Decolonization is not a metaphor

by Eve Tuck, K. Wayne Yang

Our goal in this article is to remind readers what is unsettling about decolonization. Decolonization brings about the repatriation of Indigenous land and life; it is not a metaphor for other things we want to do to improve our societies and schools. The easy adoption of decolonizing discourse by educational advocacy and scholarship, evidenced by the increasing number of calls to “decolonize our schools,” or use “decolonizing methods,” or, “decolonize student thinking”, turns decolonization into a metaphor. As important as their goals may be, social justice, critical methodologies, or approaches that decenter settler perspectives have objectives that may be incommensurable with decolonization. Because settler colonialism is built upon an entangled triad structure of settler-native-slave, the decolonial desires of white, non-white, immigrant, postcolonial, and oppressed people, can similarly be entangled in resettlement, reoccupation, and reinhabitation that actually further settler colonialism. The metaphorization of decolonization makes possible a set of evasions, or “settler moves to innocence”, that problematically attempt to reconcile settler guilt and complicity, and rescue settler futurity. In this article, we analyze multiple settler moves towards innocence in order to forward “an ethic of incommensurability” that recognizes what is distinct and what is sovereign for project(s) of decolonization in relation to human and civil rights based social justice projects. We also point to unsettling themes within transnational/Third World decolonizations, abolition, and critical space-place pedagogies, which challenge the coalescence of social justice endeavors, making room for more meaningful potential alliances.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Essays, Theory, Philosophy, Indigenous, History

40 pages, ebook

Published September 8, 2012

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

From a Marxist perspective, I found this work rather disappointing. Here's the second footnote for an example of what I'm talking about.

"Colonialism is not just a symptom of capitalism. Socialist and communist empires have also been settler empires (e.g. Chinese colonialism in Tibet). 'In other words,' writes Sandy Grande, 'both Marxists and capitalists view land and natural resources as commodities to be exploited, in the first instance, by capitalists for personal gain, and in the second by Marxists for the good of all' (2004, p.27). Capitalism and the state are technologies of colonialism, developed over time to further colonial projects. Racism is an invention of colonialism (Silva, 2007). The current colonial era goes back to 1492, when colonial imaginary goes global."

This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of socialism and communism. Marxists seek to de-commodify land and property, just the opposite of what the authors assert. The essay also erases the history of millions of colonized people who used Marxism as a tool to liberate themselves in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

There's some useful insight in this work on the use of the term "decolonize" in academia, depictions of colonialism in media, and the paucity of research on indigenous people in social sciences, but that's where the usefulness of this essay ends. There's a hyperfocus on language, but also a refusal to make clear statements on ACTIONS that need to take place for the liberation of working class and indigenous people.

"[D]ecolonization is not obliged to answer those questions, - decolonization is not accountable to settlers, or settler futurity. Decolonization is accountable to Indigenous sovereignty and futurity" the authors claim. What exactly are "those questions"? They would be "[W]hat will decolonization look like? What will happen after abolition? What will be the consequences of decolonization for the settler?"

The "settlers" (a term the authors use to also include people of color in the United States), are still here and make up 99% of the country's population. How exactly does is benefit indigenous people to NOT lay out a basic vision for what decolonization will mean for the majority of people who's job it is to decolonize?

The clock is ticking. Capitalism is in crisis. Human life on Earth is in danger. I can't in good faith applaud left-wing literature that discourages readers from taking action and shames those who are already trying their best for not already being familiar with Tuck and Yang's analysis of decolonization.

Tuck and Yang Claim they "don’t intend to discourage those who have dedicated careers and lives to teaching themselves and others to be critically conscious of racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, xenophobia, and settler colonialism." However by spending 40 pages discussing their wrongdoing, criticizing efforts at solidarity, and rejecting the possibility of even saying what the future of these people should be, the end result is demobilization of a Left that lacks anything close to the power it needs to make sure we have a future at all.

[minj · Rating 5 out of 5]

reminded me of what a friend said: we as Asian immigrants to the U.S. belong as much as white ppl do.. which is to say we really don't, since we're all living on stolen land.

[Meriam Issa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fundamental read, one to revisit regularly.

[John Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

First thing's first, this isn't a book. This is a 40 page article that introduces the concept of settler colonialism and material decolonization as a real alternative. There are books out there (Global Indigenous Politics, The Land is Our History, etc.) that delve into settlerism and indigenous resistance/political strategies, but most of the solutions offered by those books center around the legal and political sphere. Tuck and Yang make a more radical and revolutionary claim: that settler colonialism has changed the ontology of land itself, and the only definition of decolonization that makes sense in the American historical context is a literal transfer of land.

