#15 BIG Podcast – “Indigenous Resurgence and Indigenous Internationalism”
featuring Jeff Ganohalidoh Corntassel – Professor in Indigenous Studies & Associate Director of CIRCLE, Victoria, BC, Canada
Indigenous nationhood movements are taking place worldwide in multiple ways and are all connected with the Indigenous resurgence. Indigenous autonomy and self-determination are fundamental to Indigenous resurgence. What are the effects of the Doctrine of Discovery on Indigenous Peoples? What are the Indigenous perspectives on International Relations Theory? Between the Buffalo Treaty, and the role of Indigenous Peoples in the Columbia River treaty renegotiation, Indigenous Peoples are using their internal sovereignty and external sovereignty to establish a stronger political and juridical self-determination. Elements of response and reflection with the Indigenous Scholar Jeff Ganohalidoh Corntassel.
Dr. Jeff Ganohalidoh Corntassel is a writer, teacher and father from the Cherokee Nation. He is a Professor in Indigenous Studies, and cross-listed Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Victoria as well as Associate Director of the Centre for Indigenous Research and Community-Led Engagement (CIRCLE). Corntassel is a Co-PI with Dr. Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly on the 7-year SSHRC partnership grant entitled “21st Century Borders” and is the lead of Pillar 1 for that grant focusing on Indigenous Internationalism. Jeff’s research and teaching interests focus on “Everyday Acts of Resurgence” and the intersections between Indigenous internationalism, community resurgence, climate change, gender, and community well-being. situates his work at the grassroots with many Indigenous led community-based programs and initiatives ranging from local food movement initiatives, land-based renewal projects to gendered colonial violence and protection of homelands. He is currently completing work for his forthcoming book on Sustainable Self-Determination, which examines Indigenous climate justice, food security, and gender-based resurgence.
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and the Podcast App!
Border Culture: Theory, Imagination, Geopolitics
Victor Konrad, Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary | Routledge | 2022
This book introduces readers to the cultural imaginings of borders: the in-between spaces in which transnationalism collides with geopolitical cooperation and contestation.
Recent debates about the “refugee crisis” and the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic have politicized culture at and of borders like never before. Border culture is no longer culture at the margins but rather culture at the heart of geopolitics, flows, and experience of the transnational world. Increasingly, culture and borders are everywhere yet nowhere. In border spaces, national narratives and counter-narratives are tested and evaluated, coming up against transnational culture. This book provides an extensive and critical vision of border culture on the move, drawing on numerous examples worldwide and a growing international literature across border and cultural studies. It shows how border culture develops in the human imagination and manifests in human constructs of “nation” and “state”, as well as in transnationalism. By analyzing this new and expanding cultural geography of border landscapes, the book shows the way to a fresh, broader dialogue.
Exploring the nature and meaning of the intersection of border and culture, this book will be an essential read for students and researchers across border studies, geopolitics, geography, and cultural studies.
Authors:
Victor Konrad is Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University, Canada, and formerly Director of the Canadian-American Center at the University of Maine, USA, and founding Director, Canada-U.S. Fulbright Program.
Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary is Professor at Grenoble-Alpes University, France, and head of the CNRS Pacte research unit, a pluri-disciplinary social sciences research centre.
Academic Partner – University of Victoria
Jeff Ganohalidoh Corntassel
Dr. Jeff Ganohalidoh Corntassel is a writer, teacher and father from the Cherokee Nation. He is a Professor in Indigenous Studies, and cross-listed Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Victoria as well as Associate Director of the Centre for Indigenous Research and Community-Led Engagement (CIRCLE). Corntassel is a Co-PI with Dr. Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly on the 7-year SSHRC partnership grant entitled “21st Century Borders” and is the lead of Pillar 1 for that grant focusing on Indigenous Internationalism. Jeff’s research and teaching interests focus on “Everyday Acts of Resurgence” and the intersections between Indigenous internationalism, community resurgence, climate change, gender, and community well-being. situates his work at the grassroots with many Indigenous led community-based programs and initiatives ranging from local food movement initiatives, land-based renewal projects to gendered colonial violence and protection of homelands. He is currently completing work for his forthcoming book on Sustainable Self-Determination, which examines Indigenous climate justice, food security, and gender-based resurgence.
