Sovereignty, Governance, and Indigenous Peoples: Engaging with Indigenous Political Thought

Indigenous worldviews, experiences, and political thought are still largely marginalised in mainstream political studies. Outside of critical political science research which has increasingly focused on decolonization and recognition of the coloniality of knowledge (Grosfoguel, 2007; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013), Indigenous issues continue to be engaged with in ways that objectify Indigenous peoples, rather than recognize their ongoing contributions to political praxis and theory. However, the entanglement of their historical and socio-political experiences with Euromodernity due to colonization processes has meant that Indigenous peoples have been at the forefront of some of the key challenges posed by/to political modernity. Often through the reintroduction and reimagination of their traditional ontologies, epistemologies, and philosophies, Indigenous peoples have articulated alternatives to some of the basic precepts and conundrums of political modernity, including sovereignty, multiculturalism, recognition, universalism/relativism, self-determination, or democracy. Their role and influence in international and national political developments are increasingly significant, as exemplified by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), the Bolivian Constitution (2009), or the increasing engagement of Indigenous representatives at the United Nations and in national governments. These developments signify a wave of change for political science and highlight the importance of engaging with Indigenous political thought. Particularly, European scholarship has long been at the centre of colonial thought and coloniality, shaping the narrative. We argue that practical, theoretical and methodological richness lies in engaging with Indigenous worldviews, knowledges, and practices. As a result, this joint session resolutely claims a space for Indigenous politics within (European) political science with an eye on encouraging more researchers and academic institutions to engage with, and include, Indigenous issues and research in their work. More specifically, this workshop aims to foster a dialogue between Western and Indigenous political thought on questions of sovereignty and governance. Through diverse political claims and mobilisations, Indigenous peoples are pushing political imaginations on how to organise and construct political communities. For instance, Indigenous scholars are theorising models of self-determination that disrupt the paradigmatic model of modern state sovereignty (Alfred, 1999; Coulthard, 2014; Simpson, 2014). In other cases, Indigenous peoples and organisations are articulating their own claims of sovereignty, although as a differentiated conception disconnected from statehood and linked to alternative political models and philosophies (MacDonald & Lightfoot 2017; Matike Mai Aotearoa, 2016; Moreton-Robinson, 2007). Alternatively, Indigenous peoples pursue their claims of self-determination and sovereignty by integrating existing local, national, and international governance systems and statutes, often transforming these in the process (Gagné & Salaun, 2010; Postero & Tockman, 2020). Therefore, Indigenous peoples force us to re-think many of the ‘modern’ political ideas, assumptions and dominant models of political authority, sovereignty, and governance. Either explicitly or implicitly, their political praxis and thinking thus constitutes a key site for the growing agenda of decolonizing political science, political thinking, and politics itself (Emejulu, 2018; Shilliam, 2021; Tuck & Yang, 2012).