Native American and Indigenous Philosophy
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NEWSLETTER | The American Philosophical Association Native American and Indigenous Philosophy SPRING 2020 VOLUME 19 | NUMBER 2 FROM THE MANAGING EDITOR Agnes B. Curry SUBMISSION GUIDELINES AND INFORMATION ARTICLE Andrea Sullivan-Clarke Empowering Relations: An Indigenous Understanding of Allyship BOOK REVIEWS Brian Burkhart: Indigenizing Philosophy through the Land: A Trickster Methodology for Decolonizing Environmental Ethics and Indigenous Futures Reviewed by Joseph Len Miller Indigenous Philosophy, Locality, and Dance: A Joint Review of Shay Welch, The Phenomenology of a Performance Knowledge System: Dancing with Native American Epistemology, and Brian Burkhart, Indigenizing Philosophy through the Land: A Trickster Methodology for Decolonizing Environmental Ethics and Indigenous Futures Reviewed by Dennis H. McPherson and J. Douglas Rabb Shay Welch: The Phenomenology of a Performance Knowledge System: Dancing with Native American Epistemology Reviewed by Lorraine Mayer VOLUME 19 | NUMBER 2 SPRING 2020 © 2020 BY THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION ISSN 2155-9708 APA NEWSLETTER ON Native American and Indigenous Philosophy AGNES B. CURRY, EDITOR VOLUME 19 | NUMBER 2 | SPRING 2020 FROM THE MANAGING EDITOR SUBMISSION GUIDELINES AND Agnes B. Curry INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF SAINT JOSEPH, CONNECTICUT We invite you to submit your work for consideration for In this newsletter we offer first an article by Andrea Sullivan- publication in the Newsletter on Native American and Clarke of Windsor University in Canada. In “Empowering Indigenous Philosophy. We welcome comments and Relations” she critically considers recent discussions responses to work published in this or past issues. We also of allyship and the limitations inherent in them, so as to welcome work that speaks to philosophical, professional build a less ethically naïve concept for allying work with and community concerns regarding Native American and indigenous peoples and communities. indigenous philosophies and philosophers of all global indigenous nations. Editors do not limit the format of what We then offer three views of two recent books: Brian can be submitted; we accept a range of submission formats Burkhart’s Indigenizing Philosophy through the Land: A including and not limited to papers, opinion editorials, Trickster Methodology for Decolonizing Environmental transcribed dialogue interviews, book reviews, poetry, Ethics and Indigenous Futures and Shay Welch’s The links to oral and video resources, cartoons, artwork, satire, Phenomenology of a Performance Knowledge System: parody, and other diverse formats. Dancing with Native American Epistemology. Both authors work to further the project of Native American philosophy, In all cases, however, references should follow the Chicago and their work intervenes into academic conversations Manual of Style and include endnotes rather than in-text in environmental philosophy, epistemology, philosophy citations. For further information, please see the Guidelines of language, phenomenology, and performance studies. for Authors available on the APA website. At the same time both books alert us to the always already-also political framing of these sub-disciplinary Please submit material electronically to Agnes Curry and interdisciplinary boxes that can fail to catch the ([email protected]). For consideration for the Fall 2020 accomplishments of Native thinking. newsletter, please submit your work by June 15, 2020. We start with Joseph Len Miller’s review of Burkhart. Miller, of the University of Washington and Elon University, provides a chapter-by-chapter outline and scaffolding in terms of ARTICLE three key insights. Many readers should find this very useful for orienting readers to the specifics of Burkhart’s Empowering Relations: An Indigenous project. Likewise, the questions Miller poses open to further conversation about the impact of a localized concept Understanding of Allyship of philosophy on questions not just for environmental thinking but also metaethics. After Miller’s orientation Andrea Sullivan-Clarke to Burkhart, Dennis McPherson and J. Douglas Rabb of UNIVERSITY OF WINDSOR Lakehead University orchestrate a dual look at some of the shared concerns animating Burkhart and Welch. Deploying Many non-Indigenous people naively assume that living some trickster methodology of their own, McPherson and in a post-conquest society entails living in a post-colonial Rabb point us to questions of both framing and reception. one as well. Colonization, however, is an encompassing Finally, Lorraine Mayer of Brandon University provides some presence in the lives of the Indigenous people of North more exclusive focus on Welch’s key moves, following