Decolonization across the Medicine Line: Comparative Indigenous politics in Canada and the U.S.

This course explores the tangled colonial histories of the US and Canada, paying particular attention to Indigenous-settler relations. The primary text for the course is The Inconvenient Indian : A Curious Account of Native People in North America by Thomas King. In addition, this course engages with Indigenous scholars in order to understand and appreciate the Indigenous critique of these entanglements of settler states and Indigenous nations.

Part 1 of the course is a close reading of the Inconvenient Indian, a text that weaves the curiously circular tale of the relationship between non-Natives and Natives in the centuries since the two first encountered each other. In the process, King refashions old stories about historical events and figures, takes a sideways look at film and pop culture, relates his own complex experiences with activism, and articulates a deep and revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands. The Inconvenient Indian is at once a “history” and the complete subversion of a history—in short, a critical and personal meditation about what it means to be “Indian” in North America.

Part 2 of the course explores state and Indigenous relations with respect to a contemporary transboundary issue. In Fall 2022, students examine the ways that Indigenous communities are practicing place-based water governance on the Columbia River and the collaborative efforts of Indigenous and environmental organizations to add eco-system management into the Columbia River Treaty between the US and Canada.