and Legal Studies, and Jasmin Habib of Political Science. Beyond the members of my dissertation committee, I would also like to extend a personal thank you to the following people who have supported me, vented with me, helped give shape to my ideas, engaged in sometimes endless dialogue with me, or otherwise helped me to reach this point (in no order): Amanda Plain, Brian Schram, Brian Elzinga, Abdullah Al-Haddad, Nikita Larter, Trieneke Gastmeier, Craig Fortier, Idriss Sparkes, William Jamal Richardson, Tahbit Chowdhury, Tawsif Chowdhury, Chloe Racine, Mehra Gharib, Alyssa Adamson, Jacob Romu, Nicolas Juárez, Brielle Beardy-Linklater, Zoe Miller, Kelly Pflug-Back, Kooper Caraway, Katie Turriff, Éidin Ní Mhártain, Phil Bériault, Krysta Williams, Natasha Pittman, and Alexander Peck. All of you deserve more thanks than I could ever possibly put into words. Finally, thank you to all of my friends from Bermuda, who supported me when I decided to flip my life upside down and move back to Canada in order to start this latest phase of my academic life: Miguel Mejias, Jonathan Starling, Geza Wolf, Anthony Foggo, Tae Foggo, Kai Douglas, Shane Burrows, Lamar Ible, Aaron Lewis, Paul Spring, Shaun Richards, and Rakai Malcolm Augustus (Rest in Power). Maec͞ -waewa͞ enen͞ ketaenen!͞ vi Dedication For my mother, Gay Keshena Robinson, my aunts, my grandmother Jennine Keshena, and all of the Menominee women who made me who I am. For my Uncle Lee, my Aunt Ann, my Aunt Margaret, my brother Ben, other relatives, and, most especially, my grandfather, Gordon Keshena, who never got to see this dissertation begun, much less completed. I know you support me from the other side. For my nekōqsemaw, my sister, Amanda Plain, the strongest and most brilliant Anishinaabekwe I know, who through endless love, conversation, encouragement, and wrestling over ideas helped shape, and still helps shape, my work in uncountable ways. Without you, this project would not even be conceivable. For my brother Dylan James Robinson, the only other Menominee man from Bermuda I know. Even if you do not know it you always drive me to make my work as accessible as possible to those Natives who have chosen a life outside of this crumbling Ivory Tower. For my father, Michael Leslie Robinson, a white man who has done his best to raise not just one, but two Indians and without whose support this project would never have been anything more than a pipedream. For all of the Anishinaabeg, Inuit, Cree, Rotinonshón:ni, Métis, Kwakwaka'wakw, and other Indigenous kin in Kitchener-Waterloo, Toronto, and parts elsewhere who I have gotten to know and build with over the years, and from whom I have learned so much, and through our conversations have helped shape this dissertation more than they know. For Rakai Malcolm Augustus of Bermuda: friend and comrade. You always supported me and made me laugh along away. I promise that I will always do my best to make settlers/masters uncomfortable. I miss you. You left too soon. And finally, in the words of Joey Bada$$, this is for my people, trying to stay alive and just stay peaceful, because it's so hard to survive a world so lethal. vii Table of Contents Abstract............................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ vi Dedication ......................................................................................................................... vii Table of Figures .................................................................................................................. xi A Prolegomena on Language and Territory ...................................................................... xii I. Some Key Terms ........................................................................................................ xvi II. On the Question of Territorial Acknowledgement ................................................. xxii II.I Settlers & the Practice of Territorial Acknowledgement ............................................. xxvi II.II The Becoming-Metaphor of Decolonization ............................................................ xxviii II.III Acknowledgement, Decolonization & White Anxiety .............................................. xxxi Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 I. Locating Myself in My Work ........................................................................................ 8 II. Towards a Genealogy of Nativeness under Settler Colonialism .............................. 19 III. Coloniality & the Disruption of Imperial Social Science ........................................ 24 IV. Refusal, Resurgence, & Indigenous Futurity .......................................................... 29 IV. Chapters ................................................................................................................... 34 Chapter 1. Decolonization,