For Those Who Will Follow; Earth Marred and Renewing Relationships

Wherever one is in North America, one is on Indigenous lands. Some Indigenous peoples may have been exterminated or removed to other locations, and their contemporary presence may not be highly visible, yet this remains Indigenous land. Nevertheless, rarely do non-Indigenous individuals and institutions consider the responsibilities that come with the fact of being on Indigenous lands (cf. Asch, 2014). To a large extent, this is because settlers regard the state they control as holding a legitimate claim to sovereign authority. Not only is this a claim that bars rightful relationships with Indigenous peoples, it also discloses contemporary settler societies’ disconnection from their Earthboundedness (Asch et al., 2018; Borrows, 2018) because it extends both over peoples and lands. I propose to consider how, from the locality of some settler states such as Canada and the United States, an intimate connection between the settlers’ claim to sovereignty, mastery and possession, and Modernity/Coloniality, is disclosed, which is significant for understanding the Anthropocene and for envisioning ways of acting otherwise that may help to remedy it. My claims regarding the Anthropocene and Modernity/Coloniality are thus perspectival; they do not pretend to offer complete and universal accounts of either, but rather hope to diagnose distinctive features of both, as experienced and disclosed from the underside of Modernity. I see the Anthropocene, or the Age of Man, as a symptom of contemporary settler societies’ view of themselves as floating free from the land, to use Brian Burkhart's formulation (2019) and of their associated idea of Man. Man, in this context, does not refer to humanity as a whole, but rather to the Western white cis-gendered heteropatriarchal agent of Modernity/Coloniality (Mignolo, 2007, 2011; Yusoff, 2018) who is driven by a will to mastery and possession (Schulz, 2017; Singh, 2018). This Modern/Colonial Man presents himself as the universal subject, and thereby erases and disqualifies alternative ways of being human (Singh, 2018, Chapter Introduction). I engage with First Nation and Native American—hereafter Indigenous—political thought and movements to articulate an alternative to the un-earthbound political practices and associated subjectivity of the Man of the Anthropocene. I use Indigenous as a collective shorthand, but my focus is on the distinct political experiences, struggles, and traditions of some of the Indigenous peoples of the lands now claimed by Canada and the United States and the radical alternatives they disclose to dominant Modern/Colonial lifeways, the significance of which extends far beyond their respective contexts. Although I appeal to the distinction between Indigenous and Western thoughts, this is not to essentialize or deny the complexities of either, but in reference to the dynamics of erasure and destitution to which Indigenous lifeways in their diversity have been subjected to through Eurocentrism. In my argument, Indigenous thoughts offer a path, that has been destituted but which can be reconstituted (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018), to renew relationships and responsibilities to one another and to the rest of creation and to deviate from the path of ecological ruin our species currently follows, and which has already marred the Earth.1 I begin by explaining how the Anthropocene can be associated with Modern/Colonial Man. I then argue that the claimed perfected sovereignty of settler states, such as Canada, expresses—and buttresses—Man's pretension to mastery and possession of the world. I consider how Indigenous peoples question the legitimacy and validity of settler sovereignty and how, in contrast, some articulate alternative political relationships of stewardship and of hospitality between hosts and guests. These political alternatives can decolonize and indigenize political relationships by im-perfecting settler sovereignty and by transcending mastery and possession in favor of reciprocal relationships and responsibilities, as they arise from and within concrete ecological contexts. I point to the Land Back movement as a practical project to transcend Modernity/Coloniality, through the transformation of political practices and subjectivities, which contributes to the renewal of reciprocal relationships to one another and with the land. As such, this article articulates a localized theoretical analysis of the Anthropocene, and a concrete path2 to renew relationships with the land, in light and in the service of the demand and mobilization of Indigenous peoples to get their land back. Although this article shares basic theses about reason and the mastery of nature with the Dialectic of Enlightenment, the method adopted is distinct. Horkheimer and Adorno engage with the Odyssey, for instance, to elucidate the present by unearthing the deep entanglement of the Enlightenment with National Socialism in the Western tradition (Horkheimer & Adorno, 2002, p. 218). For my part, I engage with Indigenous political traditions as critical and transformative sources of knowledge and insights that have been silenced and disavowed by Modernity/Coloniality. I refer to this approach as disruptive conservatism in that it challenges the dominating forms and terms of knowledge while revitalizing and recentering traditional lifeways. It seeks to engage with Indigenous thoughts and practices in their own voices (Allard-Tremblay, 2019), not to preserve traditions but to ground critical reflections about disjunctive alternatives to currently dominating practices, in ways that may support Indigenous self-determination and freedom and harmony for all. Although it regards Indigenous traditions as having the required intellectual resources to negotiate contemporary problems, without having to be assisted by or reduced to Western voices, it does not preclude engagements and collaborations