Hope and dispossession: Strange bedfellows in Indigenous-state relations

This article investigates the dynamics between hope and dispossession in the relations between Indigenous peoples and states. These relations, historically marked by colonial interventions, boast hopeful developments ranging from the recognition of rights to truth and reconciliation processes. Drawing on critical hope scholarship and research on contemporary colonialism, this article delves into the question of reconciliation and the (allegedly) reorganised Indigenous-state relations. Engaging with the state continues to be, in many ways, problematic for Indigenous peoples whose hopes often clash with those of the state. Even though experiences from completed truth and reconciliation processes around the world have been fraught with foundational shortcomings, the shortcomings have not discouraged Indigenous peoples from initiating and taking part in reconciliation. Embracing this global trend, three Nordic countries – Finland, Sweden and Norway – have each embarked upon a truth and reconciliation process with the Sámi people. Utilising the recent Nordic processes as reference points, this article reveals how states employ hope to govern their relations with the peoples, an aspect that has been neglected to date. In particular, it highlights how the element of time (integral to hope) and the clash of parties’ disparate hopes are key to understanding power asymmetries in these relations.