Settler solidarities as praxis: understanding ‘granny activism’ beyond the highly-visible

Abstract

Across Canada, the Raging Grannies are renowned for appearing, invited or not, in spaces not typically open to older women, with outrageous ‘Granny’ costumes and satirical songs. A movement of predominantly non-Indigenous, settler women, the Raging Grannies regularly work in diverse activist coalitions in pursuit of social and environmental justice; many are seeking to ally themselves with contemporary Indigenous movements. However, while analyses have so far focused on their highly visible and iconic activist strategies, their solidarity-building efforts remain under-examined. Based on focus groups, interviews, and participant observation carried out in 2014–2015, this paper probes why and how Raging Grannies are building alliances with Indigenous movements in Canada. What emerges is an important tension. While many view their irreverent and theatrical strategies as quintessential to their ‘Granny Activism,’ such tactics were unanimously deemed inappropriate for engaging with Indigenous movements. Underpinned by reflections on their own settler histories, feelings of outrage at ongoing and state-sanctioned colonial practices, fears of inadvertently reproducing colonial relations, and a sense of interconnected futures with Canada’s First Peoples, they sought different, less-visible ways of practicing their solidarities. Many chose to attend rallies dressed in their everyday clothes, provide resources to Indigenous-led protests, invite Indigenous activists to speak at their gatherings, and work through their churches to redress past harm. Their solidarity efforts incorporated small acts, often pivoting around individual members’ personal connections. This article thus depicts the Raging Grannies as more diverse in their practices than typically recognized. It also addresses an important gap in scholarship on older women’s roles in solidarity movements. Finally, it extends existing scholarship on solidarity-building, suggesting that how solidarity is understood cannot be disconnected from how it is practiced, and thus demonstrating how solidarity can be relational, performative, and contingent.

Keywords:

• Solidarity
• decolonization movements
• Raging Grannies
• aging
• Canada
• Indigenous-settler alliances

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all of the women who participated directly in this research, especially the Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, and Barrie Raging Grannies. I also extend my gratitude to the organizers of the 2014 Raging Grannies Unconvention for facilitating my participation in this inspiring event. For their research assistance and intellectual input, I expend deep thanks to Melissa Baldwin, Miriam Sherwin, Ziysah VonBieberstein, and Jesse Whattam. This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canada Research Chairs program. I also appreciate the support of Trent University.

Notes

1. I refer to the Raging Grannies as a movement of ‘aging women’ because most members across North America are over the age of 60 and because they draw strategically of ‘grandmother’ identities in their organizing. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that there are and have been Grannies who are much younger, including some in their 30s and 40s; there is no age requirement for women to join.

2. It is noteworthy that Roy (2004) and others did, to some extent, recognize a diversity of activist strategies and tactics among the Raging Grannies, including moments when Raging Grannies felt that their highly visible tactics were not appropriate. However, the emphasis in such previous work (including Roy, 2004; Sawchuk, 2009; and others) was clearly on the more iconic, satirical forms of their activism; there has yet been no sustained analysis of their solidarity-building efforts.

3. I use pseudonyms for all named participants in this research.

4. I have left the spelling of First Nations groups in this poem as Candice wrote them.

5. Idle No More is the name given to the mobilization of Indigenous communities across Canada that gained prominence in 2013 – this mobilization made visible the immense poverty faced by many First Nations’ communities across the country, while also illuminating the strength of these communities to preserve their cultures and maintain their integrity, despite centuries of abuse. For a discussion of the generations of Indigenous resistance and resurgence which laid the foundation for Idle No More, see Wotherspoon & Hansen, 2013; For additional analyses and descriptions of the Idle No More movement, see Johnson, 2012; Kuokkanen, 2008; NWAC, 2010; Sweet, 2014; van Gelder, 2013; Walia, 2013.

6. In addition to Idle No More, noted earlier, a large mobilization, known collectively as ‘missing and murdered Indigenous women campaigns,’ had also taken place in response to disproportionate violence borne by Indigenous women and children, with numerous calls for the Canadian Government to conduct an inquiry into this injustice. See, for example, Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty.ca/our-work/campaigns/no-more-stolen-sisters) and the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) (http://www.nwac.ca/sisters-spirit, NWAC, 2009, 2010).

7. The People’s Social Forum was a national conference of social movement organizations in which the Raging Grannies participated, organized under the leadership of Indigenous activists in Ottawa in August 2014 (see Peoples’ Social Forum, 2014).

8. Other scholars call into question whether this kind of settler pain, guilt, and shame might inadvertently function to decenter Indigenous experiences, appropriate Indigenous pain, and enable settler complicity (Regan, 2010).

9. Regan (2010), for instance, draws on McIntosh’s (1989) work on privilege to suggest that settler consciousness, and the privilege that comes with it, hinders society.

10. This is the number cited in Candice’s poem; this number has been highly contested and there well may be more than this.