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“Decolonial” reading list

March 3, 2020
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“What is Decolonization? If settler colonialism is the elimination of the Native, decolonization is the structural and legal elimination of settler privilege and settler domination.” – Dr. Nick Estes

“Representation alone cannot solve the problem of white privilege in LIS any more than (self-) congratulatory visions of inclusive multiculturalism can defeat historical legacies and institutional manifestations of racial discrimination.” – Todd Honma

“..it is time archival repositories and archivists stop wondering about how to address the recommendations of the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials and simply begin doing the work.” – Jennifer O’Neil

I have been asked for book and article recommendations over the years for “decolonizing the archives, decolonizing education, decolonizing spaces,” etc. First, I don’t think we can really “decolonize” the archive since it is built upon Western, settler knowledge systems. Most libraries and archives still use very problematic subject headings. Most institutions are built  upon colonial systems further perpetuating preconceived notions of Indigenous People, our knowledge systems and accessing materials. Institutions need to prioritize intentional and relational collaborations with Indigenous communities, but broadly speaking, also BPOCQT communities. When we speak about “Decolonization,” we need to ask ourselves what we really mean. I approach this method through what some may call a “Decolonial lens” but what I think of more as liberation and centering perspectives from historically under recognized communities, particularly Black/Indigenous/People of Color/Queer/Trans ones.

We hear the term “decolonize” quite a bit these days but what does it mean? Decolonial theory, which many present-day calls to decolonize draw on, argues that the economic, political, cultural, and epistemic violence of colonialism has entrenched systems of racism, patriarchy, and economic extraction globally.

Can Decolonization be applied within libraries and archives? Short answer: no. Within a colonial construct, many have argued it is impossible to “decolonize” an institution because they stem from colonialism and perpetuate colonial ideals, which I agree. For example, historically libraries and archives continue to catalog, describe, and organize Indigenous materials in Western ways oftentimes disregarding Indigenous knowledge systems. To me, decolonizing means enough with capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism. We must respect the self-determination and sovereignty of Indigenous communities worldwide. Also let’s not forget Black Liberation and Indigenous sovereignty go hand in hand. If we want justice in this search for racial equity, then we have to have Black liberation because they are mutually dependent on one another. And in the same way, if Native and Indigenous people don’t have self-determination, if a Black and POC are not striving for Native self-determination then we will never achieve true freedom. Because the foundation of the United states is based off of the subjugation of Black people and the dispossession of Native and Indigenous people from the lands.

As Eve Tuck and K.Wayne Yang also wrote in Decolonization is not a Metaphor:

“Efforts to ‘decolonize’ institutions are embodied in ritual acts of acknowledging Indigenous presence and claims to territory.  Within what is currently called the United States, these acknowledgements are increasingly—if only recently—understood as prerequisite for demonstrating engagement with Indigenous communities. However, without continuous commitment to serve as accomplices to Indigenous people, institutional gestures of acknowledgement risk reconciling ‘settler guilt and complicity’ and rescuing ‘settler futurity.” 

Questions I mull over within my professional work: are institutions simply using the term “decolonizing” to sound cool? Are they truly supporting Indigenous people? Are they prioritizing Indigenous recruiting and/or hires to steward their own knowledges? And tied to this, proper onboarding and support to handle being possibly the only Native person working at the institution. Are institutions prioritizing more Indigenous programming (and not just during November)? Are they Investing in communities? Or how about when investing in land, do they think about Indigenous stewardship? 

As Marisa Elena Duarte & Miranda Belarde-Lewis wrote in Imagining: Creating Spaces for Indigenous Ontologies:

“At its most basic, decolonization work is about the divestment of foreign occupying powers from Indigenous homelands, modes of government, ways of caring for the people and living landscapes, and especially ways of thinking. For non-Indigenous individuals decolonization work means stepping back from normative expectations that:

  1. All knowledge in the world can be represented in document form
  2. To some degree, already is, and
  3. Indigenous ways of knowing belong in state-funded university and government library, archive, and museum collections, especially for the benefit of society’s privileged elite.

