The Sources of Solidarity: Negotiating the Horizons of Indigenous-State Relations between Moderate and Radical Views

Abstract

The following thesis is concerned with articulating the ways to reconcile moderate and radical views of Indigenous-state relations and finding compatible sources of solidaristic support between those endeavours. Moderate top-down statism (the moderate view) is represented by Charles Taylor and Dale Turner, and it holds that relations between Indigenous peoples and the state be maintained and fostered through careful dialogue. The state acts as the main top-down thoroughfare which policy and social change concerning Indigenous peoples happen. Radical bottom-up anti-capitalist solidarity (the radical view) is represented by Glen Coulthard, Eve Tuck, and K. Wayne Yang. It maintains that continued state relations only perpetuate the colonial and capitalist relationship between Indigenous peoples and the state, so it is necessary for Indigenous peoples to turn away from the state in an act of self-recognition, affirmation, and Indigenous resurgence, causing social change and solidarity to happen from the bottom up. Yet the radical view holds that the sources of solidarity for decolonization are incommensurable with frameworks of social justice, severely limiting legitimate forms of solidarity towards decolonial ends. Pablo Gilabert’s dignitarian approach and its concepts of solidaristic empowerment and the basis of dignity will be used to attempt to reconcile the moderate and radical views, both of which can be framed under dignitarian concerns. The argumentative conclusions of this thesis are (1) a pluralistic notion of solidarity is needed, (2) notions of justice which aim to expand the general population’s imagination can come from varied sources to (3) make the challenging demands of decolonization more receptive and (4) indicate what “social justice” can become. This happens along a temporal arc of social transformation and a Gadamerian fusion of horizons, expanding the imagination and the sources of solidaristic support.