One of the topics I enjoy learning and teaching about is the relationship between material culture and settler colonialism. Specifically, the ways in which settler colonialism materializes Indigenous Peoples in distinct ways.
The other week in my "Living with Things" course, I was discussing Marx's theoretical contributions to the field of material culture studies. I introduced my undergraduate students to important concepts including consumption and commodification. As a group we explored how Marx’s approach was highly critical of production and consumption because, to him, these activities took place within a capitalist paradigm whereby the production and subsequent consumption of things participated in the exploitation of human labour and the unequal distribution of power between "upper" and "lower" classes.
Later on in the day, I sat thinking about the much talked about and 'tweeted' issue of coming into one's "Indigeneity" through this "Ancestry.com" business. I began to think about all of this related to what I had went through with my students earlier in class that day. And because writing is often a way in which I work through and materialize my ideas and emotions I prepared the following piece:
Settler colonialism
commodifies
ancestry
Settler colonialism shouts
spit on this and for $199 plus tax
we will ship you an ancestor
Settler colonialism tempts
in exchange for an ancestor
we will validate your Indigenous parking permit
Settler colonialism shouts
Your paper ancestry is a ticket
to a whole new world
of rights and resources
But
Anishinabe kinship orders tell us
Our ancestors gift us
relational intelligence
Anishinabe kinship orders tell us
It isn't about "claiming" your ancestors
it is about
honouring them
knowing them
loving them
Anishinabe kinship orders tell us
Love, honour and come to know your ancestors
by
looking after
remaining accountable to
relationships with sisters, mothers, aunties, babies, land, water, animal and plant relations
each and every day
Anishinabe kinship orders enact
responsibility and reciprocity
Not rights or resources
Refuse settler colonialism
the way it commodifies
claims
cannibalizes
our ancestors
Embrace
Anishinabe kinship orders
to live respectfully
intelligently
relationally
The other week in my "Living with Things" course, I was discussing Marx's theoretical contributions to the field of material culture studies. I introduced my undergraduate students to important concepts including consumption and commodification. As a group we explored how Marx’s approach was highly critical of production and consumption because, to him, these activities took place within a capitalist paradigm whereby the production and subsequent consumption of things participated in the exploitation of human labour and the unequal distribution of power between "upper" and "lower" classes.
Later on in the day, I sat thinking about the much talked about and 'tweeted' issue of coming into one's "Indigeneity" through this "Ancestry.com" business. I began to think about all of this related to what I had went through with my students earlier in class that day. And because writing is often a way in which I work through and materialize my ideas and emotions I prepared the following piece:
Settler colonialism
commodifies
ancestry
Settler colonialism shouts
spit on this and for $199 plus tax
we will ship you an ancestor
Settler colonialism tempts
in exchange for an ancestor
we will validate your Indigenous parking permit
Settler colonialism shouts
Your paper ancestry is a ticket
to a whole new world
of rights and resources
But
Anishinabe kinship orders tell us
Our ancestors gift us
relational intelligence
Anishinabe kinship orders tell us
It isn't about "claiming" your ancestors
it is about
honouring them
knowing them
loving them
Anishinabe kinship orders tell us
Love, honour and come to know your ancestors
by
looking after
remaining accountable to
relationships with sisters, mothers, aunties, babies, land, water, animal and plant relations
each and every day
Anishinabe kinship orders enact
responsibility and reciprocity
Not rights or resources
Refuse settler colonialism
the way it commodifies
claims
cannibalizes
our ancestors
Embrace
Anishinabe kinship orders
to live respectfully
intelligently
relationally
RSS Feed