There are claims in Tuck and Yang that I intuitively disagree with; namely, the labelling of modern immigrants as settlers definitely makes me feel uncomfortable. At the same time, the analysis of settler colonialism as being not a historical event, but an ongoing process, strikes me to rethink about the relation that I personally have with living on this land. At the end of this article, it's hard not to agree with the authors' analyses of settler moves to innocence and how erasure of settler colonialism happens in pedagogical spaces.

A short but grappling read, there's a reason this article has cemented itself as one of the most important in contemporary Indigenous studies. 5/5.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

unsettling, but that's the point

[Theodore]

an act of destruction, a rupture from the previous colonial system (ie. heads will literally roll)

[Pink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grave intéressant, sur la question des colonisations de peuplement et de ce que cela implique. De la différence entre l'anti-colonialisme et la décolonisation. De l'inefficacité politique de créer un univoque entre toutes les expériences des personnes colonisées.

C'est très localisé aux US avec le genocide des natifs américains. Mais ça peut être aussi utile dans d'autres endroit comme ce qui se joue en Palestine.

[Kab · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[Saivani · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read this over 20 times for sure. My favourite piece of writing ever. I’ve recommended this to friends, family, professors, strangers, acquaintances, etc.

[Brice Karickhoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short and unbelievably dense. I was interested in this book for two reasons:

1. It offers a neo-Marxist critique of the pedagogy of the oppressed, which is a neo-Marxist classic. And nothing helps you understand a worldview like reading arguments between two of its adherents

2. “Decolonization” is a buzzword I don’t understand. And I hear it getting used more and more often by those who have successfully driven cultural narratives in the past (for better or for worse)

Turns out the most interesting thing about this book to me was actually peripheral to the point the authors were so passionately making. I was interested in the discussion of how a word or idea can be made into a metaphor in order to be less disruptive to those who wish to incorporate the word into their worldview.

This book goes after social justice types who so carelessly incorporate decolonization rhetoric into their ideas without realizing that many of the “oppressed groups” they represent are also culpable “settlers”. Using this sleight of hand, they put their morals at ease, believing they are participating in decolonialization without actually doing anything to actually reverse imperial colonialism.

I think people of ALL ideologies are guilty of this very sleight of hand. Whether it’s “follow the data” or “trust gods word” or “decolonialize school curriculum”, we are all tempted to just say things that seem right to us without ever confronting how difficult it might be for us to literally do the thing even when it rubs against our underlying beliefs.

As for colonial theory itself, I don’t get it. Unless you wanna hit the puse button at 5000 BC, basically all land anyone has ever settled on has been stolen from someone else in a bloody conflict. That doesn’t make it ideal, but I digress. It’s not ideal that an animal had to die for me to eat my dinner tonight but I’m still gonna eat it.

[Macy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to my Native Studies professor for introducing this work; it's a foundational and fundamental piece that will inform my life and politics for years to come. I hope to revisit it continuously through my studies and career. It especially feels important to everyone looking to understand (and teach about) how decolonization, as a term and concept, is consistently misused for the sake of phony social justice.

[Ben · Rating 1 out of 5]

The reviews for this paper, minus the overt reactionaries and exceptions, consist of a bunch of starry-eyed pseuds marveling at the wondrous profundity of a rock. Maybe it’s better that most people look at the catchy title and don’t bother with reading the paper. “Essential”, “fundamental”, “foundational”—what the fuck is going on here?

The actual paper is a mix of somewhat interesting media critique, intra-shit slinging at fellow academics, and the usual academese—plus some Cold War anti-communist tropes, just for fun. Tuck and Yang tell us: "'In other words,' writes Sandy Grande, “both Marxists and capitalists view land and natural resources as commodities to be exploited'". Bravo!

The critique of Occupy was good, but if you want a critique of Euro-Amerikan settler socialism, J. Sakai’s book is literally right there. That’s to say that the insightful bits are just a result of collating citations, not originality. Considered as a whole, this thing is an incoherent mess, like a warmed-up candy-bag after a night of trick-or-treating. And the cynical careerist aspirations are pretty clear, both here and—sorry, is this low hanging-fruit?—Tuck’s embarrassing condemnation of October 7th. No, this is not a good introduction for anything at all. There is nothing here you can’t find dealt with elsewhere. In the main, it suffers from the inane liberal definition of “settler-colonialism” as people settling somewhere. Tuck and Yang cite Barker’s definition, but basically drop it in their discussion of ‘brown settlers’. This is all very radical in form, but in content, all analytical clarity goes out the window. There are references to "whiteness", “crisis” and surplus populations, and the settler-native-slave triad—and then a Native-enslavable Other—Orientalized Other triad! Do Tuck and Yang understand their own concepts? They marvel at elusive appearances—that a subject population can occupy one position in society and then another—but have nothing to say about the internal logic which animates these shifts. In any case, the endpoints of this shitty definition are idiots facetiously asking if Genghis Khan did a settler-colonialism or Zio-fascists arguing that Arabs settler-colonized the Levant. (Patrick Wolfe tries to say this about the waning Qing acquisitions if I recall so this is maybe just a problem with the field as a whole).

