We strive towards Narrative Change and often use language that may not be familiar to all. Because we want our resources and information to be accessible to all, we have curated a list of frequently used words that appear in our communications and their definitions.
Frequently Used Terms and Their Definitions
Colonial State/Police State
The dominant societal structures that are a product of global colonization.
Particularly in relation to violence* inflicted upon oppressed communities and individuals as a direct result of colonization.
Colonial Violence
Violence of settlers against Indigenous peoples. (Richard N. Price)
Violence, which we understand as a traumatic event, that affects a person or persons on the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual levels in order to force assimilation into the culture of the colonizer.
Settler Colonialism
A type of colonialism in which the indigenous peoples of a colonized region are displaced by settlers who permanently form a society there.
The goal of settler-colonization is the removal and erasure of Indigenous peoples in order to take the land for use by settlers in perpetuity… “This means that settler colonialism is not just a vicious thing of the past, such as the gold rush, but exists as long as settlers are living on appropriated land and thus exists today.”
Indigenous
Inhabiting or existing in a land from the earliest times or from before the arrival of colonists. (Oxford)
Violence*
The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation. (World Health Organization)
Lateral Violence
“Hurt people, hurt people”
Lateral violence is a form of bullying, and can often be called horizontal violence, which has been defined as “organized, harmful behaviors that we do to each other collectively as part of an oppressed group, within our families, within our organizations and within our communities.” (American Institute on Domestic Violence)
Ethnocide
The deliberate and systematic destruction of the culture of an ethnic group (Oxford Dictionary)
The destruction of culture while keeping the people. The term was first coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944. (AmericanBar.Org)
Indigenous Sovereignty
Distinguishable from Tribal Sovereignty in that it is not a nation-state recognition of inherent sovereignty under nation-state dominion. Rather, it arises from Indigenous Traditional Knowledge, belonging to each Indigenous nation, tribe, first nation, community, etc. It consists of spiritual ways, culture, language, social and legal systems, political structures, and inherent relationships with lands, waters and all upon them. Indigenous sovereignty exists regardless of what the nation-state does or does not do. It continues as long as the People that are a part of it continue. (IENearth.org)