A World You Do Not Know: Settler Societies, Indigenous Peoples, and the Attack on Cultural Diversity by Colin Samson (review)

THE EFFECTS OF SETTLER COLONIALISM take center stage in Colin Samson’s 2013 monograph A World You Do Not Know: Settler Societies, Indigenous Peoples, and the Attack on Cultural Diversity. The monograph’s argument is centered on Samson’s experience with the Innu community of Labrador–Quebec that provided the basis for his study (15). Samson states in his preface that each chapter serves more as a stand-alone article than a cohesive narrative. He notes that the essays’ connecting theme and book title come from a quote by Oglala Lakota author Luther Standing Bear. Samson argues that Standing Bear exposed “a deep contradiction in the European worldview; the Euro-American settlers whose philosophical heritage lay in the Enlightenment ideals of “universal freedom, liberty and tolerance,” were at odds with the action Euro-American settlers took and the indifference they felt toward North American Indigenous peoples (2).

Though Samson is trained as a sociologist, scholars in many fields will find his writing accessible and without discipline-specific terminology. The articles will be of interest to many scholars of Native studies because they touch on a variety of issues confronting contemporary Indigenous communities. The first two essays frame the historical and philosophical differences between the Innu people and the Euro-American settlers of Canada. Samson begins this section with Walter Rockwood’s 1955 Memorandum, which argued that northern Canadian First Nations, including the Innu, lived outside of “white civilization” and that only by engaging in Euro-American capitalism could the issues facing Indigenous societies be addressed and solved (20). Western society, as Samson argues, viewed civilization as a linear timeline that valued forward progress. He depicts modern Western society by writing, “The goals of our lives are widely held to be linked to advancement, especially economic,” and thus at odds with Innu values (41). First Nations, like the Innu, whose economies were based on different value systems, appeared backward and largely incomprehensible to Euro-Americans.

Samson contrasts this Western philosophy with North American Indigenous society in general, and the Innu in particular. In the first essay he uses personal anecdotes to explain that even with a century and half of Euro-American assimilation policies, members of the Innu continued to think and survive as Innu people (38). Samson argues that Indigenous philosophies should have equal weight as Western philosophies in creating a dialogue between peoples. Yet, Euro-American settlers continually dismissed Indigenous beliefs and practices (66).

Samson’s next two essays compare and contrast the economic and the environmental worldviews of the Innu and Euro-Americans. Placing these two essays next to each other highlights the importance of the environment not only economically, but also spiritually, to human society. Though Samson focuses on generalities in these