Although neither sovereignty nor possession are explicit themes of Glen Coulthard’s Red Skin, White Masks, both concepts are essential to his critique of ‘recognition’ and the ongoing dynamics of Canadian colonialism. In this response, I offer a critical examination of the status of these liberal concepts in Coulthard’s work, and suggest that he has in fact given us a powerful theory of ‘countersovereignty’. Countersovereignty forces us to consider the meanings of possession and dispossession that animate the book, which in turn allow us to grasp the radical significance of Coulthard’s emphasis on the reciprocity at the heart of Indigenous relations with the land.
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Alfred Taiaiake Rattray & Mustonen ‘Deconstructing the British Columbia Treaty Process’ 2001 2001
Alfred Taiaiake Barker ‘Sovereignty’ 2005 2005
Baldwin Andrew , Cameron Laura & Kobayashi Audrey Rethinking the Great White North: Race, Nature, and the Historical Geographies of Whiteness in Canada 2011 Vancouver, BC UBC Press
Barker Joanne Barker ‘For Whom Sovereignty Matters’ 2005 2005
Barker Joanne Sovereignty Matters: Locations of Contestation and Possibility in Indigenous Struggles for Self-determination 2005 Lincoln, NE University of Nebraska Press
Borrows John ‘A Genealogy of Law: Inherent Sovereignty and First Nations Self-Government’ Osgoode Hall Law Journal 1992 30 2 291 353
Bruyneel Kevin The Third Space of Sovereignty: The Postcolonial Politics of U.S. Indigenous Relations 2007 Minneapolis, MN University of Minnesota Press
Cattelino Jessica High Stakes: Florida Seminole Gaming and Sovereignty 2008 Durham, NC Duke University Press
Cattelino Jessica ‘The Double Bind of American Indian Need-Based Sovereignty’ Cultural Anthropology 2010 25 2 235 262
Césaire Aimé Discours sur le colonialisme 1955 Paris Éditions Présence Africaine
Cohen Gerald Allan Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality 1995 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
Coulthard Glen Sean Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition 2014 Minneapolis, MN University of Minnesota Press
Egan Brian Baldwin , Cameron & Kobayashi ‘Resolving “the Indian Land Question”? Racial Rule and Reconciliation in British Columbia’ 2011 2011
Fanon Frantz L’an V de la révolution algérienne 1959 in Fanon 2011
Fanon Frantz Oeuvres 2011 Paris La Découverte
Gray Cynthia ‘A Question of Sovereignty: Patricia Monture v. the Queen’ Canadian Women’s Studies/Les Cahiers de la Femme 1989 10 2/3 146 148
Kymlicka Will Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights 1995 Oxford Oxford University Press
Macey David Frantz Fanon: A Biography 2000 London Verso
McNeil Kent ‘The Onus of Proof of Aboriginal Title’ Osgoode Hall Law Journal 1999 37 4 775 803
Monture-Angus Patricia Journeying Forward: Dreaming First Nations’ Independence 1999 Halifax, NS Fernwood Press
Rattray Curtis & Mustonen Tero Dispatches from the Cold Seas: Indigenous Views on Self-Governance, Ecology and Identity 2001 Tampere Tampere Polytechnic
Rifkin Mark ‘Indigenizing Agamben: Rethinking Sovereignty in Light of the “Peculiar” Status of Native Peoples’ Cultural Critique 2009 73 88 124
Simpson Audra ‘Settlement’s Secret’ Cultural Anthropology 2011 26 2 205 217
Simpson Audra Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States 2014 Durham, NC Duke University Press
Taylor Charles Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity 1989 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
Wolfe Patrick ‘Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native’ Journal of Genocide Research 2006 8 4 387 409
Coulthard 2014, p. 17 (emphasis in original).
Borrows 1992.
Egan 2011, p. 213.
Alfred 2001.
