The work presented here is the story of an American Indian Tribe in the United States as told to me in pieces by community members, Elders and employees of the Tribal government. I am responsible for taking up the stories shared with me in a good way. While this story includes sadness, trauma, and continuing oppression that are hallmarks of systemic settler colonialism, it is a story of survivance. In Gerald Vizenor's (1999) words, "Survivance is an active sense of presence, the continuance of native stories, not a mere reaction, or a survivable name. Native survivance stories are renunciations of dominance, tragedy and victimry." Ethnographic research methods were used in this work, including semi-structured interviews, participant observation and one focus group; all centered on drugs, alcohol, addiction, and related service provision. Within this context, the habits, residues, and lingering structures of colonialism emerged as causes of significant problems. I use Brian Noble's (2015) two-pronged definition of coloniality to express these ongoing effects in the contemporary world. In opposition to coloniality, American Indian community members and Elders expressed survivance. Through the framework of survivance in the face of coloniality, I identify key challenges the community confronts, as well as ways they are addressing drugs, alcohol, addiction, and coloniality. I present three related chapters that support this. First, durable racism against American Indians and stigma against drug users compound to perpetuate and justify stereotypes and racism against all American Indians in the area. This shifts blame for perceived disparities in drug use, propagates shame among American Indian drug users, supports racial profiling, and interferes with services. In opposition to false narratives, stories from the community express survivance through community closeness, caring and compassion, and desire to foster these things within service provision. Second, community members, Elders, and employees drew clear connections between Historical Trauma, childhood trauma, and drug and alcohol use. These connections were also used to highlight colonialism and coloniality, counter narratives of personal responsibility/blame for addiction, refute stereotypes, and secure resources for services. These terms have become tools of survivance. One reason these efforts have been successful is because of the association of trauma with western medical/psychological establishments. I term the community redeployment of these ideas as post-medicalization. Finally, operating at the nexus of Tribal Sovereignty, U.S. criminal justice policy, increasingly medicalized ideas of addiction, and the rising influence of MAT (Medication Assisted Treatment), Tribal drug court service provider and participant choices are limited by coloniality. For example, service providers who express exemplary dedication and caring for program participants often resort to putting participants in jail to "save lives." In the face of these limitations and regular setbacks, both service providers and participants express optimism and hope for the future of individual drug users, and for the Tribal community as a whole. This has important implications for the Tribal community, but also for the study and treatment of addiction more generally.
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