Mohawk Interruptus - Aditi

Simpson makes two critical contributions to political theory, indigenous studies, and anthropology in developing the idea of sovereignty within sovereignty and refusal as an alternative to recognition (Simpson 2014, 11). She uses these to speak of and for peoples that are constantly in the process of developing alternative forms of nationhood, and belonging to challenge the settler colonialist project of making them disappear.

I find it an extremely useful intervention, particularly when looking at international politics, that works with terms like “recognition” and “citizenship” as assumed goods that all people in the world must achieve to be considered fully human in society. It also brings to light the mundane ways in which these concepts produce violence in the lives of those who refuse such concepts, often because they are the victims of its exclusionary politics. These situations are not marked by extreme situations like the Nazi concentration camps, but by the construction of everyday narratives of the settler state concerning the inevitability of the decline of the indigenous peoples.  As Simpson argues refusal in the face of such politics is the "political and ethical stance that stands in stark contrast to the desire to have one’s distinctiveness as a culture, as a people, recognized. Refusal comes with the requirement of having one’s political sovereignty acknowledged and upheld, and raises the question of legitimacy for those who are usually in the position of recognizing: What is their authority to do so? Where does it come from? Who are they to do so?” (Simpson 2014, 11).

I find that these concepts can be usefully deployed to consider other ways in which the modern nation state, which is essentially based on a colonial framework, tries to make certain people disappear to make claims on their land, their economies, or their bodies. In my own field work it can be useful to think about acts of refusal employed by populations living and working in illegality as they both deploy terms of citizenship to make claims but also refuse to conform to certain citizenship norms in the process. This being a different kind of situation, the notion of refusal can be used as a lens more to see the ways in which states produce a state of exception for peoples they supposedly deem citizens but constantly keep on the edge of the governance sphere.

Discussion Questions:

1.     What are some ways in which the idea of refusal disturbs existing methodologies of research? Must research itself be refused as a colonially developed construct at some point in this process?