Can We Decolonize Territorial Rights? An Exploration

The Centre for the Study of Democracy and Diversity Emerging Scholars Present:

Kaitie Jourdeuil - PhD Candidate | Department of Political Studies, Queen's University

"Can we decolonize territorial rights? An exploration" 

Monday, November 4, 2024 

2:30-4:00 PM

Robert Sutherland Hall | Room 334

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The Centre for the Study of Democracy and Diversity (CSDD) is pleased to announce its next event, a talk from Kaitie Jourdeuil, a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Studies, titled “Can We Decolonize Territorial Rights? An Exploration”.

Abstract

What does it mean to decolonize territorial jurisdiction in countries like Canada? How can settler political theorists contribute to this process? This talk presents preliminary thoughts on these questions emerging from my dissertation research. Drawing on Indigenous political thought and empirical scholarship, I suggest that decolonization is not a process of redistributing authority, as it is often framed in Canadian political debates and liberal thought, but of changing how settler and Indigenous political communities relate to each other-that is, how we understand territorial jurisdiction itself. I also consider the methodological responsibilities of settler political theorists to contribute to these processes and the implications of these responsibilities for the traditional objects, methods, and arguments of normative political theorizing.

Brief biography

Kaitie Jourdeuil is a SSHRC doctoral scholar in the Department of Political Studies at Queen's University, specialising in Political Theory and Canadian Politics. Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Kaitie joined the Department of Political Studies in 2019 as a Master's student in Political and Legal Thought. She received her Bachelor of Humanities with High Distinction from Carleton University's College of the Humanities, during which she completed a year of study at Cardiff University in Wales.