Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States

275 Pages·2014·1.39 MB·English

by  Audra Simpson

MOHAWK
INTERRUPTUS

MOHAWK
INTERRUPTUS
{ POLITICAL LIFE ACROSS THE BORDERS OF SETTLER STATES }
Audra Simpson
Duke University Press Durham and London 2014
© 2014 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-f ree paper ∞
Designed by Heather Hensley
Typeset in Warnock Pro by C0pperline Book Services, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Simpson, Audra.
Mohawk interruptus : political life across the borders of settler
states / Audra Simpson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978–0–8223–5643–1 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn 978–0–8223–5655–4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Mohawk Indians–Quebec (Province)–Kahnawake Indian
Reserve–Ethnic identity. 2. Mohawk Indians–Quebec
(Province)–Kahnawake Indian Reserve–History. I. Title.
e99.m8s56 2014
971.4004'975542–dc23
2013042833
in Loving memory:
Danielle N. Terrance,
1973– 2013
A best friend to all of us.

Contents
ix AcknowLedgments
1 chApter one Indigenous Interruptions:
Mohawk Nationhood, Citizenship, and the State
37 chApter two A Brief History of Land, Meaning,
and Membership in Iroquoia and Kahnawà:ke
67 chApter three Constructing Kahnawà:ke as an
“Out- of- the- Way” Place: Ely S. Parker, Lewis Henry
Morgan, and the Writing of the Iroquois Confederacy
95 chApter Four Ethnographic Refusal:
Anthrop0logical Need
115 chApter Five Borders, Cigarettes, and Sovereignty
147 chApter six The Gender of the Flint: Mohawk
Nationhood and Citizenship in the Face of Empire
177 concLusion Interruptus
195 Appendix A Note on Materials and Methodology
201 notes
229 reFerences
251 index

Acknowledgments
Much of this book is about the labor to live a good life. The peo-
ple of the Mohawk nation at Kahnawà:ke do this work with great
verve and equanimity, while enduring and pushing against the
ongoing stress and structure of settler colonialism. Their com-
mitment to the principle of a good mind and to the struggle to
maintain and then assert that principle has inspired and forms the
core questions of this book. I am deeply, deeply grateful to them
for this, and for holding on to everything.
Kahnawà:ke, the Mohawk Nation, and the Haudenosaunee are
embedded conceptually and in different ways politically in the
global category of “Indigeneity” and of course, by extension, In-
digenous peoples. I owe an ongoing debt—a general one that is so
broad and simultaneously categorical as to seem abstract, to those
whose lives and lands brought forth the questions that animate
this book. Indigenous peoples within and beyond Kahnawà:ke
continue to strive and in so doing sustain questions of profound
theoretical and political importance—questions of persistence,
vigor, and dignity in the face of grinding power—as well as the
disavowal of staggering wrongdoing.
I am fortunate to be around people who care deeply and think
very hard about these sorts of things. I am especially grateful to
Beth Povinelli, Roz Morris, Lila Abu-L ughod, Brinkley Messick,
and Nadia Abu El-H aj for their careful readings, before which this
was a different book. I am grateful to the entire Anthropology