The challenges of and from Indigenous geographies

B Coombes, N Gombay, JT Johnson… - A companion to social …, 2011 - Wiley Online Library
B Coombes, N Gombay, JT Johnson, WS Shaw
A companion to social geography, 2011Wiley Online Library
The authors of this chapter debated whether we should open with an acknowledgment of
Indigenous peoples, their histories, landed connections, and struggles, but some were
concerned about the global, non-specific nature of such an address. That there should be
reason for debate about a common–if not, institutionalized–gesture mirrors the difficulty in
generalizing about Indigenous peoples amidst their conspicuous diversity. Indeed, that
difficulty will be a central theme in this chapter wherein we confront the tendency to …
The authors of this chapter debated whether we should open with an acknowledgment of Indigenous peoples, their histories, landed connections, and struggles, but some were concerned about the global, non-specific nature of such an address. That there should be reason for debate about a common–if not, institutionalized–gesture mirrors the difficulty in generalizing about Indigenous peoples amidst their conspicuous diversity. Indeed, that difficulty will be a central theme in this chapter wherein we confront the tendency to essentialize Indigenous identities and cultures. Given its capacity to fix identities temporally and spatially, essentialsim can be disempowering, particularly for those urban Indigenous peoples who may have lost contact with country. It locates Indigeneity somewhere in prehistory, bound by tradition and therefore unable to operate fully in the present. Likewise, a monolithic application of “Indigeneity” as a universal label to represent disparate peoples silences their inherent diversity. Even by combining the voices of Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors from distinct “settler societies”–the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand–we cannot present an overarching account of Indigeneity, nor its associated geographies. 1 We also recognize that any attempt to promote a sub-discipline in Indigenous geographies, or even to consider the g eographies of Indigenous peoples as if they are conceptually discrete, is contestable. Nonetheless, we engage tentatively with those notions because they encourage consideration, not only of how social geography is challenged by Indigenous geographies, but also of how they may add to, and enrich, our discipline. Recognition of how diversity seemingly undermines “Indigenous Geography” may explain geography’s ambivalent engagement with Indigeneity. According to
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