Now, as for the conclusion: this really pisses me off. Um, are the authors aware that the questions of “what will decolonization look like? What will happen after abolition? What will be the consequences of decolonization for the settler?” arise in the main not from “settler moves to innocence” but in the context of revolutionaries seeking to fight settler-colonialism? Did Tuck and Yang forget that their beloved Fanon spends most of Wretched hitting upon these questions, of the orientation a revolutionary vanguard must take towards the national bourgeoisie, the peasantry, and the lumpen? Are the authors unaware that these were burning questions for the oppressed nations of the Empire and still are? That answering this question means the difference between the Oslo Accords and the Évian Accords? Or to move beyond that, between neocolonialism and socialism? Or, i.e. that these are questions that arise precisely from the historical practice of decolonization, not the wild imaginations of white people?

Well, Tuck and Yang are nice enough to tell us what they think decolonization isn't! Notable Zionist Albert Memmi is resurrected to argue that the goal is not for “Indigenous peoples or Black and brown peoples [to] take positions of dominance over white settlers; the goal is not for everyone to merely swap spots on the settler-colonial triad, to take another turn on the merry-go-round.”.
Are these people serious? This is literally that "reverse slavery" meme with MLK smiling in the sky while a Black overseer whips his white plantation workers. How radical to champion decolonization only to so pathetically condemn it in practice. We should all be very “unsettled”, lmao.

[Cass · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely essential reading for settlers

[reoccurrence]

“Decolonization eliminates settler property rights and settler sovereignty. It requires the abolition of land as property and upholds the sovereignty of Native land and people.” This is the first paper I’ve read about decolonization and I feel shocked, confused, and honestly skeptical. I am uneducated in this subject so I won’t write down my initial reactions. I plan on reading more about this, including the reading list provided in this paper.

[Coco]

Not putting a star rating on this one because I'll have to read it again sometime to fully grasp it. Admittedly, academic language is hard for me to parse during this season of my life.

[Mariam Trifess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read this

[Diego · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mfs called out a good chunk of my class icl

Strong message doe

[Adam Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book serves as an extremely good introduction to settler colonial theory. I first started reading this because my mentor recommended this as one of the first books to read to learn the structure settler colonialism. The book blew my mind out of proportion of how in-depth it was, not simply talking about settler moves to innocence but also potential frameworks for decolonization and how unsettling they were. The book had also made me acknowledge my own relation to settler colonialism and how through the collapse of the triad of categorization, minorities could become forms of settlers by quasi-assimilating and modeling themselves into the white settler.

The introduction of settler colonialism as a permeating structure and not as an event seems to be a core idea to the processes of this theory. To realize that the mass genocide of natives and commodification of their land was not a one off event, and instead a structure that continues to hide itself to this day is shocking. The settler state utilizes forms of internal colonialism to hide itself and simultaneously erase the natives via institutions such as boarding schools. It normalizes the everyday mass death and exploitation of the native to further entrench itself permanently and achieve the end goal of replacing the native with themselves. The effects of internal colonialism seem to further entrench settler colonialism into society, seen with the metaphorization of decolonization to distract away from the reparation of indigenous land and life. There are many ways to metaphorize decolonization but all seem to have the effect of removing the settler of their guilt of being a settler and preventing any material decolonization because of this.

This book is perfect to recommend to anyone who wants to understand the structure of settler colonialism and how everyday acts may perpetuate it. The book is a good start to settler colonial theory and will guarantee a mind-blowing read. It truly unsettles our thinking of who we are in relation to the world and how we should think about ourselves.

