@pattyk “These edges, borderlands if you will, become places that are layered with what has radiated from other centers. Add to that the mobility of Anishinaabe communities around seasonal needs and you see a shifting and fluid model for relationship between those centers as well as fertile ground for growth and change in those borderlands.” 2/2
— Patty Krawec
“All of this brings me to the possibilities of borderlands rather than borders. […] Instead of hard lines drawn around the edges of a territory that need to be agreed upon and then defended, Anishinaabe governance sits in centers that then radiate influence outwards with diminishing levels of weight the further out from the center you are.” 1/2
— Patty Krawec
“… the whole concept of unskilled labour is a myth. There are skills that are valued, and skills that are not. Calling something “unskilled labour” is just a way to both devalue the labor and vilify the laborers. […] You can’t steal a job. You can be desperate enough to accept being exploited in ways that somebody else won’t accept, but that’s on the system that creates these circumstances. I don’t fault people for trying to survive.” — Patty Krawec
#WaterThoughts #BookReview #Bookstodon
#BecomingKin: An #IndigenousCall to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future, by #PattyKrawec.
From the book’s description: “The invented history of the Western world is crumbling fast, Anishinaabe writer Patty Krawec says, but we can still honor the bonds between us. . . . Settler colonialism tried to force us into one particular way of living, but the old ways of kinship can help us imagine a different future. Krawec asks, What would it look like to remember that we are all related? How might we become better relatives to the land, to one another, and to Indigenous movements for solidarity?”
I found much of this book to be a pure meditation on what could be, and it invited me to envision a future where all life is included and all the Earth is respected. Krawec made me want it, and she made me think it is possible. And it had fascinating things to say about #water.
It may be hard, but we can do it.
ira
H2O