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Giulia Gagliano
BIG | Jean Monnet Human-to-Military Security Database Project – University of Victoria
Giulia Gagliano (she/her) is a recently graduated honours Political Science student with a Minor in Gender Studies and a Certificate in French Language and Cultural Proficiency. Her primary research interests are issues of nationalism, migration, and border politics, in particular, analyzed through a critical intersectional lens. As a recipient of the Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Award and the J. Alan Baker Memorial Scholarship, she completed an honours thesis that critically analyzes the Italian nationalist anti-immigrant discourses within the broader socio-political context of the 2015-2016 EU Migrant Crisis. In the summer of 2022, she is doing an internship at the European Commission’s Migration and Home Affairs working in the Anti-Trafficking unit.
Policy Partner – Headquartered in Germany
Transfrontier Euro-Institut Network
Primary Contact: Ann Thevenet
The Transfrontier Euro-Institut Network (TEIN), formed in 2010, now brings together 15 partners from 9 border regions in Europe. Its unique feature is that it consists of universities, research institutes and training centres, which are dedicated to the practical business of cross-border cooperation in Europe.TEIN is led by the Euro-Institut, created in 1993 in Kehl/Strasbourg on the French/German/Swiss border with the aim of facilitating cross-border cooperation.
TEIN partners come from maritime borders, old European borders, new eastern borders, post-conflict borders and external borders. Because of this, TEIN is able to measure the need for capacity building in cross-border cooperation throughout Europe. All members have subscribed to a common charter to ensure the organization of the network and the quality of its output.
TEIN’s objective is to build capacity in cross-border contexts to strengthen European integration. To that end, TEIN Members follow the aim of facilitating cross-border cooperation and providing practical solutions to European cross-border issues.
In that respect, TEIN Partners:
- Develop training and mentoring that is ‘fit for purpose’ for cross-border issues and in cross-border contexts;
- Capitalize on learning from the different regional initiatives;
- Work on new products such as transferable training modules, methods, tools
- Produce relevant research
- Increase knowledge and awareness of cross-border issues (at local, regional, national and European level)
TEIN role in the 21st Century Borders project
In the framework of the 21st century borders project, TEIN will organize one conference per year (6 during the whole project) in the framework of the pillar 1 looking inside of states at how minorities (indigenous) awareness and resurgences along with increasingly prevalent politics of nationhood and nationalism affect, fragment, and re-draft intergovernmental relations. We will look at this through different angles (historical, political, legal, geographical, cultural etc.) in a transdisciplinary approach and at different European borders.
Graduate Student Fellow (PhD)
Claude Beaupré
Borders in Globalization | Jean Monnet Network on Post-Truth Politics, Nationalism and the (De-) Legitimation of European Integration.
Claude Beaupré is currently a joint Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Victoria, Canada, and Contemporary History at the University of Strasbourg, France. She is a BIG Graduate Student Fellow (PhD) and a Research Assistant and Conference Coordinator with the Jean Monnet Network on Post-Truth Politics, Nationalism and the (De-) Legitimation of European Integration.
Her current doctoral research is on the influence of media in contemporary Canadian migration discourse. She has previously received Masters from York University in Public and International Affairs and from Science Po Strasbourg in History of International Relations. She focused her Master Thesis on the Canadian Media coverage of the Refugee and Migrant Crisis in Europe, 2015-2016. She also holds an honours Bachelor in International Studies from Glendon College, York University.
21st Century Borders: Emergent Challenges Within & Among States
Program Overview
The 21st Century Borders grant is a seven-year SSHRC Partnership Grant. The research program builds off the work of the previous Borders in Globalization SSHRC Partnership Grant (2013-2020) which sought to understand the changing nature of borders through six thematic areas in order to document how state-centred and territorially-fixated research limits our understanding of borders. 21st Century Borders builds off the work done in the first grant with the goal of exploring and advancing the required epistemological shift from a state- centric and territorial logic to nodal and mobile logics that focus on both the internal and external forces that challenge the territorial integrity of states. While the first grant revealed the limitations of state-centred and territorially bound understanding of borders, this grant seeks to understand how we, as academics and policymakers, can move beyond that model.