[Dessi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This academic article argues against the popularization and misuse of the term “decolonization”, as it was originally conceived, in current notions such as “decolonize your bookshelves”, “decolonize your classrooms”, “decolonize your thinking”. This is a useful perspective and a reminder that language matters, that it’s not all the same. What we mean when we say “decolonize your X” is “include Indigenous voices”; a just and necessary call to action. But colonization means setting up a colony in a foreign land, therefore it’s inextricably tied to the land. You cannot colonize a bookcase, so when we make the call to decolonize it, we’re using the term as a metaphor. This, the authors argue, dilutes the real meaning of the term - a call for “the repatriation of Indigenous land and life”. In doing so, it facilitates “settler moves to innocence” - an allyship to “alleviate the impacts of colonization” that attempts “to reconcile settler guilt and complicity, and rescue settler futurity”. The authors go on to explain the concepts of external vs internal colonialism, and then the different types of settler moves to innocence, which was very informative.

But if decolonization is not a metaphor, it is an utopia. The authors use the words “unsettling” and “incommensurable” to define it, and rightly so. What is the goal of decolonization? They write:

“To fully enact an ethic of incommensurability means relinquishing settler futurity, abandoning the hope that settlers may one day be commensurable to Native peoples. It means removing the asterisks, periods, commas, apostrophes, the whereas’s, buts, and conditional clauses that punctuate decolonization and underwrite settler innocence. The Native futures, the lives to be lived once the settler nation is gone - these are the unwritten possibilities made possible by an ethic of incommensurability.”

And this is just; of course it is. But is it possible? Not unless you literally burn it all down and maybe not even then. The settler nation will never be “gone”, and you can never send everyone living on colonized land “back”. “Back” to where?

I’m a white born and raised Argentinian woman, living in Argentina, which is colonized land. If tomorrow I want to live in what today is Indigenous-owned land, and so the government seizes that land for me to colonize, a true decolonizing action could fairly be enacted - I can be kicked back to where I came from. Many such cases, actually. Right now, though, I can’t be kicked “back” anywhere else. I was born here; my parents and my grandparents were born here. I have no more right to go live in the country of my ancestors than I do to live here; there’s no land waiting for me there; I’m an immigrant there, a foreigner.

I appreciated reading this perspective, but it’s not the lightbulb moment I thought it would be; I didn’t find a clear path forward that doesn’t turn out to be a settler move to innocence except… tear down my home, which I don’t even own, and leave, I guess. And maybe that’s the whole point of the article, that it just can’t be done but we still should avoid using decolonization as a metaphor for diversity/inclusion/decentering of colonizer perspectives.

But if there isn’t a more attainable goal to decolonization, if reconciliation and cohabitation are not possible - then for all intents and purposes, decolonization might as well be a metaphor.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an enlightening read that discusses and outlines how the United States was founded on settler colonialism and further discusses what settler colonialism is. It provides novel and interesting arguments regarding decolonization and how some attempts and interpretations and viewpoints on decolonization are troubling since they focus on the settler narrative. It also discusses what decolonization should be: the repatriation of indigenous land and life, not a metaphor to simply just improve our societies. It's a must read for anyone interested in understanding settler colonialism.

[Jenny Star · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yes, we know decolonization is not a metaphor.
Yes, we know you hate all white people and think we should be dispossessed for being born.
Yes, we know you want to take our homes by force and drive us to - where, exactly? Probably a death camp.
We know when you say decolonization you mean white genocide.
Please write more books like this so people can be aware of the violent victimhood narrative you espouse and how you think you will take everything away from us because "we didn't earn it" due to our genetics.

[Myha Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE foundational framework for decolonization. "Because settler colonialism is built upon an entangled triad structure of settler-native-slave, the decolonial desires of white, non-white, immigrant, postcolonial, and oppressed people, can similarly be entangled in re-settlement, reoccupation, and reinhabitation that actually further settler colonialism".

[tam truong · Rating 5 out of 5]

an undeniably fundamental read that i believe to be one of the most important pieces of past, present, and future history. How to merely understand a fraction the abominations this country has committed, how to unlearn it, how to talk about it, and how to start fixing it.

[june bug · Rating 5 out of 5]

great essay grounded in the materiality of what colonization means, thus separating decolonization from its ghoulish forms within new age spiritual spaces, culturally appropriating white communities and mainstream media.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many, many things to think about, resources to follow up on.

This is also available as a pdf online.

[S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Decolonization in exploitative colonial situations could involve the seizing of imperial wealth by the postcolonial subject."

This changed my politics entirely. A must-read.

[Brishti · Rating 5 out of 5]

EYE OPENING

[Noah_Wasa Mata · Rating 5 out of 5]

An uncomfortable read but a necessary one. Everything your subconscious knows about this issue is brought up on the surface for 40p. I know I’ll reread this.

[Clouvisse · Rating 2 out of 5]

je pense tout pareil que ce qu'il est écrit dans le com de Matthew mais en français

[Lio Smits · Rating 5 out of 5]

unsettling, maar heel cruciaal