Aporias of decolonial solidarity

Abstract

As environmental movements increasingly embrace calls to decolonize relationships to lands and waters in solidarity with Indigenous nations, such proclamations do not make settler entanglements in the colonial present any less tricky. Drawing on interviews with forest defenders from the Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek logging blockades of 2020-21, we identify several ‘moves to innocence’ that activists employed in their efforts to reconcile their stated commitment to decolonization with the uncomfortable fact that their presence was unwelcomed by leaders of the Pacheedaht nation. Where Indigenous communities are divided over controversial issues such as resource extraction, standing in solidarity always means standing with some from that community but not others. This requires the settler ally to decide which forms of Indigenous self-determination they support – a decision which can aggravate divisions while also undermining the principle of self-determination itself. We argue that in settler colonial contexts, settler-Indigenous solidarity takes the form of an aporia – a species of contradiction in which no course of action remains uncompromised, yet some action must be taken. Rather than seeking the refuge of an unimplicated position, we argue that navigating the aporia demands taking responsibility for the ethically/politically fraught decisions that the settler ally cannot not make.