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Vortrag/Lecture/Conférence: Sarah C. Moritz

Friday, 10 November 2017

22.11.2017, 10-11h, "Crossing & Contesting That Which Separates: Indigenous Engagements with Borders in the US & Canada"

Sarah C. Moritz
M.A. (UVic), B.A. (U of Aberdeen)
PhD Candidate McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada

"Crossing & Contesting That Which Separates: Indigenous Engagements with Borders in the US & Canada"

US and Canadian (inter)national borders emerge(d) as settler colonial and neoliberal tools of divisive territoriality vis-a-vis indigenous sovereignties, livelihoods and cultural belonging. Ostensibly, borders function as political and legal tools of power to implement policies of “order and control”, maintain “security” and manage “(the threat of) terrorist activities” (Department of Homeland Security). Practically, they often operate as racist mechanisms to reinforce cultural difference. Indigenous peoples, First Nations (Canada) and Native Americans (US), are currently contesting, overturning, and reconstructing artificial “conquer-and-divide” borders in manifold ways to maintain their vast social kin networks, communal identities and traditional land use practices such as hunting or fishing stretched across indivisible waters and home lands. Many people perceive of the border as an intrusion and understand their responses to the border as vital efforts to gain social and environmental justice within both states. Drawing on telling anthropological, indigenous and ethnographic insights, this talk introduces some vivid examples of indigenous engagements with imagined and ‘really real’ borders.

Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017, 10:00-11:00 am
Merangasse 18, SR35.K2

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