Next Steps for Settlers

It has been a long journey, just arriving at this point. You have done some significant work, and you ought to celebrate that.

More than anything, my suggestion for this stage of your journey is to be at least cultivating relationships with local Indigenous Nations, individuals, groups, and organizations that welcome settlers to support them. For W̱SÁNEĆ and lək̓ʷəŋən territory, this could look like supporting ecological restoration work with the W̱SÍ,ḴEM Ivy Project, or the Lekwungen Community Toolshed, or signing up to support large events like the South Island Powwow. These are just suggestions, and what that might look like to you could be entirely different. You might hold relationships in the more front-line Land Defence community, or with other forms of service.

Doing this work can be isolating, and lonely. Your family/friends/circles might not understand what you are talking about, and it can be hard to work through other peoples’ fragility as you work to unlearn your own. Doing this work in community is very powerful, and can be deeply helpful. Below there are a list of resources that offer long-term training, some in different contexts that might not immediately directly relate to Indigenous sovereignty and supporting Indigenous resurgence. Many of them offer a sliding scale payment, but they can get expensive.

If there are decolonization circles taking place in your territories, they can be an affordable, collective way for settlers to come together in a way that is safe for Indigenous people to do this work. If you are cultivating relationships with Indigenous people, ask them if they have heard of anything like this, a circle or group, and see if they recommend anything. Please be careful with what you ask of Indigenous folx, it is not their responsibility to undo our being here, and it is unfair to ask them to hold space for us to do our work in front of them. This can be triggering, and revisit colonial violence by (re)centring ourselves.

Out Unlearning – based on W̱SÁNEĆ and lək̓ʷəŋən territory, Our Unlearning is specifically focused on supporting settlers (again, mostly European-descended) through building a community around this work, cultivating relationships with local Indigenous peoples and their works, and providing a collective, practice-based way to support our unlearning and move towards becoming better guests on these territories.

White Awake – US-based anti-oppression and solidarity organization that works to unlearn around the category of whiteness, and to support individual and group learning around lineage work, fragility, and (re)turning to a practice that supports your work in this way.

Heart to Heart Indigenous Relations Consultation – Founded and facilitated by Pulxaneeks Love (Xanuksiala, Nuchanulth and Lummi), Heart to Heart offers a series of single day and multi-day workshops and sessions that range from introducing settlers to the ideas of Indigenous sovereignty, cultural and spiritual appropriations, dismantling white supremacy through land-based practices, and several other sessions that are grounded in the land, and support Indigenous peoples through guiding settlers in a good way.

Cultivating Safer Spaces – Elaine Alec (Syilx and Secwepemc) shares a method for cultivating spaces that are safer for Indigenous peoples when working with settlers, and offers it in a single afternoon workshop, or a series of workshops. Elaine often holds space at the Moosehide Campaign Day of Action, and has been sharing this framework with settlers and Indigenous folx alike for some time. This is a good second step before taking on a larger, multi-month journey if your time is limited.