with other (decolonial) perspectives. The concept of the Anthropocene first gained grounds in “geo- and environmental sciences” about 20 years ago (Randazzo & Richter, 2021, p. 2), but today the literature on the topic has diversified and increased multifold. This fruitfulness has led scholars familiar with the literature, such as Steve Mentz, to recognize that “readers and scholars may be forgiven for a certain befuddled or baffled attitude” to this multiplicity of discourses (2019, p. 1), especially if they expect a unified account of the Anthropocene. In response, Mentz (2019, pp. 1-13) suggests that the Anthropocene should be pluralized. Accordingly, I provide an account and interpretation of the Anthropocene which should not be taken as univocal and final, especially considering challenges to the concept that point to its role in disavowing Indigenous lifeways (Taylor, 2021). This being said, the Anthropocene remains relevant to refer to deeply changing ecological circumstances faced by our species that are associated with human conduct and that trigger shared, though differentiated, political responsibilities, even if these circumstances have differently distributed causes and consequences (Sharp, 2020). I thus accept that humanity is on a path to ecological ruin, and I recognize the need to, individually and especially collectively, act in ways to prevent the collapse of ecosystems. Yet, I also recognize the need to think about human societies as embedded in broader natural contexts (Henderson, 2000; Ladner, 2003). This natural embeddedness informs how human agency should be conceptualized; specifically, the relationships in which human societies stand with the rest of Creation entail responsibilities (Asch et al., 2018; Sioui, 1992, p. 9). In that sense, I adopt elements of the “discontinuous-descriptive” perspective about the Anthropocene which sees it as “a radical break with the Holocene” with “potentially fatal” consequences that call for remedial human actions (Randazzo & Richter, 2021, pp. 4-5). Yet, I also adopt elements of the “continuous-ontological” perspective, according to which the Anthropocene offers “a theoretical opportunity to adopt a broader and more complex understanding of the shaping power that constitutes both human life and its environment as necessarily intertwined, and does not primarily reside in human reason” (Randazzo & Richter, 2021, pp. 5-6). Significantly, however, I refuse the positions associated with this last perspective, according to which recognizing our embeddedness in natural contexts diminishes the significance of human agency and that the point of the Anthropocene would not be “about deferring catastrophes but about enduring them, and building structures to address injustice as we do so” (Mentz, 2019, p. 10). Rather, and similar to the Indigenous perspective discussed by Elisa Randazzo and Hannah Richter, I remain “unapologetically insistent that directed human agency is possible” (2021, p. 11). Indeed, while Indigenous worldviews often recognize the precarious balance of ecosystems, they also assert the importance of acting responsibly to sustain this balance, precisely by thinking about human agency in relation to natural contexts; as James Tully reports, the Haida “have a mantra to remind themselves of the tipping-point feature inherent in all living systems. They say, ‘The world is as sharp as the edge of a knife’” (2018, p. 100). Accordingly, we need to act responsibly to avoid falling off the edge of the knife, not merely to learn to live with the falling off. Furthermore, although I acknowledge that humanity stands on a path to ecological ruin, I recognize that the responsibility for the practices and lifeways that have produced the Anthropocene are not universally shared (Schulz, 2017, p. 49). Black peoples and Indigenous peoples have been severely oppressed and negatively impacted by the capitalist and colonial processes of enslavement, alienation, dispossession, and extraction that have fueled the growth of Western powers at the vanguard of the Anthropocene (Whyte, 2017, p. 159; Yusoff, 2018). As Yusoff (2018) writes: “The Anthropocene cannot dust itself clean from the inventory of which it from the that the the by of the sharp of all the from through The of cannot the Accordingly, all of humanity may be by the Anthropocene, but this and the responsibility for it are not To the Anthropocene, we need to see how it has been about by a of to one another and to the world. As Yusoff “The of is a dominant and dominating of the and the 2018). This of Earthboundedness as it for mastery and possession of and of The Anthropocene, as from is the of It is the of Modern/Colonial Man. In that the Anthropocene is the of Modern/Colonial Man, I that the role in having produced the ecological is & to be as to as a and of and being which and (Schulz, 2017, p. It is not merely the that has produced the ecological but the broader Modern/Colonial of power of which it is an As has a which it but which is it pp. to of as and to as and the thoughts, practices and of and and their and This from the creation of and by over the of which to the to with universal the terms that and and and and (Mignolo, 2007, p. p. Significantly, the control of over these through a and of (Mignolo, 2007, p. p. that and from and that the control claimed through the colonial of power also on a from that from (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018, p. It is this broader of power and its in terms of and (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018, p. that as of my claim that the Man of the Anthropocene is the white cis-gendered heteropatriarchal agent of Western Modernity. this colonial of is on the of and the world. as the of their as human it also the of the world. The living environment and other species are not as in their own but as that can be and p. In in Modernity/Coloniality and its associated of power and of I to of and which provide the