Queer Settler Colonialism, Anti-Racism, and Two-Spirit Critique

Monday, April 23, 2012 — Rolfe 2125, 4-6 pm

Two-Spirit activists have worked within Two-Spirit movements and within their nations to decolonize gender and sexuality among Native people. In the process, Two-Spirit activists have demanded antiracist and anticolonial activism in queer / trans movements. In white settler states, queer / trans movements form under conditions of white-supremacist settler colonialism; but only rarely do they target those conditions for critique. Anti-racism by people of color does challenge racism and many forms of colonialism in queer / trans politics. But what happens if racism on stolen land is understood to derive from the ongoing settler colonization of Native nations: a power that conditions all politics on that land, including antiracism?
PRESENTER: Scott Morgensen, Queens University
MODERATOR/ORGANIZER: Mishuana Goeman, Assistant Professor, Women’s Studies, UCLA
RESPONDENT: Elton Naswood, Director, Red Circle Project
COSPONSORS: Center for the Study of Women, Department of Women’s Studies, American Indian Studies Center, LGBT Studies Program, Postcolonial Literature and Theory Colloquium, American Indian Student Association, and American Indian Graduate Student Association