Finally, the following resources are from the Library and Archives context, but I recommend the following perspectives about “decolonization” from Nick Estes and Jennifer Marley from The Red Nation who contextualize this concept and remind us that decolonization comes from the African context and Black radical tradition (e.g. Early studies of decolonization appeared in the 1960s and 1970s). An important book from this period was The Wretched of the Earth (1961) by Frantz Fanon, which established many aspects of decolonization that would be considered in later works;  Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o explored the cultural and linguistic legacies of colonialism in the influential book Decolonising the Mind (1986). 

Verso Books also published a good list, Decolonization and anti-racism: a reading list, some of which overlap with the ones I have below. Another good list to take a look at that focuses on White Supremacy and Empire was created by POC Online Classroom. There is also a good reading list on the field of conservation titled “#ConservationIsNotNeutral: A Reading List.” Also make sure to check out Litwin Books & Library Juice Press for some great books focused on Libraries and Archives. There are also important definitions listed towards the end. I will be updating this list periodically. (last updated: 7/28/2024)

Articles, websites, webinars – Indigenous Ways of Knowing & Research methods:
Books – Indigenous Ways of Knowing & Research methods:

Articles & books -Decolonial theory

Articles & books related to Libraries, Archives, and Museums: 
Authors
  • Our History is the Future: Standing Rock Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance, Nick Estes. Listen to Nick Estes’ talk, The Red Power Movement: From Alcatraz to Standing Rock and Beyond at the Newberry Library
  • Playing Indian, by Philip J. Deloria
  • Native American DNA, Kim Tallbear
  • Theft is Property! Dispossession and Critical Theory, Robert Nichols
  • Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage, William Loren Katz
  • An Indigenous History of the United States, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
  • A Queer History of the United States, Michael Bronski
  • An African American and Latinx History of the United States, Paul Ortiz
  • Toward What Justice?, K. Wayne Yang, Eve Tuck
  • Cruel Fiction, Wendy Trevino
  • Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, by Michel-Rolp Trouillot
  • Colonizing Hawai’I, Sally Engle Merry
  • Indian Given: Racial Geographies across Mexico and the United States, María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo
  • Race, Discourse, and the Origin of the Americas: A New World, Smithsonian Institution (Author), Vera Lawrence Hyatt (Editor), Rex Nettleford (Editor)
  • Comparative Indigeneities of the Américas: Towards a Hemispheric Approach, M. Bianet Castellanos (Editor), Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera (Editor), Arturo J. Aldama (Editor)
  • Imprints: The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the City of Chicago, by John Low. Listen to John Low’s talk, Imprints: The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the City of Chicago, at the Newberry Library
  • The massacre of Fort Dearborn at Chicago: gathered from the traditions of the Indian tribes engaged in the massacre, and from the published accounts, Simon Pokagon, Article published in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, no. 586, March 1899
  • Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England, by Jean O’Brien. Watch Jean O’Brien’s talk Monumental Mobility: The Memory Work of Massasoit, at the Newberry Library 
  • This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving, David J. Silverman. Listen to David J. Silverman’s talk, A Tale of Three Thanksgivings: Toward an Understanding of the Wampanoag National Day of Mourning, at the Newberry Library
Blogs & websites
Cataloging systems within libraries:

Indigenous-focused archival databases in practice (Mukurtu CMS)

The Mukurtu CMS is the gold-standard digital archiving platform for Indigenous communities across the world. This is because it is purpose-built for the preservation of cultural heritage in our digital era. Prime examples include the Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal and the Sustainable Heritage Network.

