{"id":2223,"date":"2019-01-07T08:00:39","date_gmt":"2019-01-07T14:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=2223"},"modified":"2019-01-06T12:12:48","modified_gmt":"2019-01-06T18:12:48","slug":"settler-colonialism-and-minnesotas-wall-of-forgotten-natives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2019\/01\/07\/settler-colonialism-and-minnesotas-wall-of-forgotten-natives\/","title":{"rendered":"Best of 2018: Settler Colonialism and Minnesota\u2019s \u201cWall of Forgotten Natives\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Protest calling to remove Fort Snelling in Minnesota. Photo by Fibonacci Blue, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Originally posted October 9, 2018.<\/em><\/p>\n

In recent months, a <\/span>homeless encampment of over 300 people<\/span><\/a> — most of whom are American Indian — has formed along a highway noise wall in Minneapolis. The encampment has been self-proclaimed the \u201c<\/span>Wall of Forgotten Natives<\/span><\/a>\u201d by residents and Indigenous activists who point out that much of Minneapolis is built on stolen Dakota land. Social and health service providers have mobilized around the encampment, and city officials have worked with community leaders to begin a <\/span>relocation of people at the encampment to more stable housing on Red Lake Nation land<\/span><\/a>. The wider context for the establishment of the camp, American Indian solidarity and resistance to disbanding the camp, as well as the government\u2019s response, all highlight the process of settler colonialism.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the United States, settler colonialism is defined as the control of land and its resources by white settlers who seek political power\/control in a new space (i.e. like \u201cregular\u201d colonialism) through both displacement and violence against Indigenous persons in order to eventually replace the Native population (i.e. unlike \u201cregular\u201d colonialism). Until recently, studies of Indigenous people have largely been absent from sociological research and some have referred to this as sociology\u2019s \u201ccomplicity in the elimination of the native.\u201d Scholars have begun to incorporate settler colonialism into research on the domination and dispossession of various racial and ethnic groups.<\/h5>\n