We do this by focusing on three interrelated themes:
- Pillar 1: Looking inside of states at how Indigenous awareness and resurgences, along with increasingly prevalent politics of nationhood and nationalism, affect, fragment, and re-draft intergovernmental relations.
- Pillar 2: Examining the relationship between bordering processes and states’ territoriality, with particular attention paid to examining trade flows and human mobility – both within a states’ international boundaries and across international and transnational legal and regulatory regimes.
- Comparing how the politics in both the above-mentioned cases affect the geopolitics of borders across global regimes.
Program Structure
The grant itself is comprised of two parallel research pillars. Pillar one, led by Jeff Corntassel, and pillar two, led by Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly. While these two pillars work parallel to each other within the grant, the conceptual knowledge base and program understandings will flow between the two pillars and through into country specific case-studies. The two vertical pillars are cross-sectioned by two overarching themes: ecology and security. These themes will address issues of both ecology and security from within the contexts of the two primary pillars. Additionally, partners in the grant may choose to use their expertise to focus on country-specific case studies.
Pillar 1
Nationhood & Nationalism
Pillar one explores how claims of nationhood and nationalism exist in the Indigenous and regionalist experiences in borderlands. There is a growing body of literature that examines Indigenous nationhood claims and another, separate, body literature that looks at regionalist and nationalist claims in Europe. The goal of this pillar is to bridge the gap between these two literatures and explore how claims of nationhood and nationalist claims are similar, how they are different, and how they factor into claims of Indigenous self-determination. Through the work done here, this project examines ways that Indigenous nations, communities, and peoples challenge the territoriality of states and other patriarchal institutions in order to generate new understandings of how Indigenous relationships develop and persist beyond boundaries. By interrogating terms such as nationhood, international, self-determination, and borders, this project seeks to advance a deeper understanding of how these terms and relationships are viewed from diverse Indigenous perspectives.
Pillar 2
Territory & Connectivity
While pillar one deals with issues of territory, pillar two deals with issues of human mobility and trade flows by identifying and examining the instruments and infrastructures of connectivity. This includes structures, regulations, and functions of borders. Research occurring in this pillar may focus on issues such as pre-border clearance mechanisms, the externalization of borders, state-to-state security agreements, integrated border management regimes, strategies for preserving life in cross-border regions during crises. (List is not exhaustive and new projects will be reviewed by the academic and international advisory boards annually).
Partnership Composition
21st Century Borders is funded by a seven-year Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Partnership Grant. In addition to funding from SSHRC, our academic partners contribute matching funding and our non-academic partners provide cash and in-kind support for research and knowledge mobilization activities. This project is directed by Dr. Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly at the University of Victoria (Victoria, Canada) and co-lead by Dr. Jeffrey Corntassel (University of Victoria). The academic partnership consists of eight Canadian university partners: Carleton University, École Nationale d’Administration Publique, Royal Military College of Canada, Trent University, Université du Québec à Montréal, Laval, Flemming College, and the University of Victoria; and six international university partners: Radboud University (The Netherlands), Université de Grenoble (France), University of Southern Denmark, South Asia University (India); Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), and Western Washington University.
Our policy partners include: the Canada Border Services Agency, the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (USA/Canada), the Association of European Border Regions (Europe), the World Customs Organization (Brussels), Transfrontier Euro-Institut Network – TIEN (Europe), Mission Opérationnelle Transfrontalière – M.O.T (France).
Research Affiliates
The 21st Century Borders research partnerships includes a number of scholars from around the world working with us on a variety of different projects. This list is updated regularly as we add new projects and expand the partnership.