See, for example, Cohen 1995 or Kymlicka 1995. I am aware that Cohen considered himself a Marxist. As is also the case with the other members of the short-lived school of ‘analytic’ Marxism (e.g. Jon Elster, Adam Przeworski, John Roemer) – virtually all of whom eventually became vociferous liberals – this seems to me a perfect instance of false consciousness.
Barker 2005; Barker (ed.) 2005; Simpson 2011.
Alfred 2005, pp. 34–5, 38.
For example Coulthard 2014, pp. 6, 36, 92, 118, 124, 159.
For example Coulthard 2014, pp. 71, 100, 157, 161, 171.
Coulthard 2014, p. 48; Monture-Angus 1999, p. 36.
Barker 2005, p. 18.
Gray 1989; Simpson 2011, p. 211, cf. Cattelino 2010, p. 239.
Simpson 2011, p. 209.
Rifkin 2009, p. 94.
Coulthard 2014, p. 118 (emphasis added).
For example Coulthard 2014, p. 122.
Taylor 1989.
Coulthard 2014, p. 60.
Coulthard 2014, pp. 61–3.
Alfred 2005, pp. 41–2.
The place of what Audra Simpson (2014) calls ‘nested sovereignties’ remains uncertain to me in the face of (my reading of) Coulthard’s ‘countersovereignty’, as does Kevin Bruyneel’s (2007) liminal ‘third space of sovereignty’.
Monture-Angus 1999, p. 36.
Coulthard 2014, p. 53.
Coulthard 2014, p. 57.
Coulthard 2014, p. 78.
Coulthard 2014, p. 100.
Rifkin 2009, p. 105.
Alfred 2005, p. 42.
Coulthard 2014, pp. 15, 23; cf. pp. 7, 9, 11, 157. He is clearly not alone in making this argument. See, for example, Barker 2005, Simpson 2014.
Coulthard 2014, p. 11.
Coulthard 2014, p. 23.
Coulthard 2014, p. 170.
Coulthard 2014, p. 169.
For example Coulthard 2014, p. 13: ‘in liberal settler states such as Canada, the “commons” not only belong to somebody – the First Peoples of this land’ (emphasis in original).
Coulthard 2014, p. 13.
Coulthard 2014, p. 168.
Macey 2000, p. 394.
Fanon 1959, p. 269. The original French title, which translates as Year V of the Algerian Revolution, recalls the French Revolution itself and its revolutionary calendar. The untranslated phrase in question troubled the original French publisher (Maspero) as well, who chose to exclude not just this two-line paragraph, but the entire preface from which it is drawn. In the event, the book’s effect was drastically reduced when it was banned within three months of publication (Macey 2000, pp. 395–6).
Fanon 1959, pp. 319–20; Alfred 2005, p. 42; Coulthard 2014, p. 68.
Césaire 1955, p. 1 (emphasis in original): ‘Le fait est que la civilisation dite « européenne », la civilisation « occidentale », telle que l’ont façonnée deux siècles de régime bourgeois, est incapable de résoudre les deux problèmes majeurs auxquels son existence a donné naissance: le problème de la prolétariat et le problème colonial; que, déférée à la barre de la « raison » comme à la barre de la « conscience », cette Europe-là est impuissante à se justifier; et que, de plus en plus, elle se réfugie dans un hypocrisie d’autant plus odieuse qu’elle a de moins en moins chance de tromper. L’Europe est indéfendable.’
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Although neither sovereignty nor possession are explicit themes of Glen Coulthard’s Red Skin, White Masks, both concepts are essential to his critique of ‘recognition’ and the ongoing dynamics of Canadian colonialism. In this response, I offer a critical examination of the status of these liberal concepts in Coulthard’s work, and suggest that he has in fact given us a powerful theory of ‘countersovereignty’. Countersovereignty forces us to consider the meanings of possession and dispossession that animate the book, which in turn allow us to grasp the radical significance of Coulthard’s emphasis on the reciprocity at the heart of Indigenous relations with the land.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 835 | 161 | 10 |
Full Text Views | 400 | 12 | 1 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 345 | 28 | 3 |