The Death and Life of the Settler Colonial City: Collective Resistance, Indigenous Law, and Remaking Urban Space | Heather Dorries

Join us for the fourth seminar of the 2023-24 CrimSL Speaker Series on Monday, February 5, 2024!

Professor Heather Dorries, University of Toronto will present "The Death and Life of the Settler Colonial City: Collective Resistance, Indigenous Law, and Remaking Urban Space." 

This is a free event, however, registration is required.

Prior to the seminar, join us for a light lunch from noon to 12:30 pm in the Centre Lounge. Please indicate your lunch RSVP for catering purposes when you register.

Abstract

Throughout the course of colonization, Indigenous communities have valiantly resisted numerous forms of state-sanctioned violence, surveillance, and criminalization. Despite being an ongoing feature of Indigenous life on Turtle Island since 1492, Indigenous resistance has often been portrayed as evidence of Indigenous lawlessness. This framing of resistance allows the state to posit its own violence as lawful and central to the preservation of order. While resistance is often criminalized and characterized as an example of Indigenous people’s need for the discipline of settler law, resistance should be viewed as the enactment of Indigenous legal orders and a means of enacting self-determination. This talk challenges the framing of Indigenous resistance as lawlessness and examines the potential of resistance movements such as Idle No More to be understood as both a form of urban placemaking and as an expression of Indigenous law.

About Professor Heather Dorries

Heather Dorries is of Anishinaabe and settler ancestry and a member of Sagkeeng First Nation in Treaty 1. She is an Assistant Professor jointly appointed to the Department of Geography and Planning and Centre for Indigenous Studies at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on the relationship between urban planning and settler colonialism and examines how Indigenous intellectual traditions—including Indigenous environmental knowledge, legal orders, and cultural production—can serve as the foundation for justice-oriented approaches to planning.

She is currently revising her book manuscript Planning the End of the World: Indigenist Planning Theory and the Art of Refusal, which demonstrates how Indigenous knowledge systems can inform resurgent forms of planning and urbanism. She is a co-editor of the collection Settler City Limits: Indigenous Resurgence and Settler Colonial Violence in the Urban Prairie West (University of Manitoba Press, 2019).

Accessibility

Please note that CG 265 is on the second floor of the Canadiana Gallery building, with stair access only as there is no elevator. If you have any access needs or if there are any ways we can support your full participation in this session, please email crimsl.communications@utoronto.ca and we will be glad to work with you to make the appropriate arrangements.

Health & Safety

We are following health and safety measures outlined by the University of Toronto and the Government of Ontario. Should there be changes in protocols related to health and safety of our guests and community, registrants will be advised.