Indigenizing the Sociology of Race

Abstract The key Indigenous critique of mainstream sociology is the long-standing failure of the discipline to engage meaningfully with either the concept or lived reality of colonialism, which is evidenced in the mainstream scholarship of race. The Western-framed writings around race continue to miss or misrecognize core aspects of Indigenous lifeworlds. This critique is present in various forms across the nine chapters in this section. All chapters are linked by their engagement with race as a key concept of their analysis, and, more critically, in their presentation of alternative Indigenous philosophies on the sociology of race. In reading across the contributions, four central themes emerge: the distinctive processes and impacts of racialization for Indigenous Peoples in colonial settler states, the importance but oft-neglected aspect of sovereignty, the centrality of dispossession and land to Indigenous experiences of race, and the importance of local epistemologies for refashioning sociological concepts of race. These are discussed in turn.