Book Reviews has specific resonance in recent years, embrace militant protest as a civic vir- recognition have historically sought to in the midst of heightened police vio- tue under ‘natural law.’ D’Arcy disman- transcend.” lence and injustice against Black youth tles the ‘liberal objection’ that militancy The great strength of Coulthard is in Canada (e.g. carding) and the U.S. is coercive, arguing that we should be his ability to situate these claims in a (e.g. police shootings of unarmed black more concerned with coercion by sys- rich theoretical body. Marx’s primitive men), the release of the Canadian Truth tems of injustice than with the move- accumulation thesis figures centrally, and Reconciliation Report, and the ments that aim to counter it. This book and the book provides an anti-colonial white supremacist terrorist attack on is recommended for anyone interested critique of the temporal constraints a congregation in Charleston, South in socio-environmental justice, delib- and unilinear cultural and economic Carolina. As Bill C-51 threatens to si- erative democracy, and radical change. developmentalism of Marx, as well as lence First Nations and environmental It has special significance to Canadian a rich discussion of the applicability of groups, severely limiting their right to academics and activists right now, as we Capital to Canadian settler-colonialism. dissent, the role of militant protest be- struggle towards reconciliation, against However, Coulthard’s use of Marx is comes even more relevant in the face of the continuing violence of colonization, not revolutionary and serves more as a “intransigent elites and unresponsive and to divest from fossil fuels. theoretical lens with which to examine systems of power.” the role of capital, dispossession, and Languages of the Unheard offers a ERIKA HENNEBURY is a recent gradu- land in colonial hegemonies, than as a discursive theory of justice that is in- ate of York University’s Master in Envi- sustained critique of the German phi- structive to socio-environmental activ- ronmental Studies Planning program. losopher. ism and scholarship. Extending the mil- Erika is a Strategic Programs Grants Of- It is the Martiniquais author Frantz itary ‘responsibility to protect (R2P)’ ficer for Toronto Arts Council, and is a Fanon who provides the most compel- principle to the ‘right to rebel (R2R)’ member Planners Network and Friends ling buttress to Coulthard’s discussion against systemic violence, Languages of the Green Line. of liberal recognition politics in Canada. of the Unheard encourages the reader to Fanon’s attentiveness to the always- multiple and corrosive ways in which the colonial authority works upon its Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Other is what so vibrantly colours Red Skin, White Masks. Fanon’s central con- Politics of Recognition. tribution is, as Coulthard suggests, that he “showed how, over time, colonized By GLEN SEAN COULTHARD. U of Minnesota P, 2014. $22.50 USD populations tend to internalize the de- rogatory images imposed on them by their colonial ‘masters,’ and how as a re- Reviewed by DYLAN MCMAHON sult of this process, these images, along with the structural relations with which When Taiaiake Alfred writes, in tions framed in the language of ‘the they are entwined, come to be recog- the forward to Red Skin, White Masks, Indian Problem,’ in which “state power nized . as more or less natural.” that Glen Coulthard “is a leading voice [was] geared around genocidal practices It is this imposition of a ‘psycho-af- of the new Indigenous Intelligentsia,” of forced exclusion and assimilation.” In fective’ attachment to colonialism onto it is not an apathetic patronage to the the second era of Canadian colonialism, colonial subjects that is most central author’s work; it signals a transforma- Coulthard argues, the language of ‘rec- to Coulthard's discussion. When ap- tion in the discursive landscape of In- ognition’ has sought to “‘reconcile’ In- proaching the Dene Nationalist move- digenous politics in Canada. It is the digenous assertions of nationhood with ments of the 1970s and ‘80s, Coulthard acceptance of a new battle to be waged settler-state sovereignty via the accom- argues that Indigenous involvement in against the continued colonial oppres- modation of Indigenous identity claims state-led land-claims processes have, sion of Indigenous peoples, a battle in in some form of renewed legal and po- through the language of capitalism, re- which the above two authors figure cen- litical relationship with the Canadian oriented a struggle that was once for trally in the vanguard. state.” Ultimately, however, Coulthard’s the cultural reproduction of Indigenous Red Skin, White Masks can be un- argument is premised on the assertion, ‘grounded