Introduction to the special issue on indigenous politics

Abstract

At its core, Indigenous politics reflects the adaptability and resilience of Native governments, people, and nations, and the failure of powerful states to assimilate Indigenous people into broader society. In the United States and around the world, democratic and non-democratic regimes of settler-colonial states were predicated on the assimilation of Native people and the disappearance of Indigenous governments through political, legal or extralegal means. Yet contrary to predictions, and indeed expectations among many non-Indigenous leaders that Native people would cease to exist or simply meld into mainstream society, Native peoples have not just survived, but thrived in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The articles in this special issue show how Indigenous peoples and political leaders around the world are engaged in politics and policymaking, and negotiating power, at the local, regional, national, and international levels. For scholars of Indigenous politics, the research presented in this special issue is further confirmation of the quality and scope of the work already underway. For those less familiar with Indigenous research, this special issue provides a first look at the depth and breadth of an often underexamined area of political research. It also serves as an invitation to include Indigenous politics in all areas of political science. The study of Indigenous politics is the study of power and survivance. Indigenous peoples have long faced powerful political actors who would benefit from their eradication, either from their very presence in society or as actors in the political process. Yet there is far more to Indigenous peoples and Indigenous politics than bare survival. Indigenous politics is creative and unsettling, embodying the power of resistance. It is in line with Gerald Vizenor’s definition of Native survivance where he sees “native presence and actuality over absence, nihility and victimry” (2008, 1). The fusion of survival and resistance generates politics that are dynamic, not merely historic or reactive. Native survivance includes active defiance of “absence, deracination, and oblivion” (2008, 85). Survivance also entails a healthy “mockery of dogged academics” and other outsiders who let their expectations get in the way of actual observation (2008, 2). To borrow from Philip Deloria’s phrasing, Native peoples are in unexpected places, doing unexpected politics. As a result, non-Indigenous