Thank you for your reflexive and interesting sketch.
You state that you are “unaware of the scholars’ origins and would argue that googling their ethical background for this sketch could potentially reinforce stereotypes.” This is an important point and something I am also currently reflecting over.
One way this can be addressed that I have come across to identify authors as they identify themselves, which then also implies leaving them “unmarked” where there is little to find on their own identification.
In Pollution is Colonialism (2021, p. 3-4) Max Liboiron (Michif-settler, they/she) puts it this way in one long footnote:
“It is common to introduce Indigenous authors with their nation/affiliation, while settler and white scholars almost always remain unmarked, like “Lloyd Stouffer.” This unmarking is one act among many that re-centres settlers and whiteness as an unexceptional norm, while deviations have to be marked and named. Simone de Beauvoir (French) called this positionality both “positive and the neutral, as is indicated by the common use of man to designate human beings in general.” Not cool. This led me to a methodological dilemma. Do I mark everyone? No one? I thought about just leaving it, because this is difficult and even uncomfortable to figure out, but since this is a methods text I figured I should shit or get off the pot. [...]
In light of this complex terrain, my imperfect methodological decision has been to identify all authors the way they identify themselves (thank you to everyone who does this!) the first time they appear in a chapter. If an author does not introduce themselves or their land relations, I mark them as “unmarked.” [...]
I take up this method so we, as users of texts, can understand where authors are speaking from, what ground they stand on, whom their obligations are to, what forms of sovereignty are being leveraged, what structures of privilege the settler state affords, and how we are related so that our obligations to one another as speaker and listener, writer and audience, can be specific enough to enact obligations to one another, a key goal of this text. How has colonialism affected us differently? Introducing yourself is part of ethics and obligation, not punishment. Following Marisa Duarte’s (Yaqui) example in Network Sovereignty, I simply introduce people in this way by using parentheses after the first time their name is mentioned. Duarte, Network Sovereignty."
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this at the workshop!
Best,
Anna