Aileen Espiritu (UiT The Arctic University of Norway); Alan Bersin (Harvard University); Alex Buhk (Victoria University of Wellington); Amael Cattaruzza (Institut Français de Géopolitique); Budd Hall (University of Victoria); Can Mutlu (Acadia University); Daniel Meier (PACTE); Eve Tuck (University of Toronto); Evert Lindquist (University of Victoria); Fabienne Leloup (UCLouvain); Francisco Lara-Valencia (Arizona State University); Frédérique Berrod (Université de Strasbourg); Glen Coulthard (University of British Columbia); Guadalupe Correo Cabrera (George Mason University); Heidi Stark (University of Victoria); Irasema Coronado (Arizona State University); Isabel Altamirano-Jiménez (University of Alberta); Jamie Ferrill (Charles Stuart University); Katy Hayward (Queen’s University Belfast); Michelle Daigle (University of British Columbia); Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman (Institute of Chinese Studies – Delhi); Naomi Chi (Hakkaido University); Said Saddiki (Université Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdallah); Simon Dalby (Wilfrid Laurier University); Tamara Krawchenko (University of Victoria); Whitney Lackenbauer (University of Waterloo).
Funding Partners
International Conference: Fake News, Disinformation and Post-Truth Politics: Comparing the European Union and other Western Democracies
Victoria, BC | August 31st – September 2nd, 2022
The Jean Monnet Network on Post-Truth Politics, Nationalism and the (De-)Legitimation of European Integration organized a conference from August 31, 2022 – September 2, 2022 at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. They invited proposals for individual papers on the subject of fake news, disinformation and post-truth politics looking at the impact of these issues on Western Democracies and the European Union in a comparative perspective.
Many events from this conference were free and accessible for the public.
BIG and the EU Network @ The Association for Borderlands Studies Annual Conference
San Diego, USA | April 24-26, 2019
The Borders in Globalization and EU Network research programs are using the Association for Borderlands Studies Annual Conference to showcase its own research and to highight what we have learned in the past six years. BIG has composed eleven panels for the ABS Conference; panels that will feature international colleagues, Canadian leads, and students from across our program. Several of the panels are co-organized and co-funded by our Jean Monnet Network Comparing and Contrasting EU Border and Migration Policies, thanks to generous funding from the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission.
The conference convenes April 24 – April 26 at the Manchester Hyatt in downtown San Diego, CA.
Full ABS Program
Featured Panels
Lessons and Debates Emerging from Borders in Globalization
Panel 16: Thursday 1:00 – 2:30, Coronado Ballroom D
Chair: Akihiro Iwashita, University of Hokkaido
Discussants: Birte Wassenberg, University of Strasbourg, James Scott, University of Eastern Finland
“Developing and Applying the BIG Analytical Frame: Challenges for National Case Studies”
Anne Laure Amilhat-Szary, Grenoble-Alpes University
“Territoriality to A-Territoriality – What Does this Mean for Border Studies?”
Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, University of Victoria
“Global Sustainability?”
Simon Dalby, Wilfrid Laurier University
“Managing Cross-Border Economic and Human Movements: Fluids, Spaghetti, Rebar”
Geoffrey E. Hale, University of Lethbridge
“Border Culture in Globalization”
Victor Konrad, Carleton University
Lessons and Debates Emerging from Borders in Globalization
Panel 25: Thursday 4:30 – 6:00, Coronado Ballroom B
Chair: Akihiro Iwashita, University of Hokkaido
Discussants: James Scott, University of Eastern Finland & Anne Laure Amilhat-Szary, Grenoble-Alpes University
“Quebec: Fontière sous tension”
Élisabeth Vallet, University of Quebec Montreal
“Security Beyond the Border: The Globalization of Trends and Patterns in Border Management”
Christian Leuprecht, Royal Military College of Canada
“Borders in Arctic Context”
Heather Nicol, Trent University
“Borders, Globalization and History”
Randy Widdis, University of Regina
Comparing Countries’ Borders
Panel 52: Friday 4:30 – 6:00, Coronado Ballroom D
Moderator: Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly
“Canada: Between Territoriality and A-Territoriality?”
Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly and Michael Carpenter, University of Victoria
“Denmark, Trapped in Territoriality?”
Martin Klatt, University of Southern Denmark
“Estonia”
Margit Saare, Western Washington University and University of Victoria
“French Border, A Side Story?”
