From Place to Movement: Extractive Geographies & Indigenous Freedom
The fields of Indigenous Geographies and Indigenous Studies have provided crucial theorizations on Indigenous place-based ontologies and practices, and how ties to place are at the core of Indigenous struggles for decolonization and freedom. In this presentation, I seek to build on such thinking by centering Indigenous movement as an analytic that incites a radical consciousness of genocidal violence and decolonial futures. My analysis emerges from historical and contemporary Mushkegowuk (Cree) mobilities through the nation’s regional waterways in and beyond so-called northern Ontario Canada. Through Mushkegowuk movement, I trace the expansiveness of extractive geographies, from mining developments called the “Ring of Fire” in rural areas, to seemingly distinct and incompatible spaces of colonial state violence against Indigenous peoples in urban centers, such as in the city of Thunder Bay. Within these conditions of violence, I am interested in exploring how Mushkegowuk movement is a source of theory that makes the links between the socio-political formations that constitute Mushkegowuk life. In particular, I examine how regional rivers are a site of confluence, and how movement on such rivers elucidates the connectivity of colonial regimes of power, as well as Mushkegowuk political agency and interconnected struggles for freedom.
Date:
19 January 2021, 16:00 (Tuesday, 1st week, Hilary 2021)
Venue:
Zoom
Speaker:
Michelle (Daigle)
Organising department:
School of Geography and the Environment
Organiser:
Dr Ariell Ahearn (School of Geography and Environment, University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address:
ariell.ahearn@ouce.ox.ac.uk
Host:
Dr Ariell Ahearn (School of Geography and Environment, University of Oxford)
Part of:
SoGE Economy and Society Cluster Events
Booking required?:
Required
Booking url:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIocuGhpzMuHdYVfAtfM4HgEFji7oXzuc1x
Booking email:
ariell.ahearn@ouce.ox.ac.uk
Cost:
0
Audience:
Public
Editor:
Ariell Ahearn Ligham
