Aff - SetCol 1AC - Michigan 7 2023 KLAB

1AC – Set Col
Trigger warning: 1AC contains depictions of sexual violence and other forms of brutality.
**If necessary, add the Waziyatawin as a plan/method card – would need to retag and rehighlight though
The resolution prevents resistance against coloniality by ignoring necessary discussion about decolonization.
Manthripragada, and Mušanović, 2020 (Ashwin, Professor Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Emina, Professor Linfield University, "Accounting for our settler colonialism: Toward an unsettled German Studies in the United States." Diversity and decolonization in German Studies (2020): 23-40.)
Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, leading Decolonial scholars, argue against applying decolonization as a metaphor, that is, using “an approximation of other experiences of oppression [as] a swappable term for other things we want to do to improve our societies and schools” (Tuck and Yang 2012, p. 3). To decolonize, for Tuck and Yang, unambiguously means to “[bring] about the repatriation of Indigenous land and life” (Tuck and Yang 2012, p. 21). In their influential essay, “Decolonization is not a Metaphor” (2012), Tuck and Yang include among their list of settler colonialists: immigrants, descendants of slaves, refugees, migrant laborers; in short, anyone who arrives with and after the first settler colonialists. However, the communities that make up this list, along with Indigenous populations, constitute, as it is commonly understood, the diversity of contemporary North America. Critical approaches to diversity, the other prominent task of this edited volume, seek to address the uneven distribution of power. But, according to Tuck and Yang, this critical approach to diversity, based on “the promise of integration and civil rights is [itself] predicated on securing a share of a settler-appropriated wealth” (Tuck and Yang 2012, p. 7). Critical approaches to diversity seek to disrupt the uneven distribution of power, but do so by “[redistributing] Native land/life as common-wealth,” where decolonization means that “all land is repatriated and all settlers become landless” (Tuck and Yang 2012, p. 27). In the following, we critically engage with the premises sketched above and ask how to accept the charge of decolonization: unsettle ourselves, unsettle German Studies as practiced in the United States, and, by extension, unsettle the institutions that house it. It means concurrently contributing to two—for many Decolonial scholars—diametrically opposed or rather incommensurable projects: the “decolonizing framework [that] prioritizes Indigenous sovereignty and futurity” and “human and civil rights social justice projects” (Rowe and Tuck 2017, p. 8). This eventually unworkable dichotomy does not emerge from recourse to a “hierarchy of oppression,” to evoke Audre Lorde, but from diverging paths to liberation and different understandings of migration and its relation to colonialism. Namely, for Indigenous populations, according to Tuck and Yang, oppression would not end even in some utopia in which equality and equity have been unambiguously and irrevocably secured; it can only end with the recovery of Indigenous sovereignty and the coeval termination of settler sovereignty and settler property rights. To decolonize social justice/diversity frameworks, one must commit “to social change with a specific material politics of Indigenous sovereignty, land, and relationships” (Tuhiwai et al. 2019, p. xv). Without such a commitment, the work of decolonization is thus necessarily one of limited collaboration and inevitable antagonisms—of “contingent coalitions” (Rowe and Tuck 2017, p. 8). It demands, in the least, the recognition of how one’s positionality may inform one’s limits in the investment in decolonization. That is, at some point, if not immediately, settler colonialists must divest themselves from futurist visions in which they remain settler colonialists and in which the relation to land continues to be determined via property rights. Equity utopias that figure liberation in terms of equal access to existing resources or via the equitable redistribution of colonial (settler) wealth are incompatible with decolonization. The decolonization of German Studies as it exists in the United States must confront these limits even if it ultimately cannot overcome them. Our cautious entry into this essay is predicated on the weighty recognition that, although, as Sium et al. (2012) write, “there is no escaping complicity within a settler colonial state, especially for those of us who have settled here,” we must nonetheless engage in some form of action and/or resistance to the colonial, oppressive structuring of being (p. iii). But what form can and should decolonial action take from within the very “institution that helped draw up the first blueprints of colonization, both here and abroad? […] Is it possible to decolonize institutions of colonial power (such as the academy, government, etc.), but, further, is it possible to decolonize through them?” (Sium et al. 2012, p. iii). We engage with specific discourses of decolonization in this chapter because they pose an unanswered challenge to decolonization as a diversity framework in German Studies. This is certainly not the only decolonization discourse in Decolonial/Indigenous Studies, but it is one that has not, to our knowledge, been broadly taken up in endeavors to decolonize German Studies. Finally, we ask ourselves what contribution we— two scholars of immigrant background, a former refugee and a person of color, both born outside of the United States, both generally skeptical of border policing, (ethno)nationalisms, and hostility toward migration— can make to this critical conversation.
