Indigenous intellectual sovereignty and the non-Indigenous scholar

Indigenous intellectual sovereignty and the non-Indigenous scholar

Recently, author and scholar Thomas King, who defined himself as Cherokee throughout his career, his life even, admitted to just having discovered that he had no Cherokee, nor any Native American, descent. This ongoing context of sporadic disclosures of cases of pretendianism (non-Indians pretending to be Indians), and the long historical wariness that Indigenous people entertained regarding Euro-American, settler-colonial science, impel the non-Indigenous scholar to raise questions about Indigenous intellectual sovereignty and reflect upon the non-Indigenous scholar’s position in the field of Indigenous studies.

Lionel Larré is a professor at Bordeaux Montaigne University, and a researcher in Indigenous studies. He is the author of several articles on Native American history, culture and literature, of a book on Native American autobiography (2009), and one on Cherokee history (2014). He is also the editor of a collection of texts by Cherokee author John Milton Oskison (Tales of the Old Indian Territory and Essays on the Indian Condition, University of Nebraska Press, 2012), and of a biography of John Ross by Oskison (Unconquerable, UNP, 2022). He served as president of Bordeaux Montaigne University between 2020 and 2024. He is currently on a one-year (2025-26) research mission with the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in the ECHELLES research center (Paris Cité University). He is preparing a book on the Society of American Indians (1911-1923), an activist pan-Indian organization of Indigenous intellectuals.

Suggested reading: Cook Lynn - Who Stole Native American Studies [2]

This seminar is part of the "Americas in IEiAK" series.
Next meeting in the series: April 15, 2026, 10:30, IEiAK seminar - Dr. Susana Rosales "Traditional Markets in Transition: Culture, Consumption, and the Politics of Public Space in Mexico City"