This panel brings seeks to explore what solidarity entails in the context of Turtle Island and Palestine. Who and what is a settler? Are migrants people of color, settlers, or “arrivants” (Byrd, 2011)? What do these different nomenclatures mean, and what are the subject’s ethical-political positioning and responsibilities in interconnected geographic sites that are historically, materially, and symbolically related? What is the role of spirituality and religion, if any, to liberation, given how, on the one hand, Palestine is depicted by Leftists in the Global North as a "secularized" struggle, despite how, on the other hand, the role of spirituality in liberation is emphasized by Indigenous scholars and movements. What does Indigenous, Palestinian and (even Black) liberation mean in light of how Afro-Indigenous and POC struggles are entwined? Is there such a thing as a one- or two-state solution to Palestine when the nation-state and racial capitalism are entwined products of modernity? Drawing upon this wide-ranging set of questions, the speakers will discuss whether the settler state can be decolonized, and provide insights about how we move forward in building relationships of solidarity in the context of the states in which we find ourselves positioned and living within. They will also discuss how bimaadizowin, the Anishinaabe concept of a good life, has to offer us as we seek different centers around which to revolve.

Hosted by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies as part of its work on Inequalities, Identities, and Justice, and co-sponsored by the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program.

Speakers

Through writing and podcasting, Patty Krawec (Anishinaabe/Ukrainian) explores how we might live differently in the relationships we inherit. She is a co-founder of the Nii'kinaaganaa Foundation and the author of Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future (Broadleaf Books, 2022). Her work on Indigenous identity and thinking has also been published in Sojourners, Rampant Magazine, Midnight Sun, Yellowhead Institute, Indiginews, Religion News Service, and Broadview.

Dr. Dana Olwan is Associate Professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies and affiliate faculty in the Middle Eastern Studies and the Native American and Indigenous Studies programs at Syracuse University. Her research is located at the nexus of feminist theorizations of gendered and sexual violence, solidarities across geopolitical and racial differences, and feminist pedagogies. Her writings have appeared in the Journal of Settler Colonial Studies, the Canadian Journal of Sociology, Feral Feminisms, Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture and Social Justice, American Quarterly, and Feminist Formations. She is the author of Gender Violence and Transnational Politics of the Honor Crime (Ohio University Press, 2021) and co-editor, with Margaret Pappano, of Muslim Mothering: Local and Global Histories, Theories, and Practices (Demeter Press, 2016).

Moderator

Mohamed Abdou (Global Racial Justice Postdoctoral Fellow, Einaudi Center)