The Politics of Recognition Versus the Politics of Decolonization in State-Adopted Tribal Curricula

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Settler Colonial Amnesia and the Technologies of Erasure: Recapitulation, Chronicity, Recognition, and Reparations

Abstract

Lomawaima and McCarty (2006), similar to Derrick Bell’s (1980) interest convergence theory, proposed the concept of safety zone theory that argues that tribal rights are only accommodated when they are not perceived to threaten the white electorate. Similarly, Vine Deloria (1996) argued that tribal sovereignty is caught up in what he refers to as the pendulum of federal Indian law that swings back and forth between policies that terminate the federal tribal relation towards policies that bolster tribal self determination. Currently, we are in a period where such rights are swinging back towards a constriction of tribal rights in the United States. Thus, here I explore Dene scholar Glen Coulthard’s (2014) proposition that tribal curriculum adopted in individual states can be understood, on the one hand, as responding to a politics of recognition dictated by settler governmental/tribal relations that define sovereignty through federal law vis-a-vi tribal issues. On the other hand, Coulthard argues for a politics of decolonization which generally moves Indigenous people to work beyond the politics of state recognition and towards a politics that ensures Indigenous futurities not dependent on the state.

This paper is a preliminary exploration of what a politics of recognition looks like in the adoption of tribal history in states like Montana, New Mexico, Washington, and now Oregon. It will present a comparative assessment of what the implementation looks like in each state as well as the successes, and the limitations sketched out in existing research and reports. For example, what are the legislative contours of the implemented policies in the individual states. Do they mandate or recommend the teaching of tribal history? Are they specific to only K-12 or do they include higher education? What are the implications, if any, for teacher education? For instance, how do we build the insights of existing research that explores the dissonance between settler epistemologies and Indigenous world views, into such type of policy work (see Calderon, 2011; Tupper, 2008, 2012, 2013; Schick, 2014)? What are the limits to such type of work? To conclude, I will turn towards a politics of decolonization to sketch out what such work might look like beyond the confines of recognition. Key stakeholders will be interviewed to share their perspective on what such a politics of recognition versus decolonization means for state adopted curriculums.

Author

• Dolores Calderon, Western Washington University