Remapping Sovereignty: Decolonization and Self-Determination in North American Indigenous Political Thought

An examination of anticolonial thought and practice across key Indigenous thinkers. Accounts of decolonization routinely neglect Indigenous societies, yet Native communities have made unique contributions to anticolonial thought and activism. Remapping Sovereignty examines how twentieth-century Indigenous activists in North America debated questions of decolonization and self-determination, developing distinctive conceptual approaches that both resonate with and reformulate key strands in other civil rights and global decolonization movements. In contrast to decolonization projects that envisioned liberation through state sovereignty, Indigenous theorists emphasized the self-determination of peoples against sovereign state supremacy and articulated a visionary politics of decolonization as earthmaking. Temin traces the interplay between anticolonial thought and practice across key thinkers, interweaving history and textual analysis. He shows how these insights broaden the political and intellectual horizons open to us today.

Table of Contents:
Introduction. Remapping Sovereignty Chapter One. Indigenous Self-Determination against Political Slavery: Zitkala-Ša and Vine Deloria Jr. on the Colonialism of US Sovereignty and Citizenship  Chapter Two. The Struggle for Treaty: Ella Cara Deloria and Vine Deloria Jr. on Anticolonial Relations  Chapter Three. “The Land Is Our Culture”: George Manuel on the Fourth World and the Politics of Resurgence  Chapter Four. Indigenous Marxisms: Howard Adams and Lee Maracle on Colonial-Racial Capitalism  Conclusion  Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
David Myer Temin is assistant professor of political science and on the faculty in Native American Studies at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

Review :
"An expansive intellectual history, David Temin's Remapping Sovereignty explores a Native American tradition that questions some of the Western world's most basic assumptions about power, authority, and the state. As a deep analysis of this tradition, it makes a valuable contribution to the expert conversation about decolonial movements and explores alternatives to power as the dominant form of political organization." "Remapping Sovereignty is focused on six Indigenous [leaders, activists, intellectuals, and theorists] who were active in the twentieth century in the settler colonial societies of Canada and United States. . . .In doing so, Temin aptly describes aspects of historical and contemporaneous social context associated with each theorist, including treaties; settler state citizenship; termination policy; the African American civil rights movement focused on individual integrationist inclusion in the settler state; the Canadian multicultural approach; capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy; 'Third World' anticolonialism, decolonization, and socialism; and relations between radical Indigenous activists and established Indigenous nations." "Temin’s book is nevertheless worth taking time to read as closely as he reads the work of twentieth-century theorists and activists Zitkala-Sa, Ella Deloria, Vine Deloria, George Manuel, Howard Adams, and Lee Maracle. Through his meticulous attention to the intellectual development of these thinkers and activists, in dialogue with their communities and with settler colonial histories, Temin makes a timely contribution to twenty-first-century American studies scholarship." "Temin reconstructs the North American tradition of Indigenous political thought in such a way as to think from the decolonial Indigenous proposals that have long been overlooked in the field." "This exciting narration of twentieth-century Indigenous thought enacts multiple interventions in contemporary political theory and political science scholarship. Theorists of the environment will find interesting resources in Temin’s through line of 'earthmaking' as an alternative to the Arendtian world-making language that currently saturates scholarship. In a similar vein, scholars of anticolonialism and American empire must grapple with Temin’s provocative reconstruction of Indigenous internationalism." "Remapping Sovereignty places Indigenous anticolonial thought at the center of twentieth century global struggles over nation-state, political economy, and international order. Through a beautiful synthesis of political theory and history, Temin not only powerfully reconceives classic debates but he also demonstrates the essential conceptual importance of North American Indigenous arguments for making sense of the past and future of the decolonial project. The result is a truly innovative work of political reconstruction, with critical insights for both scholars and activists."