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As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance Spiral-Bound |

Leanne Betasamo Simpson

★★★★☆+ from 501 to 1,000 ratings

$31.07 - Free Shipping

Winner: Native American and Indigenous Studies Association's Best Subsequent Book 2017
Honorable Mention: Labriola Center American Indian National Book Award 2017


Across North America, Indigenous acts of resistance have in recent years opposed the removal of federal protections for forests and waterways in Indigenous lands, halted the expansion of tar sands extraction and the pipeline construction at Standing Rock, and demanded justice for murdered and missing Indigenous women. In As We Have Always Done, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson locates Indigenous political resurgence as a practice rooted in uniquely Indigenous theorizing, writing, organizing, and thinking.

Indigenous resistance is a radical rejection of contemporary colonialism focused around the refusal of the dispossession of both Indigenous bodies and land. Simpson makes clear that its goal can no longer be cultural resurgence as a mechanism for inclusion in a multicultural mosaic. Instead, she calls for unapologetic, place-based Indigenous alternatives to the destructive logics of the settler colonial state, including heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalist exploitation.

Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Original Binding: Paperback
Pages: 320 pages
ISBN-10: 1517903874
Item Weight: 0.66 lbs
Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.5 inches
Customer Reviews: 4 out of 5 stars 501 to 1,000 ratings

"This is an astonishing work of Indigenous intellectualism and activism—by far the most provocative, defiant, visionary, and generous of Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's impressive corpus to date."—Daniel Heath Justice (Cherokee Nation), University of British Columbia

"I have learned more about this battered world from reading Leanne Betasamosake Simpson than from almost any writer alive today. A dazzlingly original thinker and an irresistible stylist, Simpson has gifted us with a field guide not to mere political resistance but to deep and holistic transformation. It arrives at the perfect time."—Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything

"A remarkable achievement that illuminates what is possible when we engage in the revolutionary act of indigenous self-love, As We Have Always Done asks the simple question, ‘What if no one sided with colonialism?’ The many possible answers to that question are reflected in Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s beautifully written book in which she kindly challenges indigenous people to reclaim their lives and bodies from the settler colonial state."—Sarah Deer (Muscogee [Creek] Nation), author of The Beginning and End of Rape

"Incisive. Unmitigated. Inspiring. Simpson gives no quarter to colonialism. No quarter to a nasty Western narrative. She provides a pure, Indigenous lens—a lens that the white man tried to kill and bury. This book is a reminder that they failed in that rotten endeavor. It belongs on every Canadian bookshelf. On every American coffee table. Simpson's words are an affirmation of Indigenous resilience and resolve."—Simon Moya-Smith (Lakota and Chicano), culture editor at Indian Country Media Network

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a writer, activist, faculty member at the Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning, and a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Arts at Ryerson University. She is author of several books, including Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back, The Gift Is in the Making, Islands of Decolonial Love, and This Accident of Being Lost. She is Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg, holds a PhD from the University of Manitoba, and is a member of Alderville First Nation.