The Colonization of Memory: U.S. History Textbooks and the Maintenance of U.S. Settler Futurity

• In Event: Curricular Ecologies in Motion: Settler Colonialism, Relationality, and (Non)Belonging

Abstract

According to Brayboy (2005), “Colonization is endemic to society” is the first tenet of Tribal Critical Race Theory (p. 429). Following this tenet, the settler colonization of memory is saturated in education in the United States and plays a vital role in the continued dispossession of Indigenous peoples. Settler narratives in the United States attempt to occupy how we think about peoples within its borders. This paper explores how two U.S. history textbook from a major publisher contribute to the continued settler colonial project in the United States through settler narratives. Furthermore, this work proposes an anti-colonial approach developed through an analysis of US history textbooks through a TribalCrit framework that utilizes critical content analysis and critical discourse analysis.

Author

• Benjamin Ramirez, The University of Arizona