Decolonization is not a Metaphor

Decolonization is not a Metaphor is an essay authored by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang in 2012ce that analyzes the appropriation of "decolonization" in academic and activist discourse. (NO_ITEM_DATA:TuckYang2012) They claim that decolonization must refer to the material repatriation of Indigenous being, not a class of actions they describe as "settler moves to innocence".

Decolonization is not an "and". It is an elsewhere.

• Using decolonization to describe educational reform, social justice, or shifts in consciousness dilutes its meaning and recenters settler futurity
  • settler moves to innocence
• Incommmensurable Ethic:
  • decolonization is incommensurable with civil rights or inclusivity project
    • rupture, not reform or reconciliation
• Triadic settler-colonial roles:
  • settler, native, slave
    • all can reproduce colonial logics with misapplied "decolonization"

  @article{DecolonizationIsNotAMetaphor,
  author  = {Tuck, Eve and Yang, K. Wayne},
  title   = {Decolonization is Not a Metaphor},
  journal = {Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education \& Society},
  year    = {2012},
  volume  = {1},
  number  = {1},
  pages   = {1--40},
  url     = {https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630}
}