Unveiling: The Colonial Catch-22

This week, I had the pleasure of attending the National Women's Studies Association annual meeting, held in Baltimore and centered around the theme, "40 Years After Combahee: Feminist Scholars and Activists Engage the Movement for Black Lives." As part of my participation, I was selected to take part in the Women of Color Leadership Project: a full professional development, leadership, and networking program. I also moderated and presented in the panel, "Challenging Coloniality: Indigenous Activism in the US and Canada." 

As part of my paper presentation, I was delighted to unveil my concept of the "Colonial Catch-22." This term captures the ways in which the violent conditions of settler colonialism render indigenous peoples forced to make undesirable, unfair, and unfree decisions for their lives, families, and nations. The Colonial Catch-22 manifests on every level of indigenous peoples' lives, from the daily tasks of what foods to eat and what parenting techniques to employ, to the structural organizations of our sovereign governments and laws. 

To learn more about my theorizing of the Colonial Catch-22, please see the following references: 

Elizabeth Rule, Reproducing Resistance: Gendered Violence and Indigenous Nationhood, May 2018.

Elizabeth Rule, "Sealfies: Contemporary Indigenous Motherhood and Gendered Violence in Canada," American Quarterly, December 2018, Volume 70, Issue 4.

Elizabeth Rule, "Marry Out, Move Out: The Indian Act and Mohawk Girls," Women’s and Gender Studies Intellectual Forum at MIT, Cambridge, MA, 15 April 2017. 

Elizabeth Rule, “Blood Quantum Biopolitics: Indigenous Peoples and Assisted Reproductive Technologies,” Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, Vancouver, BC, 23 June 2017. 

Elizabeth Rule, “Mohawk Membership Law under Settler Colonial Conditions,” American Society for Legal History, Las Vegas, NV, 26 October 2017.