THE CITIES WE CALL HOME: Indigeneity,Race and Settler-Colonial Urbanisms

The connection between Indigeneity and urban spaces remains on the margins of urban studies and Indigenous studies, even as the majority of Indigenous people in the United States live in cities. Scholars have recently begun to think about the connection between settler colonialism and racial capitalism and the urban. In this essay I examine how the dispossession of Indigenous peoples has shaped modern urban development and, importantly, how Indigenous peoples and culture have contributed to reclaiming and challenging urban dispossession through their engagement with Black people and culture. In this essay I use a few examples of Indigenous expressive culture in Detroit, Michigan, during the Emergency Management Era and urban Indigenous youth activism, to urge for us to move beyond simply demonstrating that Indigenous peoples live in urban contexts. Instead, I call for an urban Indigenous studies that explores the connections between dispossession and the possibilities of a radical Indigenous resurgence in cities, and describe how this can be done through solidarity with African Americans in a predominantly Black city.