“Refusal is simultaneously a negation of access to information and resources, as well as an affirmation of sovereignties.” Rachel Flowers
I am an Indigenous philosopher, and my research explores the various types of relations between Indigenous people and those who claim to be their allies. Relations are significant to many Indigenous communities. Not only do we maintain relations with other humans, but we also stand in relations with our nonhuman counterparts, often referred to as relatives. These include, but are not limited to—bodies of water, land formations, spirits, plants, and of course, other animals. It is through our relations with others that our obligations and responsibilities to one another become evident. At its most simple, those relations inform our way of being in the world. I maintain that I also stand in a relation with my students; something beyond just that as professor. While I have a responsibility to educate them, to what extent do I have that responsibility? And how do I navigate instruction when it involves the traumatic stories and experiences of Indigenous people, to whom I also stand in relation?
As settler colonial nation-states, the histories of the United States and Canada are replete with examples of war waged against the Indigenous people residing within their colonial borders. Governmental policies—like assimilation, removal, relocation, and termination—in addition to legislation adopted to address historically unjust practices—such as the sixties scoop, birth alerts, and the repatriation of ancestral remains from museums and universities—speak to the various ways in which this war was waged. Yet, it would be a mistake to think that colonialism was an historic event that is largely over, and that there are no battles currently being fought. This is what settler ignorance prompts one to believe.
Settler ignorance is an “expansion” of Charles Mills’ account of white ignorance. Under the influence of white ignorance, individuals hold incorrect beliefs about the racialized world in which they live. They are ignorant of the workings of their society and will not see the structures that marginalize and oppress people of color. White ignorance endorses a racial superiority that is not solely maintained by white people; it may be internalized by people of color as well. Although those under the sway of white ignorance fail to know the truth about the world, this ignorance comes with social benefits, and it is those benefits that motivate the preservation of the status quo.
White ignorance, however, lacks the resources to address the lived knowledge of Indigenous people in a colonial society. Admittedly, race, and particularly racism, play a role in the oppression and marginalization of Indigenous people of Turtle Island. Being Indigenous, however, is much more than belonging to a particular racial group. Indigenous people comprise sovereign nations that have existed since time immemorial, and they have survived colonial attempts to eradicate them; racism is only part of the oppression perpetuated via colonialism.
Through policies focused on assimilation, colonial governments imposed a European (and largely Christian) understanding of gender and its societal roles. Colonialism destroyed the sovereignty of matrilineal societies, regulated the performance of gender on reserves, and erased the existence of two spirit people in many communities. Today, it exists in the failure of the United States and Canada to investigate cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, the inability to coordinate resources that aid in the prevention of those cases, and the unwillingness to search for remains. Colonialism finds expression in the political moves to remove Indigenous children from their homes and incarcerate Indigenous women disproportionately. Hence the oppression of colonialism is not strictly racist, it is heterosexist/cissexist as well.
Another avenue of oppression committed through colonization is the introduction of the concept of private property. It began with the taking of land and the breaking of our relations, which resulted in great losses of knowledge, language, and culture. It now appears in the assaults on reserves and reservations committed in the name of national security. Cloaked in terms like “resource acquisition,” “fossil fuel transports,” and “disposal” of nuclear waste, these assaults occur on Indigenous land across the United States and Canada with little to no consultation. They also pose a threat to lives and contribute to health disparities. Commodification is not limited to land; it also extends into Indigenous knowledge and culture. (And sometimes even non-Indigenous arts and/or crafts!) Racism, sexism, and the commodification of Indigenous land and culture are key features of colonialism. The resurgence of Indigenous people could not be achieved if our resistance merely addresses racism. Thus, white ignorance fails to fully capture what society does not know about the experience of being Indigenous and living in a colonial nation-state.
More than a gap in knowledge about the Indigenous people, settler ignorance has the ability to oppress Indigenous people and their communities. Multi-disciplinary scholarship in social epistemology (Nelson & Godlewska, 2023) exposes settler ignorance as “a deliberate social and institutional ideology that defines what can and cannot be known, and that manipulates and oppresses particular [Indigenous] bodies in reinforcing hierarchical power.” The ideology of dominant society is introduced in the formal education systems of settler nation-states, where students are indoctrinated through a colonial curriculum that generally overlooks and excludes the voices of Indigenous people. This ideology is reified in the public spheres of discourse, such as historic markers, and epistemic niches (to the point that people live in areas with Indigenous names and yet, do not know that they live on ancestral land). Notably, settler ignorance camouflages the battles that are occurring today.
Contemporary acts of aggression against Indigenous people living within the colonial borders of the United States and Canada might not look like the overt policies legislated by settler governments or the literal battles that were labelled massacres in the United States. However, some of the contemporary and recent protests of Indigenous people in the United States and Canada have been met with militarized security and police forces, and those do bear a striking resemblance to the historical war campaigns. Pictures in the news ranging from Wounded Knee and the Oka crisis to Standing Rock and the Wet’suwet’en Protest attest to the militarized responses dispatched in each case.
Although the militarized responses are extreme and more visible given the presence of social media, there are other instances of settler ignorance that are more subtle and covert. These cases arise from colonialism embedding itself into systems, like healthcare and even into the move to decolonize higher education. One struggle that I, as an Indigenous scholar, encounter professionally is the negotiation of disseminating information while at the same time preserving the right to refuse such information in the interest of resistance to settler ignorance. Am I furthering the interests of settler ignorance if I refuse to make information regarding Indigenous people or communities available to my students, especially if there is a possibility that they may learn from it? Simply put, how should I navigate the responsibilities to my students and to Indigenous people? To clarify, I will present an example: a common occurrence taken from courses that I have previously taught.
