Indigenous Resurgence and Settler Accumulation: a discussion of environmental stewardship & colonial economies

Keywords: Indigenous Peoples, Conservation, Economic Development, Settler-colonialism
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

North American conservation approaches have slowly undergone a sea change towards increasing recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ rightful role as expert stewards of ecosystems and biodiversity. Paired with geopolitical climate change forces, these approaches have helped create new economies of Indigenous-led stewardship despite ongoing territorial and economic dispossessions. Focused on abundance over accumulation, Indigenous-led conservation-based economies with values counter to the infinite growth operating in settler capitalisms could support the development of postcapitalist futures. However, despite promising advances in the recognition of Indigenous rights and modes of environmental stewardship, conservation practice has largely remained embedded within settler sovereignty and capitalist economic relations retaining the assumption of Indigenous subordination to a dominant political and economic order. This paper probes the implications of these assumptions within the economic spaces of Indigenous conservation by linking them to the David Harvey’s theory of accumulation by dispossession. It attempts to explore where economy can question its location within colonial enclosures of deterritorialization and open up to diverse Indigenous worldviews in order to substantiate just and reconciliatory economic transitions and move forward a decolonial and postcapitalist future. Understanding the active presence of colonial accumulation in contemporary neoliberal constructions of environment are key to supporting Indigenous environmental stewardship practices and to configure new paradigms of grounded economic activity.