Before diving into my photo essay, it is important to understand how “settler colonialism destroys to replace” (Wolfe, 2006) Unlike extractive colonialism, settler colonialism does not only claim land to extract resources but for establishing permanet residence. As a result, settlers continue to use and abuse ‘Indigenous bodies’ as objects for their consumption. Here, Indigenous bodies refer to more than Indigenous human bodies but also to Indigenous bodies of knowledge, land and water.
Examples:
- Settlers use, abuse and value Indigenous human bodies as laborers. However, once Indigenous people resist settler control, they lose their value and are labeled a problem or a threat. To combat Indigenous resistance, settlers work to eliminate Indigenous people both culturally and biologically.
- Settlers use and abuse Indigenous knowledge to extract Indigenous resources from land and water while ignoring Indigenous knowledge of sustainability.
In “Decolonizing Feminist Freedom: Indigenous Relationalities, Allison Weir emphasizes the importance of decolonial relationality while challenging notions of Western secular knowledge. She states:
“One is connected by descent, country, place and shared experiences where one experiences the self as part of others and others as part of the self; this is learnt through reciprocity, obligation, shared experiences, co-existence, co-operation and social memory” (260).
Meaning, Indigenous ways of knowing recognize that all aspects of the natural world are connected and share a relationship. For Indigenous people, human knowledge is not considered superior to the knowledge of other beings. For example, some consider the knowledge of rocks superior to human knowledge because rocks have been here the longest (264). Thus, Indigenous ontologies (ways of being), epistemologies (ways of knowing) and axiology (ways of doing) encompass a richer and fuller knowledge because they incorporate “diverse knowledges” (266).
The images I chose are meant to depict various “Indigenous bodies” while emphasizing the importance of decolonial relationality of humans and non-human bodies.
Image 1: Kwe becomes the moon, touches herself so she can feel full again by Quill Christie-Peters (http://gutsmagazine.ca/kwe-becomes-the-moon).
I chose this painting because its attention-grabbing and because of the way Christi-Peters has infused the human body with nature. In the article, she discusses the ways in which settler colonialism works to remove the self from the body to clear Indigenous bodies from homelands for settler occupation. Her painting is meant to depict how intimacy between the self and the body can be a form of reclaiming homelands. (Here is a link for Christie-Peters’ podcast Decolonizing Sexuality thru Painting: https://soundcloud.com/feralvisions/quill-violet-christie-peters-on-decolonizing-sexuality-thru-painting-fv-ep-14 )
Image 2: The Land is Ceremony by Erin Konsmo (http://www.albertanativenews.com/activist-christi-belcourt-says-youth-will-lead-the-way-into-the-future/ )
I chose this image because it portrays Indigenous relationality to land as an on-going practice. It depicts that land continues to be ceremony or sacred to Indigenous people.
Imagine 3: Water is Life (Artist: Christi Belcourt, Source: (https://canadianart.ca/features/walking-softly-with-christi-belcourt/ )
I chose this image because it depicts the importance of water as life and as the source of life. Moreover, it depicts water’s role in the cycle of life and the ways in which people are connected to it.
Imagine 4: Bless Sacred Indigenous Bodies (nalgonapositivitypride)
I chose this image because it reiterates that all Indigenous bodies are sacred.
Imagine 5: Honor the Sacred (Pinterest.com)
I chose this image to end my photo essay because I want viewers to reflect on its message and connect it with Weir’s suggestion that Western practices of knowledge should recognize that Indigenous ontologies, epistemologies and axiology may provide a “better knowledge” (266). She states that decolonizing feminist knowledge requires practices of self-transformation and transformation of Western practices of knowledge.
