Last Updated on March 18, 2025
Indigenous resurgence can take place in a multiplicity of ways in our everyday experiences, in various realms of life and on individual, interpersonal, and institutional levels. Although it occurs in diverse forms and carries different meanings across and within communities, it is generally understood as comprising a process of critically informed action or praxis rather than a body of theory or ideas. Yet as more writers (including the contributors to this volume) engage with questions surrounding the nature, form and implications of different approaches to resurgence, it is becoming increasingly evident that resurgence movements also have a strong theoretical component.
This article explores the practical consequences of the way in which Indigenous resurgence is theorized. It begins by reviewing the everyday implications of different ways of conceptualizing resurgence, arguing that they have the potential to circumscribe our movements in ways that can seriously undermine or strengthen their efficacy and success. It explores the limitations of a unitary or fixed approach to resurgence, and advances a relational understanding as more insightful at the level of inquiry and more productive in practice. Ultimately, this chapter examines how political projects that conceptualize resurgence as a relational, dynamic process allow for a more robust, equitable and accessible range of movements than permitted by a static, singular conception.
In contemporary discussions on Indigenous decolonization and resurgence, there has been significant attention in recent years to the limits and contradictions of working towards our political objectives within liberal modes of engagement. Critical Indigenous and post-colonial scholars are increasingly interrogating the emancipatory potential of projects of self-determination that work within state sanctioned legal and political structures, highlighting the ways in which they reproduce the configurations of power they purport to oppose and more importantly, the ways in which they constrain the space for meaningful political dialogue about the future. These critiques have led many Indigenous peoples to move away from asserting our political imperatives within the parameters of rights and recognition circumscribed by settler states. Consequently, we have also seen a resurgence of community organizing and dialogue grounded in our ancestral values, places, knowledges and spirituality. The growth of Indigenous resurgence movements is evident across the globe, and can be seen everywhere from local community initiatives to international networks such as the Indigenous Nationhood Movement.[1] As these movements continue to gain currency, it is vital that we reflect upon the ways in which they are being conceptualized and characterized to ensure that they remain adaptable to new contexts and challenges, but also attentive to the needs of all community members
Conventional definitions of the concept of resurgence describe it a form of awakening or revival after a period of dormancy. In Indigenous contexts it also carries a particular cultural and political meaning, referring to a course of action geared towards the revitalization of our traditional lifeways. The intent is for these efforts to contribute to the restoration of our ability to practice the relationships with people, places and practices that were disrupted through colonialism. The renewal of these connections necessarily involves confronting the impacts of colonialism and engaging in resistance to its contemporary manifestations, however resurgence also involves broadening our focus beyond the realm of decolonization. While the discourse of decolonization serves an important diagnostic purpose, resurgence involves the healing and strengthening of our communities on our own terms. This is a tall order, the actualization of which may seem daunting when we consider the extent of structural change required to fully achieve these reconnections. However, thinking of resurgence as an ongoing way of life rather than something to be accomplished all at once can help give it traction by directing our attention to the ways we can engage in resurgence within the existing relationships we inhabit. The Cree term kiwêhtahiwê, which means “to take others home with one” can provide important inspiration in thinking about resurgence as a fundamentally relational process; in this phrase, the word home embodies the concept of resurgence, which we engage in collectively through actions that are geared towards going home.
Conceptualizing resurgence in a relational way directs our attention to the significant role that our everyday interactions play in defining and pursuing our political objectives and priorities. It helps us recognize the transformative possibilities that exist in the processes of exploration and learning that we experience within our relationships. It locates resurgence within the everyday choices we make about the way in which we live our lives and the conversations that we choose to have, or not to have, with those around us. A relational approach also has the potential to demonstrate that change is not limited to large-scale actions that occur within the realm of social justice organizing. Instead, it positions resurgence as a dynamic and ongoing process that is constantly changing and comprises a multiplicity of everyday relations. While resurgence certainly requires change to macro structures of power, it can be engaged in small but meaningful ways in various realms of life. When we contemplate resurgence as a set of living and evolving ideas and practices that are open to dialogue and reinterpretation, we gain a more intimate understanding of the significance of acts of resurgence that can take place within our relations with our family and friends, within our relations with ideas and knowledge, as well as our relationship with ourselves.
