Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island have long resisted the ongoing settler colonial project that is now the United States. Indigenous Peoples’ Day, observed on the second Monday of October, traces its origins to a 1977 proposal at the United Nations for an “International Day of Solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.” It honors Native sovereignty, self-determination, and nationhood despite broken treaties, land dispossession, and extractive economies that threaten Indigenous ways of life.
The day stands in direct opposition to the Western doctrine of discovery and the mythologizing of colonization. Falling on the same date as the federally recognized Columbus Day, Indigenous Peoples’ Day calls attention to lesser-known histories and living Indigenous futures. The first city to adopt the holiday was Berkeley, California, in 1991. In 2021, the Biden Administration became the first federal administration to officially recognize the day. Recent scholarship about the holiday marks a departure from the celebration of settler triumphalism once encapsulated in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1937 proclamation of Columbus Day. Indigenous Peoples’ Day refuses the inevitability of a settler future and insists instead on ReMatriation, survivance, and justice.
This reading list offers resources for engaging with Indigenous thought, resistance, and futurity. It recognizes that Indigenous peoples are not a monolith. As Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak reminds us, any meaningful engagement must contend with internal difference, historical specificity, and political complexity.
Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, “Decolonization is Not a Metaphor,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1, no. 1 (2012): 1–40.
Unangax̂ scholar Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s widely cited article reminds us that decolonization isn’t a metaphorical process: It’s fundamentally about the return of stolen land to Indigenous peoples. As calls grow to “decolonize” university classrooms, reading lists, and research methods, Tuck and Yang remind us that, first and foremost, decolonization is about the reMatriation of land to Indigenous stewards. Under a settler colonial regime, land is what “is most valuable, contested, required.” Colonial seizure breaks the reciprocal relationship between people and the land, converting it to a relationship governed by extraction. By bringing us back to the question of land, Tuck and Yang invite discussion on how the abstraction of decolonization has hindered material efforts towards solidarity. This article is a must read for anyone undertaking anticolonial study.
Melanie K. Yazzie, “Decolonizing Development in Diné Bikeyah: Resource Extraction, Anti-Capitalism, and Relational Futures,” in Indigenous Resurgence: Decolonialization and Movements for Environmental Justice, ed. Jaskiran Dhillon (Berghahn Books, 2022), 27–41.
Diné scholar Melanie Yazzie challenges notions about the relationship between decolonization and development. By analyzing discourses on development squarely within Native American studies, Yazzie situates capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism into the politics of nation-building. As she points out, Marxist frameworks don’t adequately account for settler colonialism, requiring additional analysis that asserts the priority of anti-capitalist decolonization.
Kyle Whyte, “Settler Colonialism, Ecology, and Environmental Injustice,” Environment and Society 9 (2018): 125–44.
Potawatomi philosopher Kyle Whyte theorizes settler colonialism as a form of environmental injustice. Grounding his work in Anishinaabe intellectual traditions, which he refers to as “collective continuance,” Whyte discusses three principal concepts in Anishinaabe ecological theory: 1) interdependent relationships; 2) system of responsibilities; and 3) migration. He then situates settler colonial ecology within a framework of domination, which justifies the creation of extractive relationships with “natural resources” and the use of the environment in ways that undermine Indigenous livelihoods. Here, settler colonialism is understood as a form of environmental injustice, where pollution and degraded landscapes diminish Indigenous quality of life and ability to be in right relationship with the environment.
More to Explore
Standing Rock and the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Tony Castanha, “Adventures in Indigenous Caribbean Resistance, Survival, and Continuity in Borikén (Puerto Rico),” Wicazo Sa Review 25, no. 2 (2010): 29–64.
Castanha discusses the survival and resistance of Indigenous peoples in Borikén in the face of Spanish colonization, emphasizing their ongoing cultural practices and political activism, particularly among the Jíbaro (or Boricua). He challenges the myth of Indigenous extinction, providing a political history and ethnological account of cultural continuity and adaptation of the Jíbaro, especially after the American takeover of Puerto Rico in 1898.
Deborah McGregor, “Coming Full Circle: Indigenous Knowledge, Environment, and Our Future,” American Indian Quarterly 28, no. 3/4 (2004): 385–410.
Deborah McGregor, an Anishinaabe scholar from Whitefish River First Nation, defines and discusses the concept of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), sometimes also known as Indigenous Ecological Knowledge or Indigenous Ecological Wisdom. She opens with the Anishinaabe Creation story, which illustrates how Anishinaabe people have come to know and be in relation with non-human kin. Creation stories define TEK, which has many applications particularly in the sphere of environmental stewardship. McGregor recognizes that the work of translating between Western science and TEK is critical in certain contexts and applications, while there has also been significant cooption and misinterpretation. By removing TEK from its context, without paying proper attention to decolonial politics and specific relations with non-human kin, it becomes “metaphorical.”
Mark Rifkin. “Indigeneity, Apartheid, Palestine: On the Transit of Political Metaphors,” Cultural Critique 95 (2017): 25–70.
Using the example of the occupied Palestinian Territories and drawing upon South African history, Mark Rifkin looks at how settler states can produce apartheid conditions. He argues that in the study of Palestine, notions like Indigeneity tend to vanish because the political struggle of Indigenous people is understood to be about sovereignty and self-determination rather than inclusion within the state. Here, struggles against apartheid demand full citizenship rights and access to land and resources for a racialized group. Rifkin warns that whether or not Palestinians choose to name themselves as “Indigenous” with all of the claims that come with struggle against settler colonialism, we shouldn’t predetermine the possibilities of Palestinian futurity (within or outside of the state of Israel) without first understanding the interstitial connections between settler colonialism and apartheid.
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Neusa Hidalgo-Monroy Wohlgemuth, “Alternatives to Rural Development: Organic Agriculture and Indigenous Communities in Chiapas, Mexico,” Journal of Latin American Geography 13, no. 1 (2014): 67–88.
Hidalgo-Monroy Wohlgemuth discusses the impact of Fair Trade and organic agriculture on rural development in Chiapas, Mexico, emphasizing social empowerment, particularly for women, and the challenges posed by neoliberal policies such as the North American Free Trade Agreement. She highlights how the Zapatista movement against globalization has enabled Indigenous farmers to negotiate better prices and improve their living conditions through cooperative formations and self-governance. She also addresses the historical context of land rights and the role of non-governmental organizations in supporting these movements. Hidalgo-Monroy Wohlgemuth argues that, even with initiatives that offer farmers a livable income and pricing stability, such fair trade agreements aren’t a catch-all solution for rural livelihood development.
Tiara R. Na’puti and Judy Rohrer, “Pacific Moves Beyond Colonialism: A Conversation from Hawai‘i and Guåhan,” Feminist Studies 43, no. 3 (2017): 537–47.
Tiara R. Na’puti and Judy Rohrer discuss the interplay between decolonial and postcolonial frameworks in challenging settler colonialism in the Pacific, particularly in Hawai‘i and Guåhan. They highlight the importance of Indigenous perspectives and critique the limitations of postcolonial theory in addressing Indigenous issues, particularly in settler contexts where domination is ongoing, as in the Pacific Islands. They examine key texts by scholars like Noenoe Silv, Vincente Diaz, and Hokulani Aikau for their contributions to understanding resistance and identity in the context of colonialism.
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