the America. The effects of colonization linger, creating what implications of the insight that for some knowledge systems, Kyle Whyte describes as Our Ancestors’ Dystopia Now.1 truth is metaphorical and embodied. Federal policies, motivated by a settler colonial agenda, have comprehensively damaged the myriad of relationships We look forward to further considerations of each book and (cultural, epistemic, familial, etc.) originating within the other new work in Native American, American Indian, and ancestral lands of Indigenous people. Indigenous philosophy, along with your scholarly articles, discussions of teaching, etc. What most non-Indigenous people fail to realize is that “colonization is war.”2 As Whyte points out, the drive to APA NEWSLETTER | NATIVE AMERICAN AND INDIGENOUS PHILOSOPHY settle Indigenous land was “sustained, strategic, and themselves between the private security forces and the militaristic.”3 The colonizing strategies invoked against the water protectors at Standing Rock. I refer to this type of Indigenous people support as being an active bystander. Unlike a bystander, who witnesses a situation but does not act, an active Include[d] both war-like violence and the tactics for bystander “witnesses a situation [and] takes steps to suppressing populations that are used alongside speak up or step in to keep a situation from escalating belligerence, from assimilative institutions (e.g. or to disrupt a problematic situation.”9 Active bystanders boarding schools) to containment practices (e.g. are positively motivated to preventing or addressing bias, reservations) to the creation of dependency (e.g. prejudice, and threats of violence. Of course, the actions of commodity foods).4 active bystanders need not necessarily be immediate; their response may take place after an incident, such as when While some may claim that the policies of assimilation and someone listens to a victim or provides them with medical the removal of Indigenous communities to reservations/ care.10 Although critical to the goals of social justice, the reserves remain part of our unenlightened past, we need actions of an active bystander do not seem to have the not look far to find contemporary acts of aggression and sustained commitment I have in mind, nor do they have the examples of Indigenous sovereignty being met with investment (dedication for a particular individual or group). threats of violence from militarized police and private Generally speaking, active bystanders are not committed security forces. In the fall of 2016, the #NODAPL (No Dakota to act beyond the moment and once completed, it seems Access Pipeline) water protectors faced threats of violence their work is done. from the local police and security forces, evoking images of previous conflicts, such as the Oka Crisis, Burnt Church I take this to be the primary distinction between allies Crisis, Idle No More, Ipperwash Crisis, Gustafsen Lake and active bystanders—we expect more from our allies. Standoff, and Wounded Knee (1973).5 In 2019, headlines Active bystanders may not always be present and aware in the media reported a raid on the unceded lands of the of oppressive situations—such as when the assaults to Wet’suwet’en people in British Columbia by the Royal Indigenous sovereignty are kept private (through restricted Canadian Mounted Police.6 One disturbing feature—at media presence or behind doors of political committees/ least when one considers the Canadian government’s courtrooms). To overcome systemic oppression, Indigenous supposed commitment to Truth and Reconciliation—was people would benefit from both active bystanders and allies. the creation of “exclusion zones,” which prevented access to the media as RCMP officers dismantled two camps of The concepts of ally and allyship, however, are Indigenous people protesting the placement of the LNG problematic. They suffer from overuse. A quick search Coastal GasLink pipeline by Coastal GasLink, a subsidiary at the library will reveal such titles as Earthworms and of TransCanada Corporation.7 Their Allies, The Church’s Natural Allies, and The Working Class and Its Allies. More importantly, their meaning is Police actions and militarized responses in Indian Country often ambiguous. For example, the concepts conjure up are so numerous that forward progress regarding relations an association with military alliances, such as the Allies with one’s colonizers seems virtually impossible.8 Other in WWII or the various alliances between the Indigenous pernicious threats—such as revoking tribal recognition, nations and early colonial powers, like England or France. contesting foster care placement laws, proposed reductions This conceptualization often assumes a shared or common in treaty obligations, the failure to pursue cases of missing goal, such as the defeat of Nazism or mutual