Politics 125: The Politics of Indigeneity

This course introduces Indigeneity as a historical, political and relational formation. By historically grounding the term in the colonial imposition of the category of “indian” in the fifteenth century, we will explore Indigeneity’s multiple genealogies and mutations across the Americas. While contemporary Indigenous movements and organizations have critically adopted and adapted Indigeneity as a political category to advance collective projects of territorial sovereignty and self-determination, the course will familiarize students with the intricate relation between indigeneity, race and ethnicity. For this, it will be organized into thematic sections that conceptualize indigeneity alongside race and ethnicity, while also challenging Indigeneity as a state imposed “racial identity” (North America) or “ethnic identity” (Latin America). On the contrary, even though Indigeneity has been structurally formed in relation to race and culture, its contemporary deployment and development by Indigenous scholars and activists point to the political nature of this concept.