Decolonization Across the Medicine Line

This course explores the tangled colonial histories of the US and Canada, paying particular attention to Indigenous-settler political relations and economies across the medicine line (aka the 49th parallel separating the US and Canada). 

Learning objectives for the course include understanding political issues facing Indigenous peoples in Canada and US, including treaty rights, and current efforts to assert autonomy and self-determination; applying this understanding to an analysis of differences and similarities in attitudes towards and treatment of Indigenous peoples by the Canadian State and the United States; and interrogating the roots of colonialism and what it means for all people to work towards transforming the colonial relationships embedded within state structures.