Synopses & Reviews
Decolonizing Solidarities is a thorough examination of the problems that can arise when activists from colonial backgrounds seek to be politically supportive of indigenous struggles. Blending key theoretical and practical questions, Clare Land argues that the impulses that drive middle-class settler activists to support indigenous peoples will not lead to successful alliances and meaningful social change without an essential process of public political action and critical self-reflection.
Based on a wealth of in-depth interviews and original research, with a focus on Australia, Decolonizing Solidarities provides a vital resource for anyone involved in indigenous activism or scholarship.
Review
“Excellent. . . . The book is written in a way that is accessible to a range of allies outside academic circles and speaks to real case studies which can be resonate with other contexts.”
Synopsis
In this highly original and much-needed book, Clare Land interrogates the often fraught endeavours of activists from colonial backgrounds seeking to be politically supportive of Indigenous struggles. Blending key theoretical and practical questions, Land argues that the predominant impulses which drive middle-class settler activists to support Indigenous people cannot lead to successful alliances and meaningful social change unless they are significantly transformed through a process of both public political action and critical self-reflection.
Based on a wealth of in-depth, original research, and focussing in particular on Australia, where - despite strident challenges - the vestiges of British law and cultural power have restrained the nation's emergence out of colonising dynamics, Decolonizing Solidarities provides a vital resource for those involved in Indigenous activism and scholarship.
About the Author
Clare Land is a research fellow at Deakin University.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Introduction
1. Land rights, sovereignty and Black Power in south-east Australia
2. A political genealogy for contemporary non-Indigenous activism in Australia
3. Identity categories: how activists both use and refuse them
4. Collaboration, dialogue and friendship: always a good thing?
5. Acting politically with self-understanding
6. A moral and political framework for non-Indigenous people's solidarity
7. Reckoning with complicity
Conclusion: Solidarity with other struggles
Appendix I. Acronyms
Appendix II. Key events and organizations in south-east Indigenous struggles
Appendix III. Biographies of people involved in the book
Appendix IV. Links to original activist documents