Refusing Settler Grammars: Imagining a Curriculum of Survivance

• In Event: Global Neocolonialism and Curriculum and Pedagogical Materiality

Abstract

When discussing the topic of Indigeneity and North American Indigenous Peoples and their histories and how those have transitioned into modernity, we often find ourselves in a discourse that centers on Indigenous damage narratives. Many states do not mandate education about Indigenous people, let alone stories of Indigenous presence; those that do engage with Indigenous peoples do so via a damage-center framework. This paper will focus on disengaging frameworks that erase Indigenous presence, thought, and futures, frameworks we will call settler grammars. Building upon the overarching concept of decolonial refusal and proposing an ameliorative engagement with survivance frameworks, I hope that by proposing the naming of these grammars and education on survivance, Indigenous communities can create space for possibilities.

Author

• Sage Hatch, University of Oregon