An academic article by Sarah Shulist and Celeste Pedri-Spade exploring the harms that may occur when non-Indigenous people learn Indigenous languages in order to claim Indigenous identities.

The article abstract reads:

This article examines the role that Indigenous language learning and use can play in the establishment of false or spurious claims to Indigeneity. These acts of “race shifting” are situated within the political discourse of “Truth and Reconciliation” and serve to enable settlers to situate themselves in positions where, both materially and symbolically, they rely on their claims to “Indigeneity” to take up resources dedicated to Indigenous people. Indigenous language use and language revitalization programs provide tools that can enable these performances of Indigenous identity to become more widely accepted among predominantly settler audiences. We argue that increasing consciousness of the inherently political nature of Indigenous language work – often framed as a move toward language reclamation – must be pushed even further, to consider the possibility that some users are not reclaiming but in fact claiming. These acts of claiming the language function in much the same way as claims to land have within settler colonialism – to dispossess Indigenous people and to disrupt Indigenous sovereignty.

 

The full article is available at: