Unbecoming Claims

Abstract

This article discusses the role of refusal in the analysis and communication of qualitative data, that is, the role of refusal in the work of making claims. Refusal is not just a no, but a generative stance, situated in a critical understanding of settler colonialism and its regimes of representation. Refusals are needed to counter narratives and images arising (becoming-claims) in social science research that diminish personhood or sovereignty, or rehumiliate when circulated. Refusal, in this article, refers to a stance or an approach to analyzing data within a matrix of commitments, histories, allegiances, and resonances that inform what can be known within settler colonial research frames, and what must be kept out of reach.

Indigenous Reflections on Identity, Trauma, and Healing: Navigating Belonging and Power

“…Yet others I have lived myself as I have returned to Nocutzepo, instead of running away from it. Through rememberings, I seek to deconstruct the Western constructs of identity and trauma, arguing that these conceptions create trappings based on the exclusions of membership that support enduring power hierarchies that perpetuate the dehumanization of Native and Indigenous peoples through portrayals of suffering (Tuck and Yang 2014). By exposing these trappings, I will engage in my own decolonizing healing process as outlined by Smith (1999) by reclaiming, reconnecting, rewriting and rerighting histories.…”

The Impossibility of a Future in the Absence of a Past: Drifting in the In-Between

“…In her work Zong!, poet and essayist M. NourbeSe Philip reimagines the Gregson v. Gilbert court case, a case fought over insurance monies in the aftermath of a massacre that saw between 132 and 150 enslaved Africans thrown overboard from the English ship, the Zong, as a series of "Zongs" that spill across the pages of the text. In these poems, space crowds out the letters, remapping language and thought in a performance of refusal: a refusal to trade in tragedy (Austen 2011, Tuck & Yang 2014a, 2014b. As drift, these poems refuse the work of linearity.…”

“…Drifting through intimacy, love, violence, and histories, Belcourt, Simpson, Brand, and Philip offer us the world-making potential of refusal (Tuck & Yang 2014a, 2014b. Each writer, shaped by specific and individual histories of colonialism, offers us something different.…”

From Interior to Dialogue and Deconstruction: Dismantling Ideologies of Whiteness with Stories

“…However, when first coming to racial consciousness, white people can tend to focus their attention and efforts on stories of oppression and injustice by people of color (Tuck, 2009), even writing and disseminating them in their own work. However, to contribute to the tradition of anti-oppressive and social justice-oriented research, I-and white researchers in particular-must not only avoid appropriation of people of color's stories, but also consciously engage in a continuous refusal to make claims that possess the experiences of others through our lenses or that serve our purposes rather than those of the communities we serve (Tuck & Yang, 2014). Thus, this conceptual and reflexive piece written primarily for white researchers and educators will consider a process white researchers can use to deconstruct whiteness through stories and move toward action (Freire, 2011).…”

“…Societal discourse often perpetuates a savior mentality for white teachers and researchers; within this discursive framework, they act either as "missionaries"-attempting to save students or communities-or as "cannibals"-controlling students or communities through degrees of force (Martin, 2007). The work white people need to do is not in fixing the so-called deficiencies in communities of color, saving people of color from their cultural lacks as a form of cultural racism (Bonilla-Silva, 2013), but, instead, dismantling white ideologies and systems of power (Tuck & Yang, 2014). Placing deficiencies on students and communities of color rather than the structures surrounding them (Cobb & Russell, 2014) preserves a myth of the supposed neutrality of systems.…”