Because it is through our interactions with our environments that we learn most about ourselves and those we share our existence with, our relationships have the biggest potential to act as sites of change and imagination. The relational nature of processes of learning and transformation is particularly evident to me when I reflect upon how my relationship with my daughter has driven me to live in a more balanced and sustainable way. By sustainable, I am referring to the maintenance of a healthy physical environment for her and for future generations to live in, but also the act of living in a healthy way so that I can be a positive presence in her life for as long as possible. This has involved fundamental change in my day-to-day interactions as well as my broader long-term goals and plans. It has not simply impacted the way I understand my responsibilities towards our environments, but also towards those around us.
My relationship with my daughter has taught me how to be humble, to stay grounded, and to have confidence in my decisions while also recognizing opportunities for learning and critical introspection. It has taught me patience and how to engage with people based on where they are at in their learning. It has taught me that inhabiting a relationship of care for others does not mean sacrificing care for the self, but that the two go hand-in-hand. While these were all notions that I was committed to prior to becoming a mother, I didn’t fully understand how to live them in my everyday interactions. The relationship itself is what inspired me to integrate these previously theoretical qualities into my day-to-day actions and consciousness. Similar transformative possibilities exist within all relationships, and understanding their significance can help provide important insight into the ways in which our interconnectedness is vital to multiple forms of individual and community change and empowerment.
As Indigenous peoples, our capacity to survive and to live sustainably over time has been dependent on the way in which we understand our relationships with our environments and other beings that we share our lives with. By seeing ourselves as co-constituted through and directly responsible to these relationships, we have managed to learn from our environments and adapt our ways of being to new developments and challenges. When the ecosystems we inhabit are disrupted, invaded, or changed, we have always found new means of survival by adjusting to the circumstances or challenges we have been faced with. The configurations of our lives have been context-dependent and dynamic, in large part due to the underlying relationality that characterizes our worldviews and spirituality. Embodying this relationality through our future ways of living can represent a powerful form of resurgence. It subverts the individualism that characterizes contemporary liberal society, while honoring and carrying forward the way of life of those who came before us.
Instead of understanding resurgence as an individuated set of qualities, characteristics or commitments, a relational approach positions it as an ongoing and incremental process of change and consciousness-raising. This process does not occur in isolation, but is co-constituted through our relations with other beings, places, ideas and practices. By broadening our focus beyond independent units (such as individuals or collectives) as the primary actors, we stand to gain a better understanding of the inner workings of processes of resurgence, which in turn might allow us to strategize and engage more effectively. A relational understanding of resurgence can also enable us to reflect critically and avoid the potential limitations and implications of a unitary or static approach. When our approach to resurgence results in the production of a normative or singular discourse, it breeds a conformism that has the potential to re-inscribe the forms of hierarchy and discipline it is intended to transcend. It also severely limits the scope of dialogue around the range of ways in which our political imperatives may be pursued. We then run the risk of being resubordinated through the very discourse that is intended to reinforce our boundaries with Western legal and political systems. A relational approach has the potential to mitigate these risks by demonstrating that there is no fixed structure or formula defining resurgence movements, but that they are constantly changing, contingent and culturally produced.
In discussing everyday approaches to resurgence, it might therefore be worthwhile to discuss the possibility that there are no specific qualities characterizing true or authentic forms of resurgence, as these are far too reductive to understand the ways in which acts of resurgence are co-constituted in our everyday relations. Rather than defining the fundamental elements that are constitutive of an authentic or traditional vision of resurgence, we might stand to gain more insight by examining the ways in which our multiple everyday interactions have the potential to be acts of resurgence. Because relationships drive the growth, change and transformation that occur within resurgence movements, analyses of the relations that connect ideas, people, places, and practices within these movements are vital to their viability and continuation.
[1] http://nationsrising.org
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