Aging, precarity, and the struggle for Indigenous elsewheres

Abstract

Through the structures and logics of the settler/capitalist state, the aging body can only be viewed as a crisis of decreased labor power and increased social expenditure; an amortization that has only worsened under neoliberalism. As such, this article calls attention to the conspicuous absence of a counter discourse and politics of aging within Native American and Indigenous studies. Within Indigenous communities, elders have always held places of distinction, which not only renders the dearth of theories of aging within Native studies problematic but also deeply limiting to the project of articulating the “decolonial option”. As discussed in the article, Indigenous theories of aging are a critical component of securing alter-Native existences, defined by relations of mutuality, responsibility and reciprocity.

Keywords:

• Indigenous elsewhere
• elders
• aging
• precocity
• biopolitics

Notes

1. To recall, the turn of the twenty-first century started with September 11th and then came Katrina, Sandy, Fukushima, Indian Ocean Tsunami, Housing Banking mortgage crisis, Occupy Wall Street.

2. For further discussion of this concept of ‘elimination’ and its logics, see Wolfe (2006).

3. Brigg (2007) develops the ‘heuristic’ of ‘terrapolitics’ to delineate the difference between Aboriginal political ontologies and governance and settler-Australian biopolitical arrangements. In this context, terrapolitics refers to ways in which land serves as a ‘medium for transmitting Aboriginal social and political order’ (p. 7).

4. In their report, ‘Global Aging and the Crisis of the 2020’s,’ Howe and Jackson (2011) equate the ‘crisis of aging’ with issues of national security and a pax Americana redux.

5. These questions were synthesized and sampled from across multiple reports issued by various organizations examining the so-called aging crisis.

6. See e.g. The United Nations Report (2000).

7. More specifically, ‘bonds’ are essentially contracts between government agencies and venture capitalists who act as intermediaries, managing the non-governmental service providers, holding them accountable for achieving the mutually agreed upon objectives of ‘success.’

8. In 1974, the Ford Foundation and six government agencies created the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation with the purpose of implementing and documenting the results of new programs intended to help the poor. It formally adopted ‘MDRC’ as its registered corporate identity in 2003.

9. ‘Moral Reconation Therapy’ was developed and implemented by Kenneth Robinson, Gregory Little, and their colleagues at Correctional Counseling, Inc. (CCI) beginning in 1988. Once connected to federal agencies, CCI was established in 1990 as a freestanding privately held company, which has since cornered the market as providers of MRT within the corrections industry, with over 1 milling individuals ‘treated’ and programs in 47 states (Ferguson & Wormith, 2013, pp. 1076–1106).

10. It more specifically, focuses on seven basic treatment issues: confrontation of beliefs, attitudes and behaviors, assessment of current relationships, reinforcement of positive behavior and habits, positive identity formation, development of frustration tolerance, and development of higher stages of moral reasoning.

11. Thus, it isn’t at all surprising that in this most recent ‘crisis of capitalism’ there has been a renewed if not urgent focus on STEM disciplines. For more on this connection see Melinda Cooper’s, Life As Surplus: Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era (2015).