The Indigenous Experience

This is a very exciting book, reflecting a new era of critical thought in international indigenous communities. The Indigenous Experience deals with a lot of the issues explored on this site:

• colonization and indigenous peoples
• colonialism, genocide, and the problem of intention
• social constructs of colonialism
• the indigenous struggle and the politics of indigeneity

It is the best collection of aboriginal critical writing since "Blacklines". It includes contributions from indigenous Hawai'i, Australia, North America, Norway, Japan, Africa and more, from names like Gerald Taiaiake Alfred, Joe Sawchuk, Trond Thuen, Matthew Restall, Linda Tuhiwai Smith and Keoni Kealoha Agard.

I will be summarising and analysing some of the chapters in future blogs, including "The Ecology of Ainu Autonomy and Dependence", "Hawai'i Under Non-Hawai'an Rule", "Colonizing Knowledges", and "Indigeneity At The Edge - Towards a Constructive Engagement".

In attempting to present the reader with some of the richness and heterogeneity of Indigenous colonial experiences, these articles constitute a broad survey of Indigenous Peoples from around the globe. Examples are drawn from peoples as diverse as the Hispanic nations of Latin America, to the Rapanui from Oceania.

To find out more about this book, published by Canadian Scholars' Press, Click Here. It is a must for indigenous and non-indigenous people undertaking the hard journey towards decolonisation.