On the politics of Indigenous translation

Abstract

In this chapter, I discuss Indigenous spirituality in the context of the contemporary legal and political relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian state. I show how a ‘Wittgensteinian’ view of language can help us listen to Indigenous peoples in and on their own terms. In the first part, I lay out what I mean by taking a Wittgensteinian approach to understanding language in contemporary Indigenous politics. Wittgenstein’s concepts such as ‘language-games’, ‘family resemblances’, ‘forms of life’, and ‘surveyable representation’ constitute a distinctive philosophical approach to meaning and language that can help us better understand Indigenous spirituality in the contemporary legal and political relationship. In the second part, I discuss two examples of Indigenous spirituality that have been initiated by Indigenous peoples in the legal and political relationship: the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en practices of the aadawk and kungax and the recently ratified constitution of the Anishinabek Nation of Ontario – the Anishinaabe Chi-Naaknigewin . In the third part of the chapter, I weave the Wittgensteinian and Indigenous approaches to meaning and language and offer some thoughts on how we can best listen to Indigenous peoples ‘in and on their own terms’.