Logics of Containment

“logics of containment” - the process of containing Indigenous bodies and land into colonial categorizations of geographic, political, and ideological forms as a means of disrupting political power (Aikau et al. 2015, p96). Logics of containment are a form of bordering practices that use hemispheres, continents, countries, reserves, or political structures to confine Indigenous movement and action. Examples include Canada’s Indian Act as a system of legal recognition that forces Indigenous sovereignty within state laws, the border between the US and Canada, and the sparing use of Indigenous history and culture in settler systems so as to, “maintain its marginality” (Aikau et al. 2015, p96). The attached image is that of the Pass System, a historical logic of containment used by Indian Agents to confine Indigenous bodies within reserve lands.

The concept is key to discussions about migration because logics of containment are used to prevent political involvement of Indigenous and migrant bodies. Transnational feminisms that do not challenge the systems of borders or legal apparatuses such as the Indian Act, and continue to operate on the assumption of the inevitability of nation-states, risk a continuation of colonial dispossession. By centring Indigenous feminisms, transnational feminism can challenge the legitimacy of the nation-state system, and instead connect the global and local in terms of Indigenous knowledge systems that focus on how gendered bodies are connected through land and water. By denying the oppressive colonial categorizations that contain Indigenous and migrant bodies, transnational feminisms can avoid recreating oppressive structures.

Though this term is not directly defined in the cited texts, it is highlighted and discussed at length. Although some of the cited texts are only available as academic sources accessed only through university library systems, I felt it was important enough to share this term even without an open link to the reading. Academia and grassroots organizing are both places of knowledge creation and important terminology needs to be shared between the two, especially when connecting transnational feminisms and Indigenous feminisms.

Open links about Logics of Containment:

1. Noelani Goodyear-Ka’opua: The Seeds We Planted: Portraits of a Native Hawaiian Charter School

2. Resurgence and Reconciliation: Indigenous-Settler Relations and Earth Teachings

Academic Sources:

Aikau, H. K., Arvin, M., Goeman, M., & Morgensen, S. (2015). Indigenous feminisms roundtable. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 36(3), 84-106. doi:10.5250/fronjwomestud.36.3.0084

Keywords: logics of containment, Indigenous feminisms, bordering practices, Indian Act

Author: Petro Poroshenko

Photo Credit: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan S-E19, File 35a