Audra Simpson

Audra Simpson

Research Interests

Empires, States, Sovereignties
Indigeneities, Diasporas
Intellectual & Disciplinary Histories
Slavery, Colonialism, Race, Racial Capitalism
Toxicity, Environment & Climate Crisis
War, Nationalism, Displacement, Trauma

Research Concentrations

Indigeneity, Settler Colonialism, Political Theory, Cultural Theory, Governance, Narrative Gender and Race

Regions

Indigenous Territories; United States, Canada, Australia

Biography

Audra Simpson is a political anthropologist whose work is focused on contextualizing the force and consequences of governance through time, space and bodies. Her research and writing is rooted within Indigenous polities in the US and Canada and crosses the fields of anthropology, Indigenous Studies, American and Canadian Studies, gender and sexuality studies as well as politics. Her recent research is a genealogy of affective governance and extraction across the US and Canada.

Her book, Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States (2014, DUP) won the Sharon Stephens Prize (AES), the “Best first Book Award” (NAISA) as well as the Lora Romero Award (ASA) in addition to honorable mentions. It was a Choice Academic Title for 2014. In 2010, she won the School of General Studies “Excellence in Teaching Award.”

 

Education

McGill University, PhD in Anthropology, 2004
McGill University, MA in Anthropology, 1996
Concordia University, BA in Anthropology, 1993

2018. “Why White People Love Franz Boas or, The Grammar of Indigenous Dispossession.” In Indigenous Visions: Rediscovering the World of Franz Boas, edited by Ned Blackhawk and Isaiah Wilner, 166-181. New Haven: Yale University Press. 

2017. “The Ruse of Consent and the Anatomy of Refusal: Cases from Indigenous America and Australia.” Postcolonial Studies 20: 1-16.

2016. “Consent’s Revenge.” Cultural Anthropology 31, no. 3: 326-333.

2016b. “The State Is a Man: Theresa Spence, Loretta Saunders and the Gendered Costs of Settler Sovereignty.” Theory & Event 19, no. 4: 1-16.

2014. Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States. Durham: Duke University Press.

2014b. Coeditor with Andrea Smith. Theorizing Native Studies. Durham: Duke University Press.

2009. “Captivating Eunice: Membership, Colonialism and Gendered Citizenships of Grief.” Wicazo Sa Review 24, no. 2: 105-129.

2007. “On Ethnographic Refusal: Indigeneity, ‘Voice’ and Colonial Citizenship.” Junctures: The Journal for Thematic Dialogue 9: 67-80.

Selected Publications