This is an interdisciplinary collection that addresses the racial and ethnic politics of knowledge production and indigenous activism in the Americas. It analyzes the relationship of language to power and advocates for collaboration between community members, scholars, and activists that prioritize the right of Native people to decide how their knowledge is used.

Decolonizing Native Histories is an interdisciplinary collection that grapples with the racial and ethnic politics of knowledge production and indigenous activism in the Americas. It analyzes the relationship of language to power and empowerment, and advocates for collaborations between community members, scholars, and activists that prioritize the rights of Native peoples to decide how their knowledge is used. The contributors—academics and activists, indigenous and nonindigenous, from disciplines including history, anthropology, linguistics, and political science—explore the challenges of decolonization.

These wide-ranging case studies consider how language, the law, and the archive have historically served as instruments of colonialism and how they can be creatively transformed in constructing autonomy. The collection highlights points of commonality and solidarity across geographical, cultural, and linguistic boundaries and also reflects deep distinctions between North and South. Decolonizing Native Histories looks at Native histories and narratives in an internationally comparative context, with the hope that international collaboration and understanding of local histories will foster new possibilities for indigenous mobilization and an increasingly decolonized future.

"“This fine volume highlights ways of writing indigenous history beyond the usual frameworks supplied by academia….This volume urges us out of our safe spaces to push the boundaries of what indigenous history can mean."" - Hispanic American Historical Review

"“[S]cholars and students will benefit immensely from these explorations of the ways Indigenous people have transformed their relationship to the past, the state, and their interlocutors.”" - Canadian Journal of Native Studies

"“Overall, this ambitiously edited volume is able to deliver thoughtful essays, crossing geographic and political boundaries, which encourage the reader to examine Indigenous histories and narratives through the multi-faceted lens of decolonization in an international forum.” " - AlterNative

"“This is a high-quality contribution for understanding the impacts of colonial empires on the native peoples of the Americas and related island areas in the Pacific….The book is recommended for academic courses and professionals with common research interests.”" - Bulletin of Latin American Research

"Decolonizing Native Histories, written within the context of decolonization and deoccupation agendas, is an absorbing book that appeals to the reader interested or active in indigenous restorative justice and indigenous theorizing. While the essays are complex and challenging, they bring many threads together offering a higher level of understanding of past and present indigenous issues." - Journal of Third World Studies