Conservation & Preservation

Indigenous Languages
  • Listen to Indigenous Languages and Peoples in the Midwest, The Newberry Library, October 12, 2019
  • The Language Warrior’s Manifesto: How to Keep Our Languages Alive No Matter the Odds, Anton Treuer
  • Teaching Writing to Children in Indigenous Languages: Instructional Practices from Global Contexts, Ari Sherris and Joy Kreeft Peyton (editors)
  • Lingüística y colonialismo: Breve tratado de glotofagia (Spanish Edition), by Calvet Louis-Jean, 2006
Urban Indian experiences: 
  • Indian Metropolis: Native Americans in Chicago, 1945-75, by James B. LaGrand
  • Native Chicago, by Terry Straus
  • City Indian: Native American Activism in Chicago, 1893-1934, by David Beck and Rosalyn R. LaPier
  • Indigenous in the City: Contemporary Identities and Cultural Innovation, Evelyn Peters
  • Indigenous Cities: Urban Indian Fiction and the Histories of Relocation, Laura M. Furlan
  • NAES (Native American Educational Services) College: Native American Educational Services (NAES) College was the first urban American Indian institution of its kind, a four-year college run by and serving Native populations in Chicago and the Twin Cities as well as on reservations in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana, and New Mexico. From 1974 to 2005, NAES College served hundreds of students of diverse tribal affiliations, ages, and backgrounds, providing a community-based education grounded in public policy, tribal knowledge, community development and leadership, and more.
  • Education for a Credentialed Leadership, NAES College rom the book Community Self-Determination: American Indian Education in Chicago, 1952-2006 by John Laukaitis (SUNY Press, 2015)
  • The Urban Indian Experience in America, by Donald Fixico
  • Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place, by Coll Thrush
  • Reimagining Indian Country: Native American Migration and Identity in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles, by Nicolas G. Rosenthal
  • American Indians and the Urban Experience, Edited by Kurt Peters and Susan Lobo
  • Toward a Native Archive: Chicago’s Relocation Photos, Indian Labor, and Indigenous Public Text, by Megan Tusler (2018)
Online resources
Teaching Resources
Trauma work
  • Indigenous Information Literacy: nêhiya Kinship Enabling Self-Care in Research, Jessie Loyer
  • Decolonizing Trauma work: Indigenous Stories and Strategies, Renee Linklater
  • Teaching Undergraduates with Archives, , Edited by Nancy Bartlett, Elizabeth Gadelha, and Cinda Nofziger, Chapter contribution: Ethically Teaching Histories of Violence, Racism, and Oppression, by Andi Gustavson (The University of Texas at Austin), Analú María López (Newberry Library), Lae’l Hughes Watkins (University of Maryland), Elizabeth Smith-Pryor (Kent State University) and Analyzing 19th – 20th century photographs & exploring racism through photography curriculum, pp. 262-286. Download Teaching Undergraduates with Archives
White Supremacy Culture, Allyship
Definitions

Decolonization vs. Indigenization
Decolonization – once viewed as the formal process of handing over the instruments of government, is now recognized as a long-term process involving the bureaucratic, cultural, linguistic and psychological divesting of colonial power.

Indigenization/Indigenize – Indigenization is the act of making something more native, make Indigenous; subject to native influence; transformation of some service, idea, etc. to suit a local culture, especially through the use of more indigenous people in administration, employment, etc.

BIPOCQT – Black/Indigenous/Person of Color/Queer/Trans

Allyship vs. accomplices

Allyship – Allyship is an active and consistent practice of using power and privilege to achieve equity and inclusion while holding ourselves accountable to marginalized people’s needs.

Accomplice – Accomplices listen with respect for the range of cultural practices and dynamics that exist within various (Indigenous) communities. Accomplices aren’t motivated by personal guilt or shame, they may have their own agenda but they are explicit. Accomplices are realized through mutual consent and build trust. They don’t just have our backs, they are at our side, or in their own spaces confronting and unsettling colonialism. As accomplices we are compelled to become accountable and responsible to each other, that is the nature of trust. (from Accomplices Not Allies Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex)

The Accomplice framework challenges the morality of the legal system — just because a practice is legal and lawful does not mean it is moral or just. Therefore, in order to achieve equity sometimes laws must be broken. For example, segregation in the U.S. was legal and unjust. There are myriad of examples of people of all races breaking the law to integrate society and work to advance equity during segregation. The concept of Accompliceship is necessary as local and national laws and practices are still created to disenfranchise and marginalize different groups of people. Therefore, we need folks who are able to be Accomplices and take on the risks associated with breaking the law to achieve equity.

This following set of reference sources were put together by a webinar I attended recently, Instruction and Outreach for Diverse Populations: Native/Indigenous Librarians and Students, via ACRL Instruction Section:

References & Further Reading

Tribal Colleges 

Native Programs and Organizations

Further Reading...

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