No matter the course, whether introductory or upper level, the first day of instruction normally includes presenting the syllabus as well as mentioning the topics that will be covered throughout the term. In response, I have noticed that students react differently depending on whether the course is primarily Indigenous philosophy or western philosophy. In my Indigenous courses, I am invariably asked if information on cultural practices will be made available and if there will be any guest speakers. Questions regarding the possibility of cultural practices are easily dealt with as the students who ask those questions are usually not familiar with philosophy. Culture in this case would only be addressed insofar as it connects with philosophical thought. After being introduced to what philosophy is, they come to understand why the emphasis is not necessarily cultural.
The second question regarding guest speakers is not as easy for me to address. In my western philosophy courses, I am never asked if we will have a guest speaker. In those classes, it is understood that I am an authority; I am a philosopher. As someone who presents as white, I worry that in my Indigenous courses I am not seen as Indigenous and therefore not as credible. Given that this takes place after I have introduced myself, even using the language of my people, I’ve been searching for answers in social epistemology.
One answer I consider likely is that settler ignorance demands stories. In courses taught by non-Indigenous faculty there is a trend of having guest speakers or lessons on culture because most do not feel qualified to teach Indigenous subjects. While I think this practice may have other issues connected with it that I cannot address here, what I would like to call attention to is the expectation of my students to have an Indigenous person share their story or culture with them.
Stories are very powerful, and in Indigenous contexts, they provide logical space for us to try on ideas without committing us to the consequences of acting on them (Burkhart 2019, xxiii). But I worry that the expectation for stories and guest speakers is doing something else. While teaching a course on cultural competency and safety given a framework of social justice to future nurses, I present the ways in which colonialism has contributed to the disparities in healthcare between Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals. In this course too, I am asked about possibility for guest speakers and cultural instruction. But the stories in the context of healthcare run the risk of reaffirming negative stereotypes, they are triggering, and in most cases painful. Stories that describe individual experiences at Indigenous residential schools, with substance use and abuse, concerning missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and of incidents of racism in hospitals that most often result in neglect and death are only some of the topics we will address throughout the term. While the student might learn from personal accounts, must these accounts be consumed in this particular way to satisfy the goal of instruction? This question is especially salient given the presence of Indigenous students in these courses.
What I think is at issue is that settler ignorance requires that knowledge must be cloaked or dressed in such a way as to satisfy the sensibilities that often protect the ideology grounding it. There is a dynamic at play in the requests for trauma-laden stories. It may be implicit in the unwitting demand, but it also appears in the determination of credibility of those telling the stories. Indigenous people are all too familiar with the demands for authenticity intertwined with colonial determinations of membership. I find it illuminating that “people from minority communities are often forced to relive agony to get noticed and become more visible in every sphere of our lives” (Khan 2022). In the case of Indigenous people, stories of trauma support the settler hierarchy myth (which appears in various contexts throughout Canadian and US history and is often referred to as the “Indian Problem”). These stories also preserve the comfort of those members belonging to the dominant group. Societal attention given to Indigenous people is intertwined with feelings of saviorism. Attention is deflected to the story or the personal account; and not at the structures, systems, or institutions of a colonial society. The demand for stories may lead to a passive consumption of knowledge that requires little from the student, and they get credit for their attendance. The occurrence of trauma porn is not unique to Indigenous communities, but it is a form of epistemic oppression that must be considered as institutions of higher learning move to indigenize their curriculum and/or decolonize their spaces of learning. I envision the proper relation, one that enables me to teach students in a way that resists settler ignorance, will be one of respect. Part of what I teach about colonialism is that it is still present in the lives of Indigenous people, and those lessons are not comfortable. I imagine that some who read this may want to push back. Use of the term settler ignorance often receives push back, especially from those who do not think of themselves as settlers. Perhaps they immigrated, or they are temporally distanced from the creation of reserves and reservations, but they are not comfortable with the idea that they are benefiting from the colonization of Indigenous people. I respect my students too much to allow them to remain comfortable and ignorant of settler ignorance. To that end, I refuse some stories—especially when those come at the expense of Indigenous people or more importantly Indigenous students. And I think I can do this without exploiting personal trauma and have done so to an extent in the links selected for this piece. To pursue respectful relations is one way of answering my question of whether I am foisting some form of epistemic oppression upon my students, or if I truly have their best interest in mind.
* Given the diversity of the inhabitants of Turtle Island, it would be an overgeneralization to attribute the views discussed in this paper as being held by every nation. The views here are applicable to those Indigenous communities in North America who share similar worldviews and values. There may be some worldviews shared globally, but I do not wish to speak for my Indigenous colleagues across the world.
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Andrea Sullivan-Clarke
Andrea Sullivan-Clarke (Muskogee Nation of Oklahoma) is a Native American philosopher whose research focuses on the philosophy of science, particularly the social dimension of knowledge creation. She is a first-generation college student, who holds a PhD (2015) and MA (2009) from the University of Washington, and a BA (1999) from Oklahoma State University, all in Philosophy. A member of the wind clan of the Muskogee Nation of Oklahoma, Sullivan-Clarke has published in topics relevant to Indian Country, such as allyship and land acknowledgment statements. She is the editor of Ways of Being in the World: An Introduction to Indigenous Philosophies of Turtle Island(Broadview Press), a textbook created not just for students, but for instructors looking to introduce Indigenous philosophy in their classes.
