andrea smith reviews kevin bruyneel and frank pommershelm

05Apr11

In Perspectives on Politics 9 (2011), Andrea Smith reviews:

The Third Space of Sovereignty: The Postcolonial Politics of U.S.–Indigenous Relations. By Kevin Bruyneel. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. 320p.

Broken Landscape: Indians, Indian Tribes, and the Constitution. By Frank Pommersheim. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

a bit of it:

Both of these books provide helpful analytics and strategies for addressing the continued assault on tribal sovereignty in the short term. Pommersheim directs us to practical legal strategies though constitutional remedy that can stop the US Supreme Court’s erosion of tribal sovereignty. Bruyneel reframes the analytics by which we understand sovereignty struggles. He advocates that we reject simple binaries in which Native peoples must be either completely assimilated into US polity or solely outside it. Such a binary always positions Native peoples as a disappointment whenever they fail to escape colonial conditions completely. Given the continued and dire assaults on Native sovereignty brilliantly outlined by Pommersheim and Bruyneel, the strategies and analytics they proffer are critically important. To explore the writings of scholars who articulate a longer-term vision of ending settler colonialism, those of Waziyatawin, Jennifer Denetdale, Taiaike Alfred, Glen Couthard, Robert Nichols, Dian Million, and Jennifer Denetdale provide a helpful starting point.