Glossary

A dominant society that “discovers” and claims rights to unsurrended lands already lived upon by its original (i.e. Indigenous) inhabitants. The colonial power (or colonizer) then determines and shapes laws, languages, economies, social relations, and cultural life, and subject all people on the land to these dominant norms (e.g. Christianity, nuclear families, western biomedicine). Colonization denies sovereignty and self-determination of the original inhabitants by asserting that dominant norms are superior, subjecting everyone to live by these norms. This denies Indigenous peoples’ freedom to their language, culture, land, and social values.