Papers by Madeline Whetung
Journal of Aging Studies, Dec 1, 2022
Abstract This article emerged out of arts-based research carried out in Nogojiwanong (Peterboroug... more Abstract This article emerged out of arts-based research carried out in Nogojiwanong (Peterborough, Canada) in 2019, which explored community members' perspectives on aging futures within their shared place. Over the course of 2 days, a diverse intergenerational group came together to imagine positive aging futures, recording a series of group discussions and co-creating art through this process. Analyzed against efforts to expand dominant “successful aging” discourses, this research revealed three key themes. First, in contrast to unrooted and individualistic assumptions embedded within successful aging, participants identified attentiveness to place and community, and in particular relationships with Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg land, territory, and nation, as key to their visions for successful aging futures. Second, challenging assumptions about hetero-reproductive generativity as necessary for aging well, participants described their commitments to intergenerational relationships that are expansive, beyond biological ties, and existing within interspecies networks of relationships. Finally, contesting underpinning notions of aging as part of a linear process ending in death – and successful aging as inherently a struggle against this process – participants explored aging futures as part of a spiral temporality involving regeneration, identifying relationships with people and place that extend beyond the linear timeframe of singular lives, connected forward into a more distant future and backward into a longer past. We draw forth these themes in the interest of queering and decolonizing ongoing conversations surrounding successful aging and generativity within the field of aging studies.
Global Environmental Politics, Aug 1, 2019
This article examines the colonization of Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg territory by the Trent Severn ... more This article examines the colonization of Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg territory by the Trent Severn Waterway. By examining legal bracketing as a process within Canadian common law alongside prevailing Nishnaabeg philosophy and legal thought, I consider how the construction of a canal system connecting Lake Ontario to Georgian Bay disrupted practices integral to Nishnaabeg law. I offer up the concept of shoreline law as a way to understand particular place-based relationships that Mississaugas hold with water and land and other beings with which they share territory. In particular, I show how colonial domination of Nishnaabeg territory resulted in a gendered dispossession of land that continues to have reverberations throughout Nishnaabeg political systems today. Shoreline law offers up a way to rethink international relations by showing the importance of multiple relationships within the shared space of the shoreline. Yeah, it was me. i blew the fucking lift lock up in downtown peterborough and then tara wrote a song about it. so what. sue me. arrest me. i hated that thing and you should have hated it too, if you'd ever stopped to think about it critically, like even for a second, and so now parks canada has one less nationalism park in its collection of family jewels. big deal. 1 In 1833, in the territory of the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg, 2 a group of six white-settler men conspired to build a canal system of locks 3 and dams connecting
Elsevier eBooks, 2020
Anticolonialism in the twentieth and twenty-first century refers to two interconnected concepts: ... more Anticolonialism in the twentieth and twenty-first century refers to two interconnected concepts: a historical event and a critical analytic. As a historical event, anticolonialism means the struggle against imperial rule in colonized countries, mostly during the first half of the twentieth century. As a philosophical movement and critical analytic, anticolonialism is the under-acknowledged predecessor to postcolonial theory. In addition to agitating for national independence and postcolonial nationalism, anticolonial thinkers and activists debated the necessity of political solidarity as well as international cooperation-from Afro-Asian Solidarity to the Non-Aligned Movement (both of which were debated, together, at the 1955 Afro-Asian Conference at Bandung, Indonesia). Consequently, the history of anticolonialism as a theoretical and political practice illuminates an historical and analytical trajectory between the colonized world, the Third World, and the contemporary Global South. Although anticolonial critique has come from across the world (and from within British, French, and Spanish Empires),[1] this entry will focus on anticolonial agitation and philosophy from South Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These regions were highly active in anticolonial political organizing in the twentieth century and continue to form the bulk of the theoretical material on the complicated (and often unfinished) transition from occupation to freedom. Secondly, although anticolonialism-as a concept, practice, and philosophy-existed well in advance of 1900, this brief essay focuses on the forms of anticolonialism that have had the most sustained impact in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Anticolonialism as a historical event took many different forms across the world. South Asian anticolonial movements are generally considered to have taken place from the 1920s to 1947, the year in which India and Pakistan gained independence, although much anticolonial writing during this period references earlier moments, such as the 1857 Indian Mutiny.[2] M.K. Gandhi's anticolonial movement most famously employed tactics of non-violent resistance (ahimsa) against British Rule in India (see especially Gandhi's Hind Swaraj [1909]). Gandhi's methods were in direct contrast to other forms of anticolonial agitation in South Asia, namely revolutionary anticolonialism and nationalist anticolonialism. Revolutionary anticolonialism, especially in Punjab and Bengal, sometimes employed strategies of violent revolt against the colonial regime. It was deemed "terrorism" by the British Raj; however, the preferred description, "revolutionary," signals its affiliation with previous democratic and socialist revolutions, especially the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Bhagat Singh was a well-known adversary of Gandhi and a champion for revolutionary anticolonial agitation. Because Gandhi thought seriously about violence and revolutionary anticolonialists thought seriously about non-violence, "violence" is not necessarily a clean axis along which to separate these movements. Rather, they were often in conversation (if disagreement) with one another. Nationalist anticolonialism relied on a variety of different tactics but its focus was on defining the nation as an ethnically, religiously, or politically homogenous unit. In the context of British India, this includes most notably V.D. Savarkar's xenophobic Hindutva (1923) movement, which argued that true anticolonialism would rid the pure Hindu Indian nation of its two alleged "invaders": Muslims, as well as the British. Anticolonialism in anglophone Africa-which includes countries that are today Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and South Africa-is generally considered to have taken place from the 1920s to the 1960s, with movements rapidly gaining strength in the years following World War II and Indian Independence. They were also motivated by black U.S. thought (including the work of Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Du Bois, among others) as well as from Caribbean/black diasporic thought (C.LR. James, How to Cite:
This thesis is an exploration of Nishnaabeg geography in what is now known as Southern Ontario th... more This thesis is an exploration of Nishnaabeg geography in what is now known as Southern Ontario that takes into consideration the dominating settler colonial context. Using a mixed method of textual document analysis, and embodied research, I develop a Nishnaabeg geography of a region colonized by a the Trent Severn Waterway (TSW), a large canal composed of several locks and dams that connect natural lakes, and dense settlement in the form of privately owned cottages. The TSW was integral to establishing settlement in the region and is commemorated as a part of Canada's nation-building project over Indigenous lands. This research considers how the colonization of the water contributed to the creation of a built colonialscape and helped to spatialize Indigenous land relations as belonging "somewhere else." I argue that in spite of these imagined spatializations, the Indigenous landscape continues to live on beneath the built colonialscape in geographical layers.
Routledge eBooks, Jun 14, 2018
Anticolonialism in the twentieth and twenty-first century refers to two interconnected concepts: ... more Anticolonialism in the twentieth and twenty-first century refers to two interconnected concepts: a historical event and a critical analytic. As a historical event, anticolonialism means the struggle against imperial rule in colonized countries, mostly during the first half of the twentieth century. As a philosophical movement and critical analytic, anticolonialism is the under-acknowledged predecessor to postcolonial theory. In addition to agitating for national independence and postcolonial nationalism, anticolonial thinkers and activists debated the necessity of political solidarity as well as international cooperation-from Afro-Asian Solidarity to the Non-Aligned Movement (both of which were debated, together, at the 1955 Afro-Asian Conference at Bandung, Indonesia). Consequently, the history of anticolonialism as a theoretical and political practice illuminates an historical and analytical trajectory between the colonized world, the Third World, and the contemporary Global South. Although anticolonial critique has come from across the world (and from within British, French, and Spanish Empires),[1] this entry will focus on anticolonial agitation and philosophy from South Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These regions were highly active in anticolonial political organizing in the twentieth century and continue to form the bulk of the theoretical material on the complicated (and often unfinished) transition from occupation to freedom. Secondly, although anticolonialism-as a concept, practice, and philosophy-existed well in advance of 1900, this brief essay focuses on the forms of anticolonialism that have had the most sustained impact in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Anticolonialism as a historical event took many different forms across the world. South Asian anticolonial movements are generally considered to have taken place from the 1920s to 1947, the year in which India and Pakistan gained independence, although much anticolonial writing during this period references earlier moments, such as the 1857 Indian Mutiny.[2] M.K. Gandhi's anticolonial movement most famously employed tactics of non-violent resistance (ahimsa) against British Rule in India (see especially Gandhi's Hind Swaraj [1909]). Gandhi's methods were in direct contrast to other forms of anticolonial agitation in South Asia, namely revolutionary anticolonialism and nationalist anticolonialism. Revolutionary anticolonialism, especially in Punjab and Bengal, sometimes employed strategies of violent revolt against the colonial regime. It was deemed "terrorism" by the British Raj; however, the preferred description, "revolutionary," signals its affiliation with previous democratic and socialist revolutions, especially the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Bhagat Singh was a well-known adversary of Gandhi and a champion for revolutionary anticolonial agitation. Because Gandhi thought seriously about violence and revolutionary anticolonialists thought seriously about non-violence, "violence" is not necessarily a clean axis along which to separate these movements. Rather, they were often in conversation (if disagreement) with one another. Nationalist anticolonialism relied on a variety of different tactics but its focus was on defining the nation as an ethnically, religiously, or politically homogenous unit. In the context of British India, this includes most notably V.D. Savarkar's xenophobic Hindutva (1923) movement, which argued that true anticolonialism would rid the pure Hindu Indian nation of its two alleged "invaders": Muslims, as well as the British. Anticolonialism in anglophone Africa-which includes countries that are today Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and South Africa-is generally considered to have taken place from the 1920s to the 1960s, with movements rapidly gaining strength in the years following World War II and Indian Independence. They were also motivated by black U.S. thought (including the work of Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Du Bois, among others) as well as from Caribbean/black diasporic thought (C.LR. James, How to Cite:
This thesis is an exploration of Nishnaabeg geography in what is now known as Southern Ontario th... more This thesis is an exploration of Nishnaabeg geography in what is now known as Southern Ontario that takes into consideration the dominating settler colonial context. Using a mixed method of textual document analysis, and embodied research, I develop a Nishnaabeg geography of a region colonized by a the Trent Severn Waterway (TSW), a large canal composed of several locks and dams that connect natural lakes, and dense settlement in the form of privately owned cottages. The TSW was integral to establishing settlement in the region and is commemorated as a part of Canada’s nation-building project over Indigenous lands. This research considers how the colonization of the water contributed to the creation of a built colonialscape and helped to spatialize Indigenous land relations as belonging “somewhere else.” I argue that in spite of these imagined spatializations, the Indigenous landscape continues to live on beneath the built colonialscape in geographical layers.