for the idea of human mastery over the (Schulz, 2017, p. Modern/Colonial subjectivity is driven by a will to and (Singh, 2018, p. This of Modern/Colonial Man by at the of for a method of the to the and of p. my In and to and Man seeks to and according to and In and to them, Man by disavowing their by the concrete relationships in which they stand and these with a of in which is the point of and himself from nature and by responsibilities and to and that which claims to and possession Man to nature an a to be a to be and at will (Mentz, 2019, p. pp. and colonial living to be and sources of to be and Indigenous peoples to be through and to to their lands to the of of Modernity/Coloniality, mastery and possession the of colonial power by to nature and other and thus the of the and colonial features of In a world by Modernity/Coloniality, mastery and possession As (2018, p. over nature is one such while sovereignty can be as an of this at the political and state and sovereignty, mastery and possession, and Modernity/Coloniality are all and they are of the of the Anthropocene. To the Anthropocene, I to the idea of sovereignty to ways of being in the world that mastery and possession and that may thus transcend Modernity/Coloniality. pretension to mastery and possession of both the human and world is concrete in the of sovereignty, associated with the As p. is the final, and political and and power within the of a of sovereignty is by a view of some is with the power to a for all its authority. this power is as it is not by or to of In an who is sovereign is the and of and all it and Yet, in claims to sovereignty are rarely or and through these challenges the of Modern/Colonial Man may be Yet, it is for such challenges to that which they as is the and mastery are to and mastery p. Singh, 2018, pp. 2014). and challenges to sovereignty need to a distinct of being and of being in the not merely sovereignty with a of To such and practices that to transcend Modernity/Coloniality, and which to ways of being otherwise in the I begin to how mastery itself by with the claims to a perfected sovereignty by states in settler colonial with a focus on Canada, with Indigenous As and settler should be as a the settler of land already by Indigenous This to a of have the of land from Indigenous presence and thus of settler As and p. the of settler which may be is of colonial is the settler will have Indigenous societies on their land, and this In that sense, the of settler the of Indigenous presence and thus challenges to the legitimate presence and of settlers on and over these lands. It is with settler for one to the responsibilities that come with being on Indigenous land and even the fact of being on Indigenous lands. more in political and this of settler the of settler authority. cannot be with their presence being as if they or because this their on the will of This is the even if the of settlers it claimed to sovereign from in settler colonial contexts. It rather and itself and political on practices and on the of already present Indigenous peoples, who the presence of through 2014). Yet, as settlers claimed and and and the of their to the of the lands they this settler sovereignty p. such that the of settlers to their The need and for a perfected settler sovereignty of the fact although Canada inherent and although these are to some on the by of their in article of the of settlers to be and the associated sovereignty of the are Indeed, the of Canada this is that while the on for their to their traditional from the that sovereignty and and the to such lands in the Indigenous and are then not to a of they are more on the and of the The settler state cannot Indigenous sovereignty and of the land precisely because it and its own perfected As in a settler colonial context, to be an The idea of a perfected sovereignty is also to of the of the of as by the of In in the it that “a basic of is the article in the of Canada of the of societies with the sovereignty of the we are all to a formulation does not question the perfected sovereignty of the because it is for Indigenous peoples to come to terms with the of settler presence and Yet, if Indigenous peoples how as but as a with distinct and the to be on Indigenous lands more to claim sovereignty over these lands and over Indigenous In this my point is not to because are and especially for Indigenous Indeed, a perfected settler sovereignty remains a Chapter the of according to which some Indigenous would have through the to and to the of the of Canada for all their and to the p. is by Indigenous peoples on the of their They that not land but through which a between settlers and Indigenous peoples would be in to the land 2014). This is a question in by Asch, with I that political of Indigenous peoples already at the that sovereignty it is the question of how the gained sovereignty that with the of Indigenous societies and not the other p. 11). for our in this question we may ways to settler sovereignty and thus claims to mastery and In to sovereignty, I Indigenous thoughts and practices that alternatives to the Modern/Colonial of and of being in the world. This is with the to of to an of (Singh, 2018, p. as a to decolonize the Anthropocene. I focus on the idea that Indigenous peoples and settlers can engage in reciprocal relationships of hospitality that on Indigenous stewardship of the land. This that settlers learn to be on the land and to Indigenous that settler the claim of settlers to to do this is for settlers to to themselves pp. Yet, such an not being transformative and if it is as one sovereign of the of the Indigenous This can be we consider being a as not to being to the sovereign of a but to being in a distinctive of reciprocal responsibilities and both on the of the and the in which the has a to To of we can to (2019) account of it to be a a and a which is by from and the land, from the to the and by with and from (2019, p. articulates the responsibilities