The settler state deploys investment claims to lock native peoples within the colonialist state and to render grievances
Green 2015. Robyn, PhD candidate in the School of Canadian Studies, Carleton University. Focusing on concomitant discourses of investment and reconciliation in policy and legal documents, her doctoral research explores the co-constitution of material and affective aspects of Indigenous–settler reconciliation in Canada. “The economics of reconciliation: tracing investment in Indigenous–settler relations.” Journal of Genocide Research, 11 Dec 2015.
The relationship between Indigenous peoples and the settler state remains fraught due to ongoing violence and mistrust. Numerous attempts have been made to ‘reconcile’ this beleaguered relationship over the past three decades. Indigenous peoples have advocated for the decolonization of the settler state and a suitable land base using the language of public investment. In response, settler governments reframe these requests as opportunities for economic investment that is guaranteed to produce self-esteem and social inclusion for Indigenous peoples. This article documents and problematizes an ideological shift whereby holistic decolonial approaches to reconciliation give way to an investment rationale that is used to bypass demands for Indigenous peoples’ jurisdiction and self-determination. The ramifications of this shift are examined in three ‘eras of reconciliation’ (Section 37 Constitutional Talks, Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, reparations for Indian residential school [IRS] Survivors) that also coincide with three types of investment: a) national; b) social; and c) therapeutic. Introduction The Crown-First Nations Gathering held on 24 January 2012 was organized to create a dialogue between First Nations and the settler state. The participants made a commitment to develop equitable Indigenous–settler relationships to renew those marred by the subjugation and dispossession legislated by the Indian Act, 1876. The Assembly of First Nations publicly stated that the event would ‘directly build’ upon official reconciliatory initiatives such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.1 At the event, Prime Minister Stephen Harper emphasized the concrete action taken to reconcile Indigenous– settler relationships such as ‘accelerating specific and comprehensive claims’, ‘secur[ing] water-system accountability’ and ‘rout[ing] more than a billion dollars of Economic Action Plan funding to investments for Aboriginal and northern communities’.2 He goes on to state that, ‘these things we have done, Ladies and Gentlemen, as a down payment on what we wish to achieve. For our goal is self-sufficient citizens and self-governing communities. Our goal is to promote improved governance. Our goal is much increased aboriginal participation in the economy and in the country’s prosperity’.3 In outlining these policy and programme actions, Prime Minister Harper demonstrates a commitment to improving the lives of Indigenous peoples; yet, embedded in this statement is a form of capitalist logic that resembles the practice of investment whereby the nation-state seeks a financial return on these designated monies. This article is animated by the following question: how does investment rationale shape Indigenous–settler reconciliation processes in Canada? This article employs a problematization approach that is used to ‘question what appears to be well-ordered, rational, responsible, self-evident, universal or natural in order to show the selective format of these practices and the power effects inscribed in them’.4 By using this approach, I interrogate the presumed neutrality of investment discourse and the accounting techniques that are used to normalize this economic practice. To support my claims, I analyse public documents, speeches and policies that ‘represent key sites of hegemonic struggle over the principles and values’ of Indigenous–settler reconciliation. The history presented here is partial and selective because I only examine instances where Indigenous leaders and settler state representatives enter into official dialogue. While the reconciliation process may inspire knowledge transfer and cultural sharing, I am reminded of Jennifer Henderson’s caveat that, ‘[l]ike monetary exchanges, discursive exchanges in the field of redress function to standardize—to convert incommensurabilities into a shared form’.6 This article argues that the settler state deploys investment logic to determine specific reconciliatory exchanges that ensure the containment of Indigenous claims to restitution and the creation of mutual economic beneficiaries. These demands may retrench the social debt owed to Indigenous peoples by the settler state and undercut the spirit of restitution and justice. Stated more clearly, investment rationale is used to bypass Indigenous peoples’ assertions of self-determination and to ensure the economic success of the settler state. Therefore, this article argues that the settler state must be rendered ‘incomprehensible’ so ‘Eurocentric epistemologies and judicial doctrines no longer hold unquestioned authority’.7 In this article, I examine how Indigenous peoples routinely advocate for holistic social investments and a suitable land base to economically develop by using the language of investment and the extension of jurisdiction. In response, settler governments reframe these requests for social investment as opportunities for economic investment. In the following sections, I document how grievance and redress become financialized to contain claims to Indigenous self-determination and to establish a profit or return for the settler state. In doing so, this article contributes to fields of Indigenous–state relations and transitional justice by examining how market relations are introduced to seemingly politically progressive and affective practices such as Indigenous–settler reconciliation. Firstly, I outline the concomitant projects of genocide, neoliberalism and settler colonialism in Canada. Secondly, I explore how investment rationale reframes holistic decolonial approaches to reconciliation advocated by Indigenous peoples. Lastly, I examine how three ‘eras of reconciliation’ that I identify as Section 37 Constitutional Talks, Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and reparations for Indian residential school (IRS) Survivors coincide with three types of investment: a) national; b) social; and c) therapeutic.Genocide, neoliberalism and the settler state in Canada The question of genocide in Canada is complicated because the relationship between Indigenous peoples and settler Canadians, rather contrarily, is defined by the political and economic subjugation of an entire people existing alongside a spectacle of cultural diversity and reconciliation.8 The limits of cultural appreciation are reached when grassroots movements and Indigenous organizations publicly challenge capitalist accumulation.9 Any resistance demonstrated by Indigenous peoples is linked to settler assumptions that Indigenous peoples are economically ‘privileged’ through Indian Act legislation, despite numerous scholarly accounts that demonstrate that this legislation actually has created economic dependency that is profitable only to the nation-state.10 For these reasons, the assimilation of Indigenous peoples into Canada’s capitalist system is assumed by settler Canadians to be an acceptable goal because it supposedly ensures equitable access to prosperity. Taking these contradictions into account, the Canadian settler state should not be understood as a monolithic institution but as ‘an ideological project’ that ‘confers legitimacy upon the complex constellation of government institutions and processes that have many different (and often contradictory) agendas and interests’.11 I employ Joyce Green’s concept ‘Project Canada’ that refers ‘to the state constructed from the colonies by colonial and then settler elites, evolving but firmly grounded on the original and continuing appropriation of indigenous land and resources, and built on racist and sexist practices’.12 A central goal of this project is to eliminate Indian Act legislation and thereby reduce Indigenous difference to an ethnicity that can be subsumed into the Canadian cultural mosaic. The complicity of reconciliation in maintaining Project Canada is a recurring question in scholarly examinations of this process.13 Indigeneity, however, can be particularly useful in imagining a reconciled Canada because it prescribes ‘a principled framework for [Indigenous peoples and settler Canadians] “living together differently”’14 that includes ‘an innovative, if unorthodox, pattern of belonging that endorses the notion of nation-states as sites of multiple yet interlocking jurisdictions, each autonomous and self-determining yet sharing in governance of the whole’.15 Jurisdiction over territory and services is tantamount to an extension of decision-making powers that would also require significant land and capital transfer to bolster autonomous communities. An emphasis on self-government (and self-management), as noted in the statement made by Stephen Harper in the introduction, has frequently replaced the language of selfdetermination in government speeches and documents over the last thirty years. This discursive shift gestures to a convergence of the settler colonial and neoliberal projects. Self-determining Indigenous communities are viewed by the settler state as disruptive to practices of accumulation by dispossession that have reached ascendancy in an era of neoliberalism. This practice ‘involves the dispossession of people from their wealth’ whether this is in the form of natural resources or land or access to government finances.17 Neoliberalism functions genocidically through a process of regime replacement where ‘the federal government pursued economic policies amounting to genocide by limiting the ability of Indigenous peoples to pursue their traditional livelihoods, sustain their own economic systems, and participate in the management or use of their resources within their territories’.18 Regime replacement serves as an organizing principle of the settler society’s political economy and as a tactic it is deployed to integrate Indigenous territories into national and global economies. For instance, neoliberal economic policies have initiated resource extraction projects that have over time resulted in the destruction of Indigenous territory, culture and identity.19 Despite documented genocidal outcomes related to the neoliberalization of the settler state, this rationale has become further entrenched in Indigenous–state relationships. This article is primarily concerned with the role neoliberalism plays in the economization of the social whereby the accumulation of capital is situated as the ultimate goal of not only businesses or states but also individuals and communities. As a consequence of neoliberal logic, ‘regimes of public investment and finance increasingly come to mimic these marketized conditions’20 because they are assumed to engender efficiency and profit (although historically the beneficiaries of this system are relatively few). Under neoliberalism, social welfare is increasingly subjected to cutbacks as service provision is privatized by encouraging ‘people to see themselves as individualized and active subjects responsible for enhancing their own well-being’.21 As a result, those who advocate for redress or social change increasingly articulate their claims through an economic frame that increases the potential for imposition of capitalist ‘solutions’ on those peoples already deeply exploited by that system.22 Moreover, the state interprets grievance through the lens of well-being. For instance, a 2003 document released by the federal government entitled Resolving Aboriginal claims: a practical guide to Canadian experiences states that, ‘together with Aboriginal peoples, the Government of Canada is transforming the approach to indigenous issues from an earlier focus on “rights” and “grievances”; into an integrated approach to quality of life, encompassing economic development, human capital, community infrastructure and governance’.23A focus on mutual wellbeing for Indigenous peoples and settler Canadians delegitimizes grievance and legitimizes the emancipatory capacities of capital. Building on this rationale, the following sections document how under neoliberalism, investment rationale is formed to undermine the possibility for the decolonization of Indigenous– settler relationships.
The root cause of death, murder, war, rape, and racism lies within coloniality, which perpetuates a permanent state of exception.
Maldonado-Toress 8 Nelson Maldonado-Torres is an associate professor of comparative literature at Rutgers. Against War: Views from the Underside of Modernity, p. 217-21. 2008.
Dussel, Quijano, and Wynter lead us to the understanding that what happened in the Americas was a transformation and naturalization of the non-ethics of war—which represented a sort of exception to the ethics that regulate normal conduct in Christian countries—into a more stable and long-standing reality of damnation, and that this epistemic and material shift occurred in the colony. Damnation, life in hell, is colonialism: a reality characterized by the naturalization of war by means of the naturalization of slavery, now justified in relation to the very constitution of people and no longer solely or principally to their faith or belief. That human beings become slaves when they are vanquished in a war translates in the Americas into the suspicion that the conquered people, and then non-European peoples in general, are constitutively inferior and that therefore they should assume a position of slavery and serfdom. Later on, this idea would be solidified with respect to the slavery of African peoples, achieving stability up to the present with the tragic reality of different forms of racism. Through this process, what looked like a "state of exception" in the colonies became the rule in the modern world. However, deviating from Giorgio Agarnben's diagnosis, one must say that the colony--long before 

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