The Erasure of Indigenous People from the Urban Imaginary: Understanding Settler Colonialism and the Logics of Elimination

Abstract

This activity introduces students to thinking critically about settler colonialism, specifically within a US context, and how it operates through a logics of elimination by examining how take-for-granted assumptions about race, space, and history reproduce settler-colonial worldviews. In part I, students are briefly introduced to the concept of settler...

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Details

Subject Area(s):

Race, Class and Gender, Racial and Ethnic Relations

Resource Type(s):

Class Activity

Class Level(s):

Any Level

Class Size(s):

Medium, Small

Usage Notes

Please see activity document for Usage Notes.

Learning Goals and Assessments

Learning Goal(s):

1. Students will reflect on their baseline knowledge of colonialism and begin to think about where they gather knowledge and assumptions about where Indigenous peoples reside in the US.
2. Students will begin to think critically about Indigenous representation in media and its connection to the racialization of space in the US.
3. Students will begin to understand the unique dimensions of settler colonialism, including elimination, erasure, dehumanizing discourses of savagery, and invisibility.

Goal Assessment(s):

1. Students will journal their responses to questions in parts I and II and then share with the class in part III of the activity.
2. Students will bring their journal responses into conversation with their observations from the film, Reel Injun.
3. Drawing on the discussion and materials from parts I, II, and III, students will write a short essay reflecting on the similarities, differences and possible intersections between anti-Indigenous racism and settler colonialism on the one hand and other structures of racism and oppression on the other hand.