of the and of the thus one to it according to Indigenous and regarding for non-Indigenous peoples to in ways with being on Indigenous lands and with the of Indigenous as This it to ways in which Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples can that do not sustain and the settler and thus Modernity/Coloniality. that a settler is who that they are on Indigenous lands but who does not to their (2019, p. and to the responsibilities that come with the fact of being on Indigenous lands. assert their in ways that for reciprocal relationships with Indigenous and that deny Indigenous political and distinct relationships to the land. In other they their perfected sovereignty over the land and over Indigenous In contrast, a is who that they are on Indigenous lands and seeks to responsibility for that is in with Indigenous peoples in ways that sustain Indigenous political and lifeways. It is also who and the distinct and of Indigenous peoples to their land. a an to the land, it is not who or that This is it can be that a is to the Land in a that stewardship and not 2019, p. is then both a to Indigenous peoples and on the a to Indigenous peoples is not from the land that is and from the responsibilities that come with the fact of being on this land and that Indigenous being a is not to being and of the is about having a of responsibilities and to and with the land are In settlers have been precisely as This that to think and in practices, be to guests. a is not by and it be through a transformative and political relationships and responsibilities are and in to be a not only is one to to in one is also and Indigenous and relationships to the land, which is a to the Modern/Colonial and subjectivity that the Anthropocene. This is because Modern/Colonial is by mastery and possession and by a distinction between the natural and the human Indigenous is by and for and As according to this view of is about how to or how to live in the within an ecological p. is about conduct that and responsibility for the relationships in which we stand pp. Indigenous is about not Indigenous deeply from mastery and possession relationships of and stewardship that are embedded in concrete ecological a thus settlers to themselves in a broader of that extends to and is the land. to be a of perspective about and how one stands in the It is a transformation of dominant Modern/Colonial associated with the and of political an of challenges mastery and possession and articulates a transformative of human agency to through and of the Anthropocene. As p. the to be the may not be the agent of without the intellectual of the In this context, the significance of Indigenous and ways of being in the world is that they offer transformative alternatives that do not on or the of mastery and possession associated with Modernity/Coloniality. for these Indigenous transformative alternatives to provide sovereignty to be and Modern/Colonial This that the of Indigenous peoples the of concrete political that and Indigenous and that mastery and possession may be and relationships to one another and to the world The Land Back movement is such a concrete political it has the to through the transformation of political the Canada has of Indigenous peoples of land. the of the by Indigenous in support of of the who present on their land to the of a The land and removed by the 2020). the of in to to their the and in on their and inherent to the and of non-Indigenous In of the of the the Land Back to a on claimed land & 2020). these movements have and are not a they remain by the demand to or Indigenous and over land. They can be as of the Land Back of the often in which we can the of the land to Indigenous peoples is through the of a of and is associated with the United on the of Indigenous and is required for or that would the and of Indigenous peoples or their land. For of I cannot the of to be as Indigenous peoples control of land, but this has been in the Back of the is the fact that Indigenous control over land in to the Land Back movement would not merely be a to address a demand for it is more a project of Indigenous and As and in Back is more the of its we we for the or for a of that to and the the that is land to be that it can and as an of we our in land and The Land Back movement is a demand for Indigenous knowledge and to relationships to the should be as 2020). It is thus a concrete path that can be in the to renew relationships with one another and to the land, Indigenous Although we should not Indigenous the understanding of the land that informs Indigenous and the that the reciprocal relationships in the land and in which we stand may be by Modern/Colonial The of sovereign by Modern/Colonial Man has to conduct all of the Anthropocene. Although a significant of humanity may now live in and the world is the land may not be to address our ecological but it would be a for settlers and Modern/Colonial Man, of their claim to mastery and possession of nature and of as p. of the of the land is not a by the although it may be highly for settlers to and to be are Although this project is distinctive of settler colonial contexts Canada and the United States, it is a significant of shared Modern/Colonial political practices and associated as The alternative political practices and this would be disruptive of the and would all to learn to act they are in the It Indigenous peoples to support the and of Indigenous lifeways, settlers on Indigenous lands to learn to be and individuals embedded in the Modern/Colonial of power to concrete ways in which relationships to one another and to can be in their contexts. Land Back thus offers a and concrete path for settlers and for Modern/Colonial Man to learn to be to acknowledge their responsibility to act in and for all of to to the world for who will This on by the and is in the of political at in political is on the and of political is a of the First

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.