Glen Sean Coulthard

Red Skins, White Masks plays on the title of one of Frantz Fanon's postcolonial works, with Coulthard analysing Fanon and Marxist philosophy within the content of contemporary and historic Canada's relationship with Indigenous peoples.

This work does a fantastic job of summarizing the philosophical concepts to the reader and then applying them within the Canadian context, making it possible for the reader to follow along without an in-depth knowledge of Fanon and Marx.
Coulthard critiques the contemporary framework of Indigenous rights based on state recognition, highlighting the ways that recognition can be limited, and how despite speaking of reconciliation, the state continues to actively participate in colonialism via a capitalist framework (namely, dispossession of Indigenous lands for capitalist exploitation).

A weakness in Coulthard's work is that he does not further expand on recognition in other contexts. He does not significantly touch upon the recognition paradigm as it pertains to those that are unrecognized by the state as Indigenous (ex: Non-Status), and the impact on their ability to assert their rights in the contemporary Canadian state.
He could have gone further by touching upon these other issues relating to recognition, which potentially would have strengthened the work.

Despite the noted weakness, this work is a fantastic piece of Marxist and Postcolonial Indigenous literature.… (mehr)

I really want this to be a 4.5 stars, and the reason it's not five probably has to do more with my own inability to understand Marx and Fanon than the book itself. This was a really great and oddly smooth read, especially once I got out of the introduction where Coulthard lays out the heavy theoretical work and really gets into the meat of the book. Each chapter is laid out really neatly, which I appreciate a lot as a graduate student, and though Coulthard's argument is pretty heavy in both marxist and psychoanalytic theory, I did not ever feel frustrated with what the book was saying. This is a really key book to read for thinking about Indigenous politics and relationships to settler states, and manages to feel super grounded at all times. I really recommend this for anyone thinking about other modes of interactions!… (mehr)