Red Scare: The State's Indigenous Terrorist

The rhetoric of terrorism has been used to justify the oppression and suppression of Indigenous activists, who are now being cast as terrorists. Joanne Barker's book "Red Scare" investigates the intersectional scope of these four movements and the broader context of the treatment of Indigenous social justice movements as threats to neoliberal and imperialist social orders. It shows how US and Canadian leaders leverage the fear-driven discourses of terrorism to allow for extreme responses to Indigenous activists, framing them as threats to social stability and national security.

Format: Hardback
Length: 192 pages
Publication date: 03 December 2021
Publisher: University of California Press

New Indigenous movements are gaining traction in North America, with the Missing and Murdered Women and Idle No More movements in Canada, and the Native Lives Matter and NoDAPL movements in the United States. These movements do not represent new demands for social justice and treaty rights, which Indigenous groups have sought for centuries. However, due to the extraordinary visibility of contemporary activism, Indigenous people have been newly cast as terrorists, a designation that justifies severe measures of policing, exploitation, and violence.

Red Scare investigates the intersectional scope of these four movements and the broader context of the treatment of Indigenous social justice movements as threats to neoliberal and imperialist social orders. Joanne Barker shows how US and Canadian leaders leverage the fear-driven discourses of terrorism to allow for extreme responses to Indigenous activists, framing them as threats to social stability and national security. The alignment of Indigenous movements with broader struggles against sexual, police, and environmental violence puts them at the forefront of new intersectional solidarities in prominent ways. The activist-as-terrorist framing is cropping up everywhere, but the historical and political complexities of Indigenous movements and state responses are unique.

Indigenous criticisms of state policy, resource extraction and contamination, intense surveillance, and neoliberal values are met with outsized and shocking measures of militarized policing, environmental harm, and sexual violence. Red Scare provides students and readers with a concise and thorough survey of these issues, offering a critical analysis of the ways in which the rhetoric of terrorism is used to justify the oppression and suppression of Indigenous activists.

Dimension: 210 x 140 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780520303171