Journal of Aging Studies, 2021
Abstract This article emerged out of arts-based research carried out in Nogojiwanong (Peterboroug... more Abstract This article emerged out of arts-based research carried out in Nogojiwanong (Peterborough, Canada) in 2019, which explored community members' perspectives on aging futures within their shared place. Over the course of 2 days, a diverse intergenerational group came together to imagine positive aging futures, recording a series of group discussions and co-creating art through this process. Analyzed against efforts to expand dominant “successful aging” discourses, this research revealed three key themes. First, in contrast to unrooted and individualistic assumptions embedded within successful aging, participants identified attentiveness to place and community, and in particular relationships with Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg land, territory, and nation, as key to their visions for successful aging futures. Second, challenging assumptions about hetero-reproductive generativity as necessary for aging well, participants described their commitments to intergenerational relationships that are expansive, beyond biological ties, and existing within interspecies networks of relationships. Finally, contesting underpinning notions of aging as part of a linear process ending in death – and successful aging as inherently a struggle against this process – participants explored aging futures as part of a spiral temporality involving regeneration, identifying relationships with people and place that extend beyond the linear timeframe of singular lives, connected forward into a more distant future and backward into a longer past. We draw forth these themes in the interest of queering and decolonizing ongoing conversations surrounding successful aging and generativity within the field of aging studies.
Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education, 2018
Indigenous women have a complex relationship to body image due to conflicting body ideals between... more Indigenous women have a complex relationship to body image due to conflicting body ideals between Indigenous and Western cultures; however, little is known about young Indigenous women’s perceptions of their bodies in sport. Upon receiving IRB approval, this project began as a qualitative description and evolved into the co-creation of a story or narrative about a young Indigenous woman boxer. The current study is a narrative inquiry into co-creating a narrative and our process of responsiveness. Narratives involve the use of story to create meanings. Referencing the narrative analysis works of Smith and Sparkes (e.g., 2006; 2009a; 2009b) and Anishinaabeg story-telling methodologies (Doerfler, Sinclair, & Stark, 2013), our study purpose was to inquire into the process of co-creating a space for story-telling research and to inform sport body image research methodologies with Indigenous Peoples. Phase one involved approximately 12-hours of iterative discussions to co-create the story...
Global Environmental Politics, 2019
This article examines the colonization of Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg territory by the Trent Severn ... more This article examines the colonization of Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg territory by the Trent Severn Waterway. By examining legal bracketing as a process within Canadian common law alongside prevailing Nishnaabeg philosophy and legal thought, I consider how the construction of a canal system connecting Lake Ontario to Georgian Bay disrupted practices integral to Nishnaabeg law. I offer up the concept of shoreline law as a way to understand particular place-based relationships that Mississaugas hold with water and land and other beings with which they share territory. In particular, I show how colonial domination of Nishnaabeg territory resulted in a gendered dispossession of land that continues to have reverberations throughout Nishnaabeg political systems today. Shoreline law offers up a way to rethink international relations by showing the importance of multiple relationships within the shared space of the shoreline.
Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 2015
Activists and academics have increasingly drawn on the concept of "food justice" in recent years.... more Activists and academics have increasingly drawn on the concept of "food justice" in recent years. While this trend is encouraging, we argue that a focus on "inclusion" by these actors may actually work to reproduce inequitable relationships. Food justice research and practice should thus move beyond inclusion to connect food system inequities to interlocking structures of oppression, such as capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and colonialism. In Canada, placing food justice in the context of ongoing processes of colonialism-and recognizing that no justice can happen on stolen land-is particularly important. While we make these suggestions, we do not claim to have all the COMMENTARY ON RACE AND ETHNICITY IN FOOD SYSTEMS WORK
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Papers by Madeline Whetung