Planning Against Imperialism

As a disciplinary subfield, Indigenous planning often conceptualizes Indigenous dispossession through the vernacular of settler-colonialism – a term whose continental biases efface a whole host of distinct but often-overlapping processes of Indigenous dispossession typically captured through the vernacular of imperialism. In this chapter, we draw from scholarly literature spanning Indigenous studies, sociology, and law, to conceptualize the U.S. as an empire that deploys settler-colonial and imperial forms of Indigenous dispossession in its overseas possessions in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In particular, we highlight how U.S. imperialism perpetuates Indigenous dispossession in its imperial outposts through three particular sets of strategies: political domination, militarism, and economic dependency. We conclude with brief notes on the various intertwinements between settler-colonialism and imperialism, and gesture towards how planning scholars and practitioners might better account for the transnational and global dimensions of Indigenous dispossession and resistance.