Can You Hear Us?

In today’s episode of Can You Hear Us?, sits down with Andrea Ho, a PhD student specialising in Modern U.S. history at Yale University, a Canadian Fellow at the Organisation of American States, and an activist both on and off campus. She focuses her research on ‘building upon existing community partnership with Indigenous communities and local advocates to continue her commitment to community engaged scholarship’. We discuss the history and indigenous resistance to the carceral state, most notably focusing on the Diné (Navajo) Communities in New Mexico, United States. Tune in to listen to her discuss indigenous self-determination, racial capitalism, her involvement in Yale University’s Racial Capitalism and Carceral State Working Group, and insights into her thesis Freedom Beyond the Prison: Indigenous Incarceration and Resistance in the American West.

Quotes from the interview:

“Restorative justice is at the front of many people’s mind[s]. The Navajo nation, for example, practice peacemaking which is a form of dispute resolution. People are really thinking about what it means to punish someone and send them through a violent system”

“Prisons are not a part of native societies. They are a means of political control by settlers over a group of people who are refusing to live the settler way”

“Racial capitalism signifies a relationship between racism and capitalism which is intrinsic. Capitalism was racial from the beginning because it requires inequality. You cannot undo racism without undoing capitalism”

“Organising and being in community with one another changes the way people view their place in society which is crucial to making any broader movement happen”

Additional resources:
Guest spotlight: https://history.yale.edu/people/andrea-ho
Zachary Schrag's The Princeton Guide to Historical Research on pages 90-93 has a great explanation of historiography!

Building Community Not Prisons (BCNP) Campaign