Synopses & Reviews
Mohawk Interruptus is a bold challenge to dominant thinking in the fields of Native studies and anthropology. Combining political theory with ethnographic research among the Mohawks of Kahnawandagrave;:ke, a reserve community in what is now southwestern Quebec, Audra Simpson examines their struggles to articulate and maintain political sovereignty through centuries of settler colonialism. The Kahnawandagrave;:ke Mohawks are part of the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois Confederacy. Like many Iroquois peoples, they insist on the integrity of Haudenosaunee governance and refuse American or Canadian citizenship. Audra Simpson thinks through this politics of refusal, which stands in stark contrast to the politics of cultural recognition. Tracing the implications of refusal, Simpson argues that one sovereign political order can exist nested within a sovereign state, albeit with enormous tension around issues of jurisdiction and legitimacy. Finally, Simpson critiques anthropologists and political scientists, whom, she argues, have too readily accepted the assumption that the colonial project is complete. Belying that notion, Mohawk Interruptus calls for and demonstrates more robust and evenhanded forms of inquiry into indigenous politics in the teeth of settler governance.
Review
andquot;This brilliant ethnographic and political study of how the Mohawks of Kahnawandagrave;:ke live and enact their sovereign nationhood and refuse incorporation is a masterpiece. It challenges and transforms the way Indigenous politics is studied in Anthropology and Political Science and deserves the widest possible readership.andquot;
Review
andquot;Mohawk Interruptus is Audra Simpson`s bold challenge to the academic apprehension of the Iroquois. She has succeeded brilliantly. This book is now the authoritative history of Kahnawandagrave;:ke and a powerful statement that recasts our people and redefines how research on Indigenous peoples should be done. This is a long-awaited book by the most intelligent, passionate and incisive of Iroquois intellectuals. It makes me proud to be from Kahnawandagrave;:ke and deeply impresses me as a scholar.andquot;
Review
andquot;Few other works on contemporary Native American community politics are as wide-ranging and theoretically sophisticated as Mohawk Interruptus. By examining many competing but linked understandings of Mohawk national identity, Audra Simpson exposes a uniquely Indigenous and Iroquoian conception of community that transcends national and ethnographic prescriptions of unitary and fixed social identities.andquot;
Review
andldquo;In her brilliant study of Kahnawandagrave;:ke, a Mohawk reserve outside Montrandeacute;al, anthropologist Simpson rejects this dominant image of indigenous nationhood on the brink and andlsquo;starts with a grounded refusal, not a precipice.andrsquo; The author problematizes long-standing assumptions to position the actions of the Kahnawandagrave;:ke nation as that of refusal, a valid alternative to political recognition. Through in-depth ethnographic research, Simpson identifies what is important to the community, as evidenced by her discussion of important intellectual Louis Hall, whose analysis of Mohawk nationhood has deeply influenced Haudenosaunee people, yet has been largely ignored by scholars. and#160;. . . Such incisive analysis promises that this study will be influential and widely read. . . . Essential. All levels/libraries.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Simpson accomplishes what she set out to do in this text, namely to offer a critical evaluation of settler colonialism as experienced by Kahnawandagrave;:ke Mohawk. Her book is beautifully written: her prose is elegant, and she interweaves ethnographic research with political history and theory to build her argument. andhellip; Simpson enhances our understanding of how a community of people struggle to understand, and why they must continually fight for, their political independence after centuries of settler colonialism.andrdquo;and#160;
About the Author
Audra Simpson is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1. Indigenous Interruptions: Mohawk Nationhood, Citizenship, and the State 1
2. A Brief History of Land, Meaning, and Membership in Iroquoia and Kahnawandagrave;:ka 37
3. Constructing Kahnawandagrave;:ka as an andquot;Out-of-the-Wayandquot; Place: Ely S. Parker, Lewis Henry Morgan, and the Writing of the Iroquois Confederacy 67
4. Ethnographic Refusal: Anthropological Need 95
5. Borders, Cigarettes, and Sovereignty 115
6. The Gender of the Flint: Mohawk Nationhood and Citizenship in the Face of Empire 147
Conclusion. Interruptus 177
Appendix. A Note on Materials and Methodology 195
Notes 201
References 229
Index 251