UNSETTLING HOPE: SETTLER COLONIALISM AND UTOPIANISM by Karl Joseph Hardy A thesis submitted to the Cultural Studies Graduate Program In conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada June 10, 2015 Copyright © Karl Joseph Hardy, 2015 Abstract This dissertation locates the manifold concept of utopia as imbricated with the project of English settler colonialism in the New World and the succeeding settler colonial societies of Canada and the US. I situate Thomas More’s Utopia as an early modern narrative that was mobilized to articulate notions of transcendental progress and universal rationality commensurate with Christian Humanism, which served to justify expropriation of Indigenous lands. I further locate contemporary Indigenous critical theoretical interventions into longstanding scholarly theories of nation and peoplehood. I argue that Indigenous critical theory, literary studies, and works of Indigenous speculative fiction serve an immanent critique to the settler utopian traditions of Canada and the US, which both reflect and further the naturalization of settler colonialism as an enduring force which frames the contemporary experience of globalization. This immanent critique is also applied to contemporary utopian studies discourses, including emergent discussions of “Non-Western” and “postcolonial” utopias. I proceed to an exploration of contemporary speculative narratives of Indigenous, racialized non-Native, and white settler peoples concerned with varying notions of indigneity. I argue such narratives propose desirable social change in ways that further naturalize or resist settler colonialism in their respective envisages of the future. ii Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful to all of my family, friends, teachers, and colleagues who have challenged and supported me throughout my time as a doctoral student, especially my supervisor, Scott Morgensen. I would also like to thank the members of my dissertation examining committee: Sam McKegney, Bob Lovelace, Jill Scott, and Daniel Heath Justice. This dissertation is a direct consequence of the relationships I have forged with Indigenous colleagues, friends, and mentors (both academically-affiliated and not). In particular, Shauna Shiels, Mimi Gellman, Beth Newell, Cindy Scouten, Susan Delisle, James Sayeau, Jan Hill, Bonnie Jane Maracle, Dana Wesley, Erin Sutherland, and Robert Lovelace each deserve special mention for the immediate influences they have had on this trajectory of this project. Not only do I owe them a debt of gratitude and thanks, but I must also acknowledge the many Indigenous activists, activist-scholars, artists from whom I have drawn great inspiration. iii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii Chapter 1: Introduction: Towards a re-articulation of utopia ............................................. 1 Chapter 2: Indigenous Critiques of Colonial Modernity and Utopia ................................ 15 Chapter 3: More’s Utopia and Utopian Settler Modernity………………………………57 Chapter 4: Educating Hope… Decolonizing Utopia? ..................................................... 106 Chapter 5: Contemporary Utopian Narratives of White Settler Futurity ........................ 163 Chapter 6: Indigenous Futurisms: Transcending Utopia ................................................ 208 Epilogue .......................................................................................................................... 260 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 268 iv Chapter 1 Introduction: Towards a re-articulation of utopia This dissertation is the culmination of an intellectual journey that arrives primarily at the intersections of Indigenous studies and utopian studies. It is the product of a re-thinking of my own desires for a hopeful future in light of the critical influences of Indigenous and other decolonial cultural production, scholarship, and social movements. As such, this dissertation is intended to provide convincing arguments as to the vital importance of—and fundamental interrelationships between—concepts of utopianism, utopian narrative, educative desire, and the narratives that, in many ways, both prefigured and sustain the condition of white supremacy and settler colonialism that characterize both Canada and the US.1 These considerations are inspired by a variety of scholarly discourses, among them Indigenous critical theory, Indigenous literary criticism, settler colonial studies, science fiction studies, and utopian studies. I sincerely hope this study will prove to be a worthwhile contribution to these fields and to wider contemporary anti and decolonial efforts. My interest proceeds from curiosity about contemporary hopeful narratives of the future, and the implications of attending to critiques from Indigenous and racialized non- 1 I refer here to “white supremacy and settler colonialism” as a means of highlighting both the interrelationships and distinct experiences of racialization, white supremacy, and settler colonialism. While this project is specifically concerned with the contexts of Canada, where I currently live, and the US, where I have citizenship, these are by no means the only locations impacted by white supremacy and settler colonialism—indeed these are phenomena with global implications. 1 Natives regarding processes by which white supremacy and settler colonialism are sustained in the contemporary world. Indigenous and racialized non-Native scholars offer critical analytic frameworks that provide a means of re-articulating discourses of utopia in light of critiques of colonialism and white supremacy in their varied expressions. I refer here to Stuart Hall’s notion of re-articulation, which has been taken up by Andrea Smith as means of avoiding a problematic “politics of inclusion that seeks to include a marginalized voice within a pre-established politics or discourse.”2 Following Hall, Smith argues for a processual re-centering, whereby previously marginalized communities are placed at the center of a given politics or discourse as a means of constructing a dynamic and ever “more liberating framework.” This dissertation, therefore, intends to center Indigenous concerns and experiences in a reconsideration of discourses of utopia as “expressions of desire for a better way of being,” to use Ruth Levitas’ conceptualization.3 However, doing so necessarily implicates a number of interrelated concerns and experiences with respect to white supremacy and colonialism, particularly those of non- Native racialized peoples, chief among them Black diasporic peoples. This is to say that such a notion of re-articulating utopia must indeed be enduringly processual and critically self-reflexive—similar to what Levitas has described as a utopia-as-method.4 Moreover, I wish to foreground a questioning of whether the implications of such a re-articulation of utopia/utopia-as-method involve an immanent critique of the discourse of utopia itself. 2 Andrea Smith. Native Americans and the Christian Right. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008), xiii. 3 Ruth Levitas. The Concept of Utopia. (New York: Peter Lang, 2010). 4 Ruth Levitas. The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 2 This centering of Indigenous communities in a re-articulation of utopia may help interrupt what Chickasaw theorist Jodi Byrd has described as the “endless deferral” of the concerns and experiences of Indigenous peoples.5 It is my contention that attending to contemporary Indigenous presence, including but not limited to expressions of Indigenous nationhood and Indigenous futurisms, intervene in the ongoing naturalization of white supremacy and settler colonialism within the tradition of what Krishan Kumar has differentiated as “modern” utopia, specifically that of white settlers.6 Moreover, I argue these utopian traditions are themselves substantially co-constituitive with the condition of settler colonialism insofar as they contributed to the envisioning, sustaining, and naturalization of Indigenous erasure or subjugation. White settler utopian narratives have enabled the endless deferral of the concerns and experiences of Indigenous peoples to the extent that their proposals for desirable futures naturalize the condition of settler colonialism, or otherwise constrain or instumentalize Indigenous peoples. Settler colonialism has re-emerged in recent years as a critical analytic framework to address the specificities of invasion, occupation, and settlement of heretofore Indigenous territories by exogenous others.7 Recent theoretical formulations of settler 5 Jodi A. Byrd. The Transit of Empire. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011). 6 Krishan Kumar. Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times. (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1991). 7 A note on terminology: I have chosen to utilize the capitalized term “Indigenous” to indicate or reference the original peoples of a given land base or territory. Here I avoid the term “Aboriginal” which to my understanding is sometimes received by Indigenous peoples as offensive stemming from its use as an epithet, as well as in acknowledgement of Taiaiake Alfred’s critical analysis of what he calls