Indigenous mobility traditions, colonialism, and the anthropocene

The anthropocene is often discussed as an era of ‘new’ environmental changes that require unprecedented forms of societal adaptation, one example being climate-induced resettlement. Yet discussions of the anthropocene can also be better contextualized in terms of their featuring certain phenomena as ‘new’ that are really much more longstanding phenomena. For example, many Indigenous peoples have ancient traditions of environmental ‘mobility.’ This essay reviews some of the history of Indigenous philosophies, especially Anishinaabe, of mobility, migration, and resettlement. Often these philosophies focus on fluid and transformative relationships as constituting the fabric of resilient societies. Indigenous traditions of mobility are critically relevant for climate justice. They put into relief how colonial power can operate as a containment strategy that works to curtail mobility. In this way, looking at Indigenous mobility in the anthropocene involves unraveling layers of colonialism where containment has been widely imposed. This claim can be used to signal some of the dangers of centering the causal role of climate change in certain cases societal movement. To further support our claims, the essay concludes with a brief analysis of some of the literature and testimonies on resettlement in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.