Indigenous Authenticity and Settler Nationalisms

How is it that arguments such as Morley’s continue to resonate with settler peoples? Simpson’s response points to the double standard of expectations, by which indigenous peoples are expected to operate according to tradition but settler peoples are not. The idea that settler societies should remain bound to the practices in use at the time of their arrival in the ‘New World’ is patently ridiculous, so why is the same idea in relation to indigenous peoples not equally so? The answer lies in the discourse of indigenous authenticity that is foundational to the settler imaginary and the subject of this chapter. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.