An IASH Work-in-Progress, delivered online-only by Dr Kyle Mays (Fulbright Scotland Distinguished Visitor, 2024)
Decolonization and Reparatory Justice: Afro-Indigenous Relations from Reconstruction to the Present
The history of Black and Indigenous peoples in what became the United States has consisted of a constellation of contradictions oppression, self-determination, belonging, and resistance, all pointing toward the possibilities of freedom. No matter how we cut it, Black and Indigenous peoples have resisted colonization and subjugation. Yet, many connections deserve consideration within the field of Afro-Indigenous history. This project traces discussions of land and reparations between African Americans and Indigenous peoples from the Civil War and Reconstruction eras to the present. Archivally based, this project asks, how have African Americans constructed belonging on land in the United States? How did Indigenous peoples deal with land loss, and how did they advocate for land returns? And, by placing, side-by-side, Indigenous and Black notions of land, freedom and belonging, what can we learn about reparatory justice? While current reparations discourses largely focus on this reckoning with anti-Black racism and rightfully so, an emerging discourse on indigeneity, especially land, has been an important part of Indigenous communities, what they call they LandBack movement. Using the concept of what historian Sarah E.K. Fong describes as racial-settler capitalism, I argue that framing Black and Indigenous relations within the context of reparations is a unique approach to understanding blackness, indigeneity, and the intersection of race, class, and settler colonialism. Meeting at the intersection of Black and Indigenous studies, this project seeks to understand the relationship between individual and collective rights under liberal democracy, and the limits of reparations discourse that ignores the concept of Indigenous land rights and what we can learn if we understand both struggles together.
Please click the link below to join the webinar:
https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/81857401179
Passcode: 6aSe7GF7