Idle No More and Black Lives Matter: An Exchange (Panel Discussion)

Abstract

In this panel exchange, Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Black Studies scholar Rinaldo Walcott speak about Idle No More (INM) and Black Lives Matter (BLM) respectively, with Yellowknives Dene scholar Glen Coulthard responding to them both. The speakers were invited to situate Indigenous and Black resistance in the post2010 global movement assemblage. Walcott and Simpson situate BLM and INM within longer histories of struggle for freedom and being, and address translocal connectivities, but notably without using the language of assemblage. Each for their own reasons rejects assemblage thinking in favour of forms of critical thought arising from histories of resistance with which they are identified: the radical Black tradition, Nissnaabeg intelligence, and Indigenous resurgence more generally. Simpson offers a compelling alternative to assemblage in the image of “constellations of co-resistance.”