Indigenous Stewardship: Religious Praxis and “Unsettling” Settler Ecologies

ABSTRACTSettler colonialism has been described as a structure, not an event, meaning it is sustained over time through discursive and material means. As settlers began to monopolize lands, new ecologies were built from Indigenous ones, transforming the landscape but also human relations with lands. I expand on Kyle Whyte’s concept of settler ecologies to understand these ecologies as drawing from a metaphysic, a Christian cosmo-logic of divine hierarchy that positions some humans as having ontological superiority over the natural world and other humans. I draw from decolonial, Indigenous, and settler colonial theory to explore how settler ecologies reterritorialize the land through racial-religious formations, what Aboriginal scholar, Aileen Moreton-Robinson calls the white possessive, and become naturalized in a modern context through secular, biopolitical discourses of development. I argue that these settler ecologies are “unsettled” through the sacred directive of stewardship movements that emerge from the unifying, intersubjective relations of ceremonial life.KEYWORDS: Settler colonialismsettler ecologyIndigenous religious traditionsnative sovereigntydecolonizationIndigenous stewardshipindigeneity Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism,” 388.2 Maldonado-Torres, “Race, Religion, and Ethics,” 696.3 Whyte, “Settler Colonialism, Ecology,” 136.4 Moreton-Robinson, The White Possessive, xii.5 Whyte, “Settler Colonialism, Ecology,” 125.6 Ibid., 131.7 Ibid., 130.8 Ibid., 133–34.9 Griffiths and Robin, Ecology & Empire, 2.10 Ibid.11 Bauman, Bohannon, & O’Brien, Grounding Religion, 50.12 Ibid., 51.13 Deloria, God is Red, 58–59.14 Deloria and Wildcat, Power and Place, 2.15 Maldonado-Torres, “Religion, Conquest, and Race,” 640–41.16 Wynter, “1492: A New World View,” 13–14.17 Harjo, “I Won’t Be Celebrating Columbus Day,” 32, quoted in Wynter, “1492: A New World View,” 7.18 Wynter, “1492: A New World View,” 25.19 Ibid., 25–27.20 Maldonado-Torres, “Race, Religion, and Ethics,” 702.21 Ibid., 697.22 Wynter, “1492: A New World View,” 34.23 Maldonado-Torres, “Race, Religion, and Ethics,” 699.24 Ibid., 700.25 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth.26 Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, 110.27 Maldonado-Torres, “On the Coloniality of Being,” 25928 Ibid., 250–51.29 Ibid., 258.30 Pyne, “Frontiers of Fire,” 26.31 Newcomb, Pagans in the Promised Land.32 Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism.”33 Harris, “Whiteness as Property,” 1716.34 Moreton-Robinson, The White Possessive.35 Ibid., 49.36 Ibid., 50.37 Ibid., 5.38 Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism.”39 Moreton-Robinson, The White Possessive, 17.40 Ibid.41 Deane-Drummond and Sideris, “Ecology: A Dialogue,” 67.42 Simpson, Mohawk Interruptus.43 See Irwin, Coming Down from Above and Kelley, Tradition, Performance, and Religion.44 Rich, “Remember Wounded Knee,” 71.45 Estes, “Fighting for Our Lives.”46 Ibid.47 Ibid.48 Deloria, Power and Place, 22–23.49 Deloria, World We Used to Live In, xxiv–xxv.50 Deloria, Power and Place, 2–3.51 Burkhart, Indigenizing Philosophy, 248–49.52 Ibid., 37.53 Deloria, World We Used to Live In, xviii.54 Ibid.55 Deloria, God is Red, 80.56 Ibid., 82.57 Deloria, Power and Place, 26–27.58 Burkhart, Indigenizing Philosophy, 239–40.59 Brave Bull Allard, “How Powerful Could We Be.”60 Deloria, World We Used to Live In.61 Tinker, “The Irrelevance of euro-christian,” 209.62 Johnson, “Ritual, Advocacy, and Authority,” 141.63 Simpson, Dancing on Our Turtle’s.Additional informationNotes on contributorsNatalie AvalosNatalie Avalos is an Assistant Professor in the Ethnic Studies department at University of Colorado Boulder. She is currently working on her manuscript titled Decolonizing Metaphysics: Transnational Indigeneities and Religious Refusal, which explores urban Indigenous and Tibetan refugee religious life as decolonial praxis. She is a Chicana of Mexican Indigenous descent, born and raised in the Bay Area.