Decolonization is the repatriation of Indigenous land and life. It is not a metaphor for social justice, critical pedagogy, or the diversification of settler institutions. This insistence — articulated most directly by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang in “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor” (2012) — is not a gatekeeping move but a refusal to let the specificity of the demand be dissolved into a general progressive agenda.
The metaphorical use of “decolonize” (decolonize the syllabus, decolonize your mind, decolonize technology) treats colonialism as primarily a mindset or a cultural pattern that can be addressed through attitudinal change within existing institutions. This framing leaves the material basis of settler colonialism — the occupation of Indigenous land — untouched and unmentioned. It is itself a settler move to innocence: it allows settlers to feel decolonial without confronting the structure they inhabit.
Decolonization in its non-metaphorical sense requires the return of land, the restoration of Indigenous governance over that land, and the end of settler sovereignty as the organizing principle of political life. This is incommensurable with the reform of settler institutions — not because reform is worthless but because decolonization and institutional reform are different projects with different requirements and different endpoints. Honest engagement with decolonization begins with acknowledging this incommensurability rather than resolving it prematurely.