Anne Laure Amilhat-Szary, Grenoble-Alpes University
“The Dutch Borders as Barriers or Creative Resources”
Martin van der Velde, Radboud University
“Northern Ireland”
Kate Hayward, Queens Belfast University
Roundtable: European Union Border, Migration, and Security Policies in Comparative Perpsective
Panel 57: Saturday 8:00 – 9:30
Moderator: Akihiro Iwashita, University of Hokkaido
Discussant: Victor Konrad, Carleton University
“Japan’s Borders in the Contemporary World”
Ted Boyle, Kyushu University
“Comparing European Union Migration, Borders and Security Policies with Canada and Japan”
Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, University of Victoria
“Politics of Mobility in East Asia: Focusing on Recent Revision to Japan’s Immigration Act”
Naomi Chi, Hokkaido University
“Border Control and Security at the EU’s External Borders”
Can Mutlu, Acadia University
“Refugees, the Rise of Exclusionary Nationalism, and the Politics of Borders”
Oliver Schmidtke, University of Victoria
“The Refugee Crisis and the End of the Myth of a Europe Without Borders in European Integration and Cross-border Cooperation”
Birte Wassenberg, University of Strasbourg
Co-Principle Investigator | Pillar 1: Indigenous Internationalism & Nationhood
Jeff Corntassel
2021-Present
Dr. Jeff Ganohalidoh Corntassel is a writer, teacher and father from the Cherokee Nation. He is a Professor in Indigenous Studies, and cross-listed Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Victoria as well as Associate Director of the Centre for Indigenous Research and Community-Led Engagement (CIRCLE). Corntassel is a Co-PI with Dr. Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly on the 7-year SSHRC partnership grant entitled “21st Century Borders” and is the lead of Pillar 1 for that grant focusing on Indigenous Internationalism. Jeff’s research and teaching interests focus on “Everyday Acts of Resurgence” and the intersections between Indigenous internationalism, community resurgence, climate change, gender, and community well-being. situates his work at the grassroots with many Indigenous led community-based programs and initiatives ranging from local food movement initiatives, land-based renewal projects to gendered colonial violence and protection of homelands. He is currently completing work for his forthcoming book on Sustainable Self-Determination, which examines Indigenous climate justice, food security, and gender-based resurgence.
Publication Highlights
AlterNative An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples
Everyday Indigenous Resurgence During COVID-19: A Social Media Situation Report
For Indigenous Nations on Turtle Island (Canada and the USA), the onset of COVID-19 has exacerbated food insecurity and adverse health outcomes. This situation report examines ways that Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island have met the challenges of the pandemic in their communities and their daily practices of community resurgence through social media. Drawing on the lived experiences of four Indigenous land-based practitioners, we found that social media can offer new forms of connection for Indigenous peoples relating to our foods, lands, waterways, languages, and our living histories.
Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society
Re-envisioning Resurgence: Indigenous Pathways to Decolonization and Sustainable Self-determination
By drawing on several comparative examples of resurgence from Cherokees in Kituwah, Lekwungen protection of camas, the Nishnaabe-kwewag “Water Walkers” movement, and Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) revitalization of kalo, this article provides some insights into contemporary decolonization movements. The politics of distraction is operationalized here as a potential threat to Indigenous homelands, cultures and communities, and the harmful aspects of the rights discourse, reconciliation, and resource extraction are identified, discussed, and countered with Indigenous approaches centered on responsibilities, resurgence and relationships. Overall, findings from this research offer theoretical and applied understandings for regenerating Indigenous nationhood and restoring sustainable relationships with Indigenous homelands.
International Review of Education
Educate to Perpetuate: Land-based Pedagogies and Community Resurgence
The authors of this article examine ways in which land-based pedagogies can challenge colonial systems of power at multiple levels, while being critical sites of education and transformative change. Drawing on a multi-component study of community practices in the Cherokee Nation conducted by the second author, this article examines strategies for fostering what have been termed “land-centred literacies” as pathways to community resurgence and sustainability. The findings from this research have important implications for Indigenous notions of sustainability, health and well-being and ways in which Indigenous knowledge can be perpetuated by future generations.