HUMANNATURE SERIES: AMERICAN DREAMING IS INDIGENOUS ELIMINATION

Native American Dance
Photographer: Timothy K Hamilton © Timothy K Hamilton

Join Kim TallBear as she considers the strange intersections between nature, nation, and the lives and deaths of Indigenous peoples in the USA.

Kim TallBear reviews the narratives of nature – especially a sharp division between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’– that have been central to building and maintaining US empire, portraying Natives as the less-evolved children of nature in need of elimination through massacre or assimilation.

Narratives of American exceptionalism also drive dominant stories the US tells about itself. These narratives justify commanding “natural resources”— not only Indigenous lands and waters, but also Indigenous biologicals and the bodies of our nonhuman relatives.

These narratives of nature and nation continue to justify nation-building visions across the American political spectrum. In this talk, TallBear highlights how American dreaming in any form, including anti-racist moves of the present, are irredeemably co-constituted with the doctrine of inevitable Indigenous elimination.

6.00 pm: Welcome drink & refreshments.
6.30 pm: Talk and Q&A

Online tickets available through Eventbrite

Cash-only tickets available at the door, subject to availability.