normativity’ into a struggle derstood as a historical mediation and “that instead of ushering in an era of that is for land “as material resource to a revolutionary manifesto. Coulthard peaceful coexistence grounded on the be exploited in the capital accumula- characterizes the history of Indigenous ideal of reciprocity or mutual recogni- tion process.” Following this, Coulthard politics in Canada as consisting of two tion, the politics of recognition in its argues that in contexts where the state colonial epochs. The first period, which contemporary liberal form promises to is positioned as a privileged authority lasted from the moment of European reproduce the very configurations of or mediator on social disputes—focus- contact until the White Paper in 1969, colonialist, racist, patriarchal state pow- ing particularly on legal challenges saw Indigenous/non-Indigenous rela- er that Indigenous peoples’ demands for to legislative gender discrimination 56 UnderCurrents 20 | 2017 Book Reviews and discourses on ‘reconciliation’—it tion-based political model, is funda- tool for Indigenous political struggles. is presumed that the Canadian state is mentally incapable of mobilizing these Fanon’s insights, as read by Coulthard, objective, nonpatriarchal, noncolonial, counter-hegemonic theses. are as relevant now as they were during and legitimate, making transformative Those familiar with recent schol- the Algerian War of Independence. Red justice unlikely for colonized peoples. arship on Indigenous political phi- Skin, White Masks canonizes the claim For Coulthard, appeals to recognition losophy will find that Red Skin, White that the recognition model of political of Indigenous difference are implicated, Masks provides a precise elaboration discourse offers only further subjuga- in these different cases, in a hegemonic of arguments that have become well- tion for Indigenous peoples. The book engendering of the neoliberal, sexist, established in the last decade or so. attempts to implicate itself in the mi- and racist grammar of state- and settler- Coulthard is aware of the reiterative el- nutiae of Canadian Indigenous peoples’ colonialism, further normalizing these ement of his work. Yet, while the book quotidian experiences, but extends well logics. Throughout Red Skin, White certainly follows a well-worn line of beyond them. It is essential reading for Masks, Coulthard provides an extreme- criticisms, Coulthard’s vibrant injection the idle and those Idle No More—for ly detailed examination of the historical of Frantz Fanon into this discursive ter- those who wish to understand Canada. contexts, legislative backgrounds, and rain provides a much needed reflexive theoretical concerns from which his critiques arise. His use of Fanon is fluid, and his ability to excavate the intrica- Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and cies of the failings of liberal recognition politics in multiple contexts is compel- the Politics of Violence. ling. The final chapter of Red Skin, White By CHRISTINA B. HANHARDT. Duke UP, 2013. $27.95 USD Masks presents the theories, the minds, the movements, and the praxis needed Reviewed by RIO RODRIGUEZ to re-vision Indigenous politics in Can- ada. Coulthard’s “Five Theses on Indig- enous Resurgence and Decolonization” This necessary intervention and liberalism has reshaped U.S cities like New are, perhaps, the most decisive element Lambda-award winning book is an York and San Francisco in ways that fos- of the work. They operate as compan- incredibly systematic collection and ter hypersegregation and exploitation: the ions to Alfred’s Wasáse and Leanne analysis of American LGBT activist his- privatization of public services, corporate Simpson’s Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back. tory, though it also functions as a call for tax breaks, attacks on tenant protections, These texts collectively have nurtured contemporary activists to build critical the expiration of mandates for low- and the development of a ‘third discursive movements; movements that refuse to middle-income housing, public subsidies moment’ of Indigenous politics in Can- define safety through a push for gay for private market-value construction, and ada. They provide a manifesto for the territorialization, privatization, and in- the mass expansion of security forces are post-recognition movement towards creased criminalization in the name of but a few of its policies.” As is developed resurgence. Coulthard's essential mes- gay protection. in the book, these neoliberal processes sage can be found here: (1) the Indig- Hanhardt argues that various— are something that LGBT activists have enous movement needs direct action; sometimes messy, contested, diverse maintained a fraught relationship with, (2) it needs to reject capitalism;