Introduction: Unsettle the Struggle, Trouble the Grounds

• Published in: Postmodern culture Vol. 31; no. 1
• Main Author: Smythe, SA
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.09.2020
• Subjects: African Americans; American Indians; Artists; Black studies; Black white relations; Borders; Capitalism; Citizenship; Civil rights; Colonialism; Diaspora; Ecology; Economic development; Epistemology; Exploitation; Genocide; Geography; Geopolitics; Human rights; Imperialism; Indigenous peoples; Internal migration; Islands; Labor migration; Land; Native peoples; Native studies; Nativism; Plot (Narrative); Politics; Racism; Sovereignty; White supremacy; Turtle Island; California; United States > US; Africa; Latin America
• ISSN: 1053-1920; 1053-1920
• DOI: 10.1353/pmc.2020.0021

This special issue is inspired into an ecology of thinking that seeks to dwell in deep relation with the scholars, artists, and visionaries proliferating conversations between Black and/or Indigenous peoples that show an abiding need for tuning into and across difference to name the possibilities for our collective liberation. This inspiration also points to the proliferation of conversations beyond the white settler colonial gaze. Troubling the Grounds: Global Configurations of Blackness, Nativism, and Indigeneity lingers over the perceived incommensurability of Black and Indigenous life, and has emerged as a result of many conversations, explorations, and indeed frustrations about the ways Black and Indigenous life wor(l)ds are taken up, buried, and mystified across various geographical contexts. It was the name of a conference held at the University of California, Irvine, in May 2019, that I co-organized with Dr. Sandra Harvey. The symposium was thus held on the homelands of the Tongva peoples who, in the face of ongoing settler colonialism, continue to act as stewards of their ancestral lands as they have for the past 8,000 years. As Black visitors to the land, we moved with curiosity about the possibilities for connection. The greater Los Angeles area is home to some of the largest Indigenous populations in the United States. It is the ancestral homeland of the Tongva, the Acjachemen, the Chumash, the Tataviam, the Cahuilla nations, the Chemehuevi, the Pipa Aha Macav, the Morongo, the Pechanga, the Yuhaaviatam, and the Soboba among many other peoples. It is also presently home to large communities of Indigenous peoples from the greater Turtle Island, the Pacific Islands, and Latin America, including Zapotec and Mixtec peoples.