Publishers Weekly
07/18/2022
The fierce debut by Medicine for the Resistance podcaster Krawec critiques the harmful impact of European Christian settler colonialism on Indigenous Americans. The author, who is of Anishinaabe and Ukrainian heritage, details Indigenous American history from the first humans to populate the Americas through the present and outlines ways in which descendants of European colonizers and Indigenous people can become “good relatives.” Krawec recounts Indigenous creation stories (“The Inuit emerged from holes in the ice,” for example) and oral histories of life before European colonization. She decries the role that religious institutions played in theft of Indigenous land, citing the papal Doctrine of Discovery that stipulated land “discovered” by European powers belonged to them because it wasn’t owned by Christians. Encouraging readers to reconsider their relationship to their environment and what it would mean for churches and businesses to return stolen land, the author notes that an area in Hamilton, New Zealand, was returned to the Maori tribe who lived there pre-colonization and that the municipal buildings on the property provide the tribe with a tax base. Krawec’s prose is electric, shot through with passion and knowledge, though some will find her suggestions too abstract to effect the change she advocates for (“It is important as settlers and as Indigenous people that we return to ourselves”). This may not have all the answers, but it offers some thought-provoking ideas. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
"The fierce debut by Medicine for the Resistance podcaster Krawec critiques the harmful impact of European Christian settler colonialism on Indigenous Americans. The author, who is of Anishinaabe and Ukrainian heritage, details Indigenous American history from the first humans to populate the Americas through the present and outlines ways in which descendants of European colonizers and Indigenous people can become 'good relatives'.... Krawec's prose is electric, shot through with passion and knowledge [and] offers thought-provoking ideas." —Publishers Weekly
"Following a timeless structure of creation, destruction, and (hopeful) rebirth, Patty Krawec outlines 'a story ofhistory . . . in the hopes that it will explain our present and help us weave a new world into being." It's in this way that Becoming Kin is something of a creation story in itself: by describing the history of Indigenous peoples in the United States and Canada, Krawec begins to take the burden of education and progress off the shoulders of Native people and put it into the hands of settlers....Ending each chapter with a call to action, Krawec uses encouraging and lyrical prose to inspire readers that 'reimagining our future' is possible." —Booklist
"An invitation and a challenge to become better relatives to one another at this critical moment in human and planetary history. Generous and wise, Becoming Kin is a rare book designed to be put to immediate and practical use." —Naomi Klein, New York Times bestselling author and professor of climate justice at the University of British Columbia
"Becoming Kin is a powerful invitation into unlearning and learning. Krawec offers an essential vision for our relationships with the earth, the land, and each other." —Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, author of On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World
"A must-read for those working toward understanding and dismantling colonization. Patty Krawec reminds us what it means to come home to ourselves, this earth, and one another, and invites us to ask the beautiful, difficult questions that will help us reclaim that belonging." —Kaitlin Curtice, author of Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God
"Krawec holds space for Indigenous kin in a broad sense—and Black displanted people—and offers us a needed treatise on how to think. I will be reading and rereading this book for years to come, and I know it will inform my work as a Black feminist scientist." —Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, author of The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred
"Generous but also demanding, in the best way possible. A wonderful expression of how we can become better kin, with the world and with ourselves." —Jesse Wente, author of Unreconciled, arts journalist, and director of Canada's Indigenous Screen Office
"Patty Krawec has written a passionate and profound meditation on lineage, community, and systemic erasure. Grand in scope and depth of research, yet intimate in the telling, this book is an education for the soul." —Omar El Akkad, Giller Prize-winning author of What Strange Paradise and American War
"Crucial for understanding both colonization and Indigeneity, Becoming Kin is part history, part memoir, and part inspiration, lighting a path forward based on successful race relations, peace, and understanding." —Keri Leigh Merritt, historian and writer
