Scott Rutherford, ‘Colonialism and the Indigenous present: an interview with Bonita Lawrence’, Race and Class (2010)

Abstract:

In this interview, a leading scholar of Indigeneity, Bonita Lawrence, discusses some of the crucial issues facing Native people in Canada today. She reflects on the denial of citizenship arising from the Indian Act’s definition of ‘Indianness’ – which, in Lawrence’s words, reduces cultural identity to racial identity. Also examined are the dilemmas of finding common ground between Indigenous struggles against the colonialism of the Canadian settler-state and the anti-racist struggles of Black people and other racialised groups. Exploring the interaction of Black and Indigenous peoples in Canada, it is argued, reveals the limitations of a superficial multiculturalism.

Keywords: anti-colonial resistance, anti-racism, Indian Act, Native identity, settler colonialism