Overview

Historically, artwork has played a powerful role in shaping settler colonial subjectivity and the political imagination of Westphalian sovereignty through the canonization of particular visual artworks, aesthetic theories, and art institutions’ methods of display. Engaging directly with Indigenous contemporary artists, this book makes the case that decolonial aesthetics is a form of knowledge production that calls attention to the foundational violence of settler colonialism in the formation of the world order of sovereign states. Contemporary Indigenous artists’ projects that engage with the political violences of settler colonialism demonstrate how artwork can play a key role in decolonizing political imagination and academic knowledge production about territorial sovereignty and in Indigenous peoples’ reclamations of relationships with traditional lands and waterways. This book contributes a transnational feminist intersectional analysis of artwork as a powerful force in world politics and argues that contemporary artwork is a site of knowledge production that provides vital insights for scholars of world politics. The objective is to contribute to IR debates on aesthetics, anarchy/hierarchy in world ordering, and structure/agency as well as to contribute to public conversations on the politics of reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous settlers in global contexts.

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9781785523212

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Reviews

Taking artwork to be a powerful force in (un)making world politics, Emily Merson's Creative Presence is a major contribution to our understanding not only of sites and practices of decolonial resistance but also of International Relations and where else we ought to look in theorizing relations between political communities. This important book reveals how failing to inquire beyond disciplinary convention sustains our implication in colonial violence.--J. Marshall Beier, McMaster University Creative Presence centres contemporary Indigenous arts in relation to ongoing global struggles for justice. Emily Merson's careful reading of decolonial and transnational art works by two of Canada's best-known Indigenous artists, Rebecca Belmore and Brian Jungen, lays a groundwork for a transformative and fresh aesthetic method that situates decolonizing Indigenous arts within world politics. For International Relations scholars and others seeking interpretive methods beyond established but universalizing western aesthetic frames, Merson expertly channels an embodiment of practices of Indigenous sovereignty to disrupt settler colonial imaginary.--Carmen Robertson, Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in North American Indigenous Visual and Material Cultural, Carleton University Emily Merson's Creative Presence is itself a much needed creative presence for a discipline that is only recently waking up to the important political interventions of the visual arts. Conceptually acute, wide ranging in focus, and compellingly argued, her investigation discloses a world of creative work that will lastingly unsettle the one that IR scholars have been inhabiting.--Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawai'i, Manoa

"Creative Presence centres contemporary Indigenous arts in relation to ongoing global struggles for justice. Emily Merson's careful reading of decolonial and transnational art works by two of Canada's best-known Indigenous artists, Rebecca Belmore and Brian Jungen, lays a groundwork for a transformative and fresh aesthetic method that situates decolonizing Indigenous arts within world politics. For International Relations scholars and others seeking interpretive methods beyond established but universalizing western aesthetic frames, Merson expertly channels an embodiment of practices of Indigenous sovereignty to disrupt settler colonial imaginary. Emily Merson's Creative Presence is itself a much needed ""creative presence"" for a discipline that is only recently waking up to the important political interventions of the visual arts. Conceptually acute, wide ranging in focus, and compellingly argued, her investigation discloses a world of creative work that will lastingly unsettle the one that IR scholars have been inhabiting. Taking artwork to be a powerful force in (un)making world politics, Emily Merson's Creative Presence is a major contribution to our understanding not only of sites and practices of decolonial resistance but also of International Relations and where else we ought to look in theorizing relations between political communities. This important book reveals how failing to inquire beyond disciplinary convention sustains our implication in colonial violence."

Creative Presence centres contemporary Indigenous arts in relation to ongoing global struggles for justice. Emily Merson's careful reading of decolonial and transnational art works by two of Canada's best-known Indigenous artists, Rebecca Belmore and Brian Jungen, lays a groundwork for a transformative and fresh aesthetic method that situates decolonizing Indigenous arts within world politics. For International Relations scholars and others seeking interpretive methods beyond established but universalizing western aesthetic frames, Merson expertly channels an embodiment of practices of Indigenous sovereignty to disrupt settler colonial imaginary.--Carmen Robertson, Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in North American Indigenous Visual and Material Cultural, Carleton University Emily Merson's Creative Presence is itself a much needed creative presence for a discipline that is only recently waking up to the important political interventions of the visual arts. Conceptually acute, wide ranging in focus, and compellingly argued, her investigation discloses a world of creative work that will lastingly unsettle the one that IR scholars have been inhabiting.--Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawai'i, Manoa

Author Information

Emily Merson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Regina.

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