A Foucauldian Analysis of Identity and Society in Anti-Colonization Politics
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A Genealogy of Contemporary Indianness: A Foucauldian Analysis of Identity and Society in Anti-Colonization Politics By Veldon W. R. Coburn A thesis submitted to the Graduate Program in Political Studies in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada May, 2019 Copyright © Veldon Coburn, 2019 Abstract This dissertation examines the discursive construction of Indigenous identity under the conditions of colonization on Turtle Island. I investigate how the colonial discourse on Indianness discursively produced Indigenous subjectivity in the logics of race and culture. Using Michel Foucault’s genealogical method, I present a history of contemporary Indianness that saw the transformation of Indigenous communities and nations into Western colonial forms. I argue that, since the early encounters between European cultures and Indigenous nations, colonial impulses to consolidate territory and wealth in the ‘New World’ undertook the project of “othering” Indigenous peoples. From the days of the sixteenth century and lasting to this day, very technical details and knowledge about Indianness were discursively produced. This emergent discourse cast identity in a new form, expressing Indianness along cultural and racial dimensions, giving discursive life and political purchase to the colonial discourse on Indianness. Relying on the theory of Antonio Gramsci and the work of Edward Said, I analyze how the colonial discourse obtained cultural hegemony in Indian Country in the mid-twentieth century. Following the moment of colonial cultural hegemony, I examine how the colonial discourse shaped debates and discussions internal to Indian Country. In this analysis, I investigate the discursive construction of types of Indians, as well as questions of where the racial and cultural boundaries between the colonizer and the colonized would lie. As I show, the discursive imaginings of real, authentic Indianness along racial and cultural lines were introduced in some Indigenous communities to produce divisions and distinctions within Indian subjectivity. I use Foucault’s theoretical understanding of the link between discourse and power to explain how in some cases Indian Country has transformed into a ii disciplinary society. I discuss Foucault’s notion of biopolitics. I apply this theoretical concept to the racial organization of First Nations and other Indigenous communities, examining Indian Band membership codes to underscore the spread of biopolitics in Indian Country. This analysis is complemented by an inquiry into the proliferation of disciplinary institutions and practices in some communities of Indian Country. I demonstrate how Indigenous people were drawn into networks of power to normalize and produce authentic Indianness in accordance with the discursive tenets of traditionalism. iii Acknowledgements I extend my greatest thanks to my supervisor, Eleanor MacDonald. The very best of this thesis comes from Eleanor by way of all the time and mentorship she invested in me and this project. I owe a debt of gratitude that I can not adequately express in words and that I can not fairly reciprocate. I was given so much from Eleanor—spoiled with many gifts, offered with grace and saintly patience. Chi-meegwetch! I want to thank my examining committee for their guidance and help getting the thesis to completion. My thanks to Lisa Guenther, Andrew Lister, Margaret Little, and Pamela Palmater. Meegwetch to you all! And to my partner, Miranda, and my children, Ellie, Liam, Napachie and Sebastian: I owe you a lot of time and a lot of love. iv Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ..............................................................................................................................................iv List of Tables............................................................................................................................................................ vi List of Figures ........................................................................................................................................................ vii Introduction .............................................................................................................................................................. 1 A Genealogy of Contemporary Indianness ................................................................................................ 33 We “Other Indians” ............................................................................................................................................. 91 Biopolitics and the Construction of Racial Community in Indian Country ............................... 138 Discipline and the Achievement of Indianness..................................................................................... 205 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................................... 262 References ........................................................................................................................................................... 285 v List of Tables Table 3.1 Blood Quantum (BQ) Values for 259 First Nations ......................................................... 188 Table 3.2 Descendancy (CoR) Values for 259 First Nations ............................................................ 189 Table 3.3 Consanguinity (BQ ∙ CoR) Values for 259 First Nations ................................................ 190 Table 3.4 Racial Index 2018: Data for 259 First Nations .................................................................. 195 Table 4.1 Traditionalism Index 2018: Data for 259 First Nations ................................................ 253 vi List of Figures Figure 3.1 Racial Index Score by Population and Cumulative Frequency ................................. 194 Figure 4.1 Traditionalism Index Score by Population and Cumulative Frequency ............... 253 vii Introduction One of the more popular currents running through the postcolonial canon suggests that decolonization does not end with severing the colonial relationship and terminating the domination of colonizer over the colonized. By this view, the recognition of indigenous political autonomy and relations founded on non-domination and non-interference is only part of the liberatory calculus. Indeed, it is argued that full indigenous decolonization entails shedding colonial residue from all aspects of indigenous existence. Indigenous society in the pre-colonial era, many postcolonial intellectuals argue, is the model of liberation from the colonizer and also the condition for indigenous self-determination. It is reasoned that, but for European settlement and the eventual establishment of the oppressive and destructive colonial order, contemporary life of indigenous peoples would closely resemble the halcyon days of their pre-contact ancestors. Emancipation by way of decolonization, put very simply, entails the reconstruction or resuscitation of traditional indigenous society—a project that is fully discharged by the reconstruction of both the untainted indigenous race of peoples and its traditional culture. “Many Aboriginal activists and intellectuals,” observes Joyce Green, “have claimed that cultural traditions provide the formula for healthy indigenous communities today. For some,” Green goes on to add, “these arguments have included racialized notions of how “the people,” or the relevant community, will be determined” (Green, 2004: 19). Put another way, this version of decolonization calls for the restoration of “traditional” indigenous societies, comprised of “traditional” indigenous individuals who, as a collective, constitute separate indigenous nations and discrete races. This, after all, is one of the more popular images of indigenous existence before the time of colonization. 1 This strand of thought is a product of a relatively nascent tradition in moral philosophy, emerging from the ethical critique of the normative foundations that justified colonization. In the seminal postcolonial essay Discourse on Colonialism, Aimé Césaire points out that colonization and colonial society “is unable to justify itself either before the bar of “reason” or before the bar of “conscience”” (Césaire, 1972: 31). More recently, James Anaya, a notable indigenous legal scholar and the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, puts it: “Colonization was rendered illegitimate in part by reference to the processes leading to colonial rule, processes that today clearly represent impermissible territorial expansion of governmental authority. The world community now holds in contempt the imposition of government structures upon people, regardless of their social or political makeup” (Anaya, 2004: 106- 106). Thus, for some postcolonial theorists and proponents of Indigenous decolonization, the solution is quite simple: reverse the colonial processes and the effects that they have rendered since colonization, thereby returning indigenous peoples to their pre-colonial, “traditional” state of existence (see inter alia Alfred 1999, 2005; Corntassel 2008, 2012; Dickson-Gilmore 1992; Fanon 1963; Long 1990; Memmi 1965). Given the illegitimacy of colonization and