Refusing Confederation: Indigenous Feminist Performance as a Tool for Colonial Reckoning and Community (Re)Building

Abstract:In 2017, the Kika'ige Historical Society, an Indigenous women's performance troupe based in Guelph, Canada, created Tabling 150 in response to celebrations of Canada's sesquicentennial. Tabling 150 presented an opportunity for Indigenous women to engage in truth-telling amid celebrations of settler-colonial nationalism. By taking on personas of the "Grannies of Confederation," a play on the title of the well-known painting The Fathers of Confederation, the performers participated in Native feminist spatial practice, creating new orders through felt theory, presencing, and enacting refusals within their time and place in the academy. Drawing on interviews with the performers, we examine questions of the felt experience of doing Indigenous artivist resistance. Data from the participant performers was inductively coded, revealing four prominent themes: connecting with ancestors, taking space as resistance, community solidarity and empowerment, and Indigenous women's work in spatial practice while Indigenizing the academy. The analysis revealed that performance is an effective tool for calling out Canada's mistreatment of Indigenous Peoples at Confederation and the social inequities encoded into Canadian law during a period of settler-colonial celebration. The collective act of truth-telling by Indigenous performers strengthened a community through which it became safe to reflect upon and challenge colonial norms.