Queer Native studies scholar Andrea Smith points out that queer of color theorists do not usually pay overwhelming attention to the role of the settler colonial state in their various resistances. In doing so, they can tend to "curiously occlude the struggles of many Indigenous peoples who have articulated themselves as belonging to sovereign nations, rather than as U.S. citizens."[i] Queer native scholars deny the applicability of some QOC theories to their own work because indigenous activism doesn't seek recognition as a minority identity in the nation-state, but rather "as colonized peoples struggling against a settler state."[ii] These Indigenous scholars and activists also challenge Indigenous leaders to build Native nations not based on the settler colonial/United States model. However, citing Robert Warrior and Rey Chow, Smith reminds us that "in a commitment to social and political justice for Native nations, it becomes all the more important for Native studies to develop...with rather than in isolation from potential partners."[iii] This project is an affirmation of that advice and as such, places queer Native and other QOC theories beside each other, talks about Natives and non-natives, queer and not queer subjects alike in an attempt to "make theory queer, not just have theory about queers." What follows is a conversation between specifically indigenous queer critique and existing queer and queer of color critiques. This conversation does not seek to elide difference or "disappear" either side, but instead empowers its subjects to critique themselves and one another in a productive and beneficial way. It represents a network of thinking and of expression, and its disparate subjects, actually, talk to one another all the time.
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