Book Review: The Colonial Politics of Hope: Critical Junctures of Indigenous-State Relations
| Published date | 01 August 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/09646639231181118 |
| Author | STEPHEN YOUNG |
| Date | 01 August 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book Review
MARJO LINDROTH and HEIDI SINEVAARA-NISKANEN, The Colonial Politics of Hope: Critical
Junctures of Indigenous-State Relations, Routledge. New York, NY, 2022, 148 pp., ISBN:
9780367755669 (hbk); ISBN: 9781003162988 (ebk).
Marjo Lindrothand Heidi Sinevaara-Niskanen’snew book interrogates the politics of hope
and how it structures and informs indigenous-state relations. While they focus solely on
indigenous-state relations, the analytic tools that Lindroth and Sinevaara-Niskanen
employ have broaderimplications, especially given the ongoing pandemic, general precar-
iousness, and,for lack of a better word, polycrisis.But one might also ask whether thisis an
appropriate time tointerrogate hope. After all, maybewe all need a bit of hope these days.
Lindroth and Sinevaara-Niskanen’s analysis of hope is an important contribution to under-
standing how hope is managed and as a future-oriented tool to increase and intensify gov-
ernance in the present. It brings us to the point of being able to ask “What might politics
look like if we did not have to rely on the hope that the future would be better?”
Generally, this book is useful for those who are interested in the political uses of law or
the intersection of law and politics as well as those interested in the politics of Indigenous
peoples’rights. It is not focused on legal events, but rather moments of ‘eventless-ness’
that surround and lead to more public legal events. Chapter two maps the social science
approaches to hope. Drawing from a Foucaultian approach to governmentality, which
some socio-legal scholars would find useful, their conceptual perspective examines
how hope has been politically mobilized in the context of Indigenous peoples’rights.
They examine how hope empowers and restricts, and how its political mobilization is
useful for governing, exercising power, and developing and managing desire.
Chapter 3 introduces the case studies on indigenous-state relations, which are ‘battlefields
of recognition’. The three case studies are the demand for constitutional change to recognize
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia leading to the Uluru Statement
from the Heart, the discussion on ratifying ILO Convention 159 Concerning Indigenous
and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries in Finland, and the Indigenous self-government
movement in Greenland/Denmark in 2009. Lindroth and Sinevaara-Niskanen choose these
situations because these states have committed to recognizing the rights of Indigenous
peoples, the processes began, and ‘these states have the means to concretely re-construct
the relations with the indigenous peoples within their territories’(p. 10).
Despite the commitment and means for recognition, these projects remain debated and
long drawn out. Over the decades of these projects, it often looks like little is happening;
the ‘eventless-ness’that Lindroth and Sinevaara-Niskanen interrogate. In these contexts,
Book Review
Social & Legal Studies
2023, Vol. 32(4) 654–656
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/09646639231181118
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