Irreconcilable: Indigeneity and the Violence of Colonial Erasure in Contemporary Canada

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Joseph Weiss

Irreconcilable

Name: Irreconcilable
Price: 229 AUD
Availability: PreOrder
ISBN: 9781469693729

Indigeneity and the Violence of Colonial Erasure in Contemporary Canada

Joseph Weiss

$229

Hardback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

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English

The University of North Carolina Press
24 March 2026

Ethnic minorities & multicultural studies; First Nations; Regional government

Series: Critical Indigeneities

Since the early 2000s, the Canadian government has attempted reconciliation with Indigenous nations through varied efforts: treaty processes, government commissions, rebranding campaigns for settler-owned businesses, workshops for state and local officials, school curriculum changes, and a recently christened national holiday However, as Joseph Weiss argues, these state-driven initiatives reinforce Indigenous subordination to the settler state. This incisive study of the varied responses from both Indigenous Nations and individuals to reconciliation illuminates how it is implicated in ongoing colonial erasure.

Critically engaging with a variety of fields, including Indigenous studies, anthropology, history, political theory, semiotics, and museum studies, Weiss captures the multiple scales at which these contested dynamics unfold and explores their underlying technologies of erasure. Irreconcilable unpacks how reconciliation offers amends for anti-Indigenous violence while disavowing responsibility for that violence, and argues that settler promises of reconciliation cannot be reconciled to the fact of Indigenous sovereignty. Nevertheless, Weiss illustrates how Indigenous Peoples refuse erasure at every turn, instead building alternate futures and lived worlds that are not always already colonially overdetermined.

By: Joseph Weiss
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 25mm, Spine: 155mm
ISBN: 9781469693729
ISBN 10: 1469693720
Series: Critical Indigeneities
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 24 March 2026
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Joseph Weiss is associate professor of anthropology and science and technology studies at Wesleyan University.

Reviews for Irreconcilable: Indigeneity and the Violence of Colonial Erasure in Contemporary Canada

“A powerful study that reveals the anti-Indigenous violence of reconciliation politics in Canada. Sparkles with theoretical acuity and clarity.”—Audra Simpson, author of Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States “Synthesizing an impressive range of Indigenous scholarship with research on ruins, museum objects, and legal language, Joseph Weiss delivers a brilliant analysis of reconciliation as a settler response to Indigenous sovereignty.”—Eugenia Kisin, author of Aesthetics of Repair: Indigenous Art and the Form of Reconciliation