Do Nothing: Difference between revisions
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Doing | Doing nothing won't absolve settler colonialism, nor will the right intentions render us innocent. | ||
Working as a white, settler guest on matters of wildlife conservation, especially in Indigenous contexts, places me in a particular lineage of administrative and scientific agents that have historically played a disruptive role in Indigenous human/nature relationships -often under the flag of bringing the ‘right’ intentions or acting from morally ‘innocent’ position. | |||
Considering this cultural inheritance, I have had to come to terms with my choice to insert myself in the Arctic as an international student as an action that has implicated me more directly in the material realities of ongoing settler-colonialism in Inuit Nunangat (Inuit homelands). | |||
It has been challenging to realize that, despite my cautious and critical positioning towards the complex relationship between the apparatus of western wildlife conservation and Indigenous rights, I still have had to (and continue to have to) undo many colonial imaginaries, and narratives in which I have been conditioned to think about ‘research’ and ‘the Arctic’. | |||
Such realizations come with an awareness to tread carefully and with openness to being held accountable- the latter of which I understand as a commitment to embracing my role as a researcher to be non-innocent. | |||
Such an embrace entails learning to become comfortable with discomfort, incommensurability and unlearning, while also applying myself and my research towards a futurity of meaningful settler/Indigenous decolonization-reconciliation - without having any guarantees that my choices are the right ones. | |||
<span class="return link" data-page-title="Politics of recognition" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="return">[[Politics of recognition|Return: Politics of recognition]]</span> | <span class="return link" data-page-title="Politics of recognition" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="return">[[Politics of recognition|Return: Politics of recognition]]</span> | ||
Revision as of 20:54, 24 January 2025
Doing nothing won't absolve settler colonialism, nor will the right intentions render us innocent.
Working as a white, settler guest on matters of wildlife conservation, especially in Indigenous contexts, places me in a particular lineage of administrative and scientific agents that have historically played a disruptive role in Indigenous human/nature relationships -often under the flag of bringing the ‘right’ intentions or acting from morally ‘innocent’ position.
Considering this cultural inheritance, I have had to come to terms with my choice to insert myself in the Arctic as an international student as an action that has implicated me more directly in the material realities of ongoing settler-colonialism in Inuit Nunangat (Inuit homelands).
It has been challenging to realize that, despite my cautious and critical positioning towards the complex relationship between the apparatus of western wildlife conservation and Indigenous rights, I still have had to (and continue to have to) undo many colonial imaginaries, and narratives in which I have been conditioned to think about ‘research’ and ‘the Arctic’.
Such realizations come with an awareness to tread carefully and with openness to being held accountable- the latter of which I understand as a commitment to embracing my role as a researcher to be non-innocent.
Such an embrace entails learning to become comfortable with discomfort, incommensurability and unlearning, while also applying myself and my research towards a futurity of meaningful settler/Indigenous decolonization-reconciliation - without having any guarantees that my choices are the right ones.