Introduction to the special issue: mobilizing Indigeneity and race within and against settler colonialism

Abstract

ABSTRACT Carpio, Barnd, and Barraclough introduce the concepts of ‘settler anchoring’ and ‘mobility sovereignty.’ They argue that settler colonial spaces are structures of mobility injustice, and that securing Indigenous mobility must account for the ability of Indigenous peoples to choose when, where, how, and for what purposes to engage in movement (or not). They illustrate how the practice of mobility underlies the fiction of ‘settling,’ offer examples for understanding Indigenous mobility principles and practices, and examine the potential incommensurabilities between mobility justice and mobility sovereignties that reject settler colonialism. The authors argue for the urgency of integrating the ‘mobilities paradigm’ with Indigenous studies and ethnic studies analyses of settler colonialism, Indigeneity, and race. The article also serves as introduction to the special issue of Mobilities, ‘Mobilizing Indigeneity and Race Within and Against Settler Colonialism.’ The authors preview how the special issue offers new insights into settler colonialism’s mobile architectures, competing technologies of maritime mobility, decolonial forms of landscape conservation on travel corridors, how ‘voluntourism’ enables the crafting of White settler subjectivity, the roles of digital media for displaced peoples, and what it means to move as a sovereign Indigenous nation.