Generative Refusal: Creative Practice and Relational Indigenous Sovereignty

• Published in: Borderlands Journal
• Main Author: WRIGHTSON, KELSEY R.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Walter de Gruyter GmbH 2020
• Subjects: Canada; Northwest Territories
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.21307/borderlands-2020-013; https://www.sciendo.com/pdf/10.21307/borderlands-2020-013

Abstract This article critiques narrow conceptions of sovereignty, while holding up Indigenous practices of sovereign place making and creative relational sovereign enactment. I come into this contestation by thinking through creative acts of sovereignty as a generative praxis. Informed by these practices offers a new way of thinking about sovereignty as practiced, generative and relational. Grounded practices of Indigenous peoples in Denendeh (Northwest Territories, Canada) and the authors own experience as a settler living and working in Denendeh, this article also offers a space to think through ‘refusability’ as relational response.