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Alfred Taiake and A “Resurgence” to decolonize thinking

Taiaiake Alfred | Writers' Trust of CanadaTaiaiake Alfred was born in 1964 in Montreal in 1964 and was raised in Kahnawake’s Mohawk Territory. He is Professor of Indian Governments and Political Science at the University of Victoria. He specialized in the area of traditional governance, the recovery of cultural practices based on land and decolonization strategies. He has work on the “first nations” of the territories of North America and has written several books among which stand out: Wasáse: Indigenous paths of action and freedom (University of Toronto Press, 2005), named in 2010 as one of the most influential books in Native Studies by the Association of Native American and Indigenous Studies; Peace, Power, Righteousness (Oxford University Press, 1999/2009); and Heeding the Voices of Our Ancestors (Oxford University Press, 1995).

His work involves denouncing the impacts of environmental contamination on indigenous cultural practices and promotes the development of cultural recovery communities based on reoccupation, of traditional lands within the scope of the “resusrgencia” theory.

His theory of “Resurgence” is based on three points of indigenous claim: Claim Rename and Reoccupy

To claim ownership of traditional territories and their cultures as a way to relearn indigenous heritage as a process of liberation from colonialism, seeking the “resurgence or rebirth of an indanity based on the connection to land. Issi implies renaming the territories and things in order to recover the connection to themselves and the places of origin and finally the reoccupation of the original places and objects to reestablish the ties that colonialism was broken with the land and with the culture.

References:

ZEMA, Ana Catarina; DRUMMOND, Clarisse; PATAXÓ, Keyla. Resurgence *: paths towards decolonization in the thought of Taiaiake Alfred. PerCursos, Florianópolis, v. 22, n.48, p. 04 – 30, Jan./Apr. 2021. (DOI: 10.5965 / 19847246224872021004) http://dx.doi.org/10.5965/1984724622482021004