{"id":20457,"date":"2022-01-27T21:29:22","date_gmt":"2022-01-28T02:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=20457"},"modified":"2022-01-27T21:29:22","modified_gmt":"2022-01-28T02:29:22","slug":"celeste-pedri-spade-self-indigenization-has-become-a-real-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2022\/01\/27\/celeste-pedri-spade-self-indigenization-has-become-a-real-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Celeste Pedri-Spade: Self-indigenization has become a real problem"},"content":{"rendered":" \"Michelle<\/a>
Michelle Latimer was famously outed by Native media in Canada for claiming a connection to a First Nation to which she doesn’t belong. Photo: Cinema Politica<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n
We are facing a settler colonial crisis, not an Indigenous identity\u00a0crisis<\/div>\r\n
Thursday, January 27, 2022<\/div>\r\n
By Celeste Pedri-Spade<\/a> (Queen’s University, Ontario<\/a>)<\/div>\r\n
The Conversation<\/div>\r\n
theconversation.com<\/A><\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nIt wasn\u2019t until very recently that I heard the term \u201cre-indigenization\u201d used in academic spaces<\/a>.

<\/p>\r\n\r\nI\u2019m familiar with Indigenous resurgence<\/a> and how it\u2019s connected to the restoration and reparation happening within Indigenous communities \u2014 work that often focuses on healing intergenerational divides caused by Indian Residential Schools<\/a> and the 60s Scoop<\/a> \u2014 but this idea of \u201cre-indigenization\u201d was different.

<\/p>\r\n\r\nIt appeared to justify the idea that any person who discovers they have a \u201croot Indigenous ancestor\u201d from anywhere between 150 to 400 years ago must claim an Indigenous identity and proudly take up spaces deemed to require Indigenous perspectives and voices.

<\/p>\r\n\r\nPart of this process appeared to involve attaching and embedding oneself, not within the particular Indigenous community or Nation where their long-ago \u201cIndigenous\u201d ancestor hailed from, but within internal institutional Indigenous communities or organizations that fronted as \u201cIndigenous communities\u201d for the purpose of institutional or \u201curban\u201d legitimacy.

<\/p>\r\n\r\nThis is a problem.

<\/p>\r\n\r\nAs a citizen of the Anishinaabeg Nation and community member of Nezaadiikaang (Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation), I am the Queen\u2019s National Scholar in Indigenous Studies and an associate professor at Queen\u2019s University, Ontario. I have been in academia for a decade now, and previously worked in various capacities serving Indigenous communities. My first full-time job after undergrad was in the political office of former Grand Chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation Stan Beardy.

<\/p>\r\n\r\nGiven that my own family members have continuously held political appointments, I have been listening to Anishinaabeg articulate concepts of self-determination, nationhood and sovereignty for many years.

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\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Ann\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\tAnn Deer MOHAWK She\/Her\/Hers (@AnnDeer4) on X\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
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Embracing your \u201cIndigenous roots,\u201d re-casting oneself as Indigenous and thinking that this is the best way to account for your history or to help Indigenous Peoples is not supporting Indigenous sovereignties or the movement toward decolonial futures.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

\n\t\t\"X\t\tX (formerly Twitter)\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\r\n

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Indigeneity through self-indigenization<\/div>\r\n\r\nI want to address the inherent problems with indigeneity through self-indigenization or re-indigenization.

<\/p>\r\n\r\nThere is a connection between self-indigenization based on ancestry, and settler colonial violence<\/a> that is conveniently being ignored in our public institutions<\/a>.

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\u201cMining\u201d the archive for biological trace(s) of \u201cnativeness\u201d<\/a> follows the same settler colonial, possessive and extractivist logic of mining Indigenous lands.

<\/p>\r\n\r\nBoth Indigenous lands and identities are positioned as resources that people are entitled to claim and own. Dakota scholar Kim Tall Bear has shown us how this practice is linked to Eurocentric concepts of \u201cidentity\u201d<\/a> that privilege individualism and inherited property.

<\/p>\r\n\r\nWithin settler colonial concepts of property rights<\/a>, identity becomes something that can be claimed, owned and put to use. It is interesting to see many of my colleagues publicly reject extractivist pursuits like pipelines<\/a> while remaining silent or uncertain about similar tactics employed against Indigenous personhood<\/a>.

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