Edited by: Kade Ferris (kadeferris1@gmail.com and
Claudia Murphy (murphycm52@gmail.com)
[Tentative plans to publish with North Dakota State University Press, Fargo, ND]
Overview: The settler mythos of the harsh conditions and mammoth challenges faced, and overcome by, the Europeans who came to the northern prairies are well documented and valorized as part of the prairie state cultural narrative. However, alternative narratives that take into account the experiences of Indigenous people, and other marginalized groups, are not as well documented or at least not as available or well-known. For that reason, we propose a collection of works that explore the alternative narratives that reflect the reality that often conflicts with the historical and contemporary popular doctrine – the cogitations on the taking of the land, the extraction of the natural resources, the genocide and/or the marginalization of the original inhabitants–human, animal and plant.
We invite stories, papers, and narratives that explore and address decolonization of the Northern Prairies. We are especially interested in submissions that highlight the settler-colonial imprints on the environment and popular culture and history.
The following are just a few suggestions of works that would be of interest.
- Narratives/stories from Native Americans/First Nation People/Metis on the effects of settler colonialism of the Northern Prairies on issues such as identity, advocacy, economics, and self-determination;
- Narratives/stories from descendants of homesteaders/bonanza farmers with an eye towards disruption of the native homelands, including the ecologies of those spaces;
- “New” Immigrant perspectives on settler colonialism and the Northern Prairies;
- The Homestead Act and other economic systems as the means for redistribution of wealth, power and continuing privilege;
- Decolonizing the historical views on Indigenous women of the Northern Prairies;
- Extraction of resources from Indigenous homelands, including indigenous intellectual and cultural property, and (more recently) the DNA of Native peoples;
- Environmental/social consequences from the largest bonanza farm—The Cass, Cheney Dalrymple farm in Dakota territory;
- Ecological restoration: native prairie restoration projects;
- Environmental Justice/economic and environmental racism on the Northern Prairies, including a focus on issues involving climate change;
You will need to indicate your intention to submit your full paper by email with the title of the paper, authors, and abstract. The full manuscript, as a PDF file, should be emailed by the deadline indicated below. Authoring guidelines will be mailed to you after we receive your letter of intent. Submissions should be no more than 8000 words
Intent to submit: April 1st, 2019
Full papers of due: September 1, 2019
Decision date: November 1, 2019
Final version: January 1st, 2020
If you would like additional information, please contact:
Kade Ferris: kadeferris1@gmail.com or
Claudia Murphy: murphycm52@gmail.com
About the editors:
Kade Ferris, an indigenous scholar who specializes in tribal history, cultural preservation and land rights, is a former lecturer at Turtle Mountain Community College (Belcourt, ND) and has served as historian and archaeologist for several area tribal communities. Kade is Ojibwe and Metis from the Turtle Mountain Reservation and serves as an Associate of the Tribal Nations Research Group, the institutional review board of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.
Claudia Murphy is a retired Professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies, teaching most recently at Minnesota State University at Moorhead. She has been interested in issues of environmental justice and settler colonialism for the past ten years, and has lectured both regionally and nationally on these issues. She is a Minnesota native, who descends from homesteaders who settled on land taken by treaty from the Anishinaabe in Western Minnesota.
BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 