Beyond Settler Time: Temporal Sovereignty and Indigenous Self-Determination

by Mark Rifkin

What does it mean to say that Native peoples exist in the present?  In Beyond Settler Time Mark Rifkin investigates the dangers of seeking to include Indigenous peoples within settler temporal frameworks. Claims that Native peoples should be recognized as coeval with Euro-Americans, Rifkin argues, implicitly treat dominant non-native ideologies and institutions as the basis for defining time itself. How, though, can Native peoples be understood as dynamic and changing while also not assuming that they belong to a present inherently shared with non-natives? Drawing on physics, phenomenology, queer studies, and postcolonial theory, Rifkin develops the concept of "settler time" to address how Native peoples are both consigned to the past and inserted into the present in ways that normalize non-native histories, geographies, and expectations. Through analysis of various kinds of texts, including government documents, film, fiction, and autobiography, he explores how Native experiences of time exceed and defy such settler impositions. In underscoring the existence of multiple temporalities, Rifkin illustrates how time plays a crucial role in Indigenous peoples’ expressions of sovereignty and struggles for self-determination.

Genres: Indigenous, Theory, Nonfiction, Politics, Grad School, History, Academia

296 pages, Hardcover

Published February 24, 2017

Reviews

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes, a book has a premise that smacks you upside the head and rearranges your perception of the world. For me, "Beyond Settler Time" was such a book, especially as it came upon the tail of reading "Do Glaciers Listen?" by Julie Cruikshank. Does this mean that professor Mark Rifkin has written a perfect intellectual tome that reads like a dream? Not in the slightest. At times, the tediousness of academic-speak made my reading progress come to a standstill, and some chapters were downright laborious and in need of serious editing. Yet the concept is so rich, and the content so thought provoking at times that I cannot give "Beyond Settler Time" anything less than five stars.

"What does spatial copresence at a supposed moment of time mean in terms of thinking the relation between those "simultaneous" events? What does that spatial copresence have to do with the flow--process of unfolding, becoming--within the experience of duration? What does presence at the same time mean in these terms except being able to be plotted on a grid such that events occupy an "identical" temporal plane?"

While Rifkin is primarily speaking of American Indian peoples forced to adopt the settler historical narrative thrust upon them, I thought the implications of this question were massive. This is not to downplay in any way the absolute necessity for Indigenous peoples here in the Americas and elsewhere to be given sovereignty in a way that doesn't in some way force acquiescence to the settler state. Yet I couldn't help taking this concept into thinking about individual trauma and the undervaluing of the subjective narrative in medicine, and even further into how the history of scientific medicine has coevolved with this same settler state. Needless to say, I'll be thinking on this book for some time.

The quotes from this book are manifold, and it would take me a couple of hours to recount them all here. If you're at all interesting in Indigenism, time, trauma, and history, I cannot recommend this book enough.

[Holden Bukowsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think Rifkin has a phenomenal and unique concept of thinking through colonial practices. However, the writing style of the book I think really detracts from its readability, especially beyond the first two chapters and the conclusion. Overall, I would recommend this book in segments to most, but if you are wishing to take on a dense and difficult reading with some really cool concept, this is a good book to pick up.

[Adrianna Michell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I dont really write real reviews on goodreads and Im not going to start now. All I'll say is this book's introduction has some worthwhile info, but I have a list of things I would recommend before this book. I take issue with its arguments, use of citation, and methodology.

anyway...

[غبار · Rating 1 out of 5]

"modes of periodization; the felt presence of ancestors; affectively consequential memories of prior dispossessions; the ongoing material legacies of such dispossessions; knowledges arising from enduring occupancy in a particular homeland, including attunement to animal and climatic periodicities; knowledges arising from present or prior forms of mobility; the employment of generationally iterated stories as a basis for engaging with people, places, and nonhuman entities; the setting of the significance of events within a much longer timeframe (generations, centuries, or millennia); particular ceremonial periodicities; the influence and force of prophecy; and a palpable set of responsibilities to prior generations and future ones."

—p19

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting discussion of temporality and temporal sovereignty. Rifkin defines temporal sovereignty as follows: as in Einstein's theory of relativity, the passage of time is relative and thus based on one's sociocultural context of time. In the case of Indigenous peoples, Indigenous time pushes up against and can even overlap with settler-colonial time. This leads to an unequal relationship to time. For example, think of a person trained in so-called "traditional" Indigenous medicine who moves to the city to learn "modern" medicine. There is a time and a place for both forms of medicine - sometimes both at once. The trick is for this Indigenous person to navigate temporal spaces without being bound up in settler-colonial time. Rifkin very nicely ties in queer theories of temporality and orientation (think Elizabeth Freeman's chrononormativity and Sara Ahmed's queer phenomenology respectively) in this discussion, which is where I find my entry point.

My issue with this book is that Rifkin's writing and ability to maintain a thought is ATROCIOUS. Like, he does this thing where he'll introduce a point, write multiple page-long paragraphs reviewing previous scholarship vaguely related to said point, and then move on to another point, without ever getting to the point of his goddamn point!! Rinse, wash, repeat. What should be a fairly simple concept ends up being incredibly unwieldy in his hands. My office-mate warned me that his writing is like this but I had no clue how bad it really is. Even later in the book when he starts doing close readings of different texts he falls into this overly complicated page-long paragraph routine. Frankly, it's poor writing.

Besides the concept of temporal sovereignty, what I got out of this was a lot of great texts for future reading. Rifkin's citation game is off the charts terrific. But man, his writing... eesh.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really compelling premise, although a bit dense. Lots of interesting sources that I’m going to check out.

[Blaze-Pascal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting premise, I think fewer words could have been spilt to state something similar. It's a bit tedious to read.

[Mills College Library]

970.00497 R564 2017