(Re)wiring Settler Colonial Practices in Higher Education: Creating Indigenous Centered Futures Through Considerations of Power, the Social, Place, and Space

In this chapter, we seek to illuminate the dangerous, active, pervasive, and personal nature of settler colonialism within US higher education. We use an electrical current metaphor to conceptualize settler institutions of higher education in relation with settler colonialism and to convey how that relationship needs to be rewired to forge Indigenous centered futures in higher education. To accomplish this, first, we reflect on how our personal experiences with settler colonialism brought us together to write this chapter. We also describe how we approached our writing process collaboratively to support one another and to push against settler colonial writing conventions. Second, we contrast Indigenous and settler colonial ways of knowing and being. Third, we offer an analytical framework, which draws on concepts of power, the social, as well as place and space, for making sense of how we encounter Indigenous and settler colonial ways of knowing and being throughout our interactions in higher education. Fourth, we explore the tensions and possibilities of transforming settler colonial institutions of higher education into Indigenous Centered Institutions. Finally, we offer our conclusions and implications for dreaming vibrant Indigenous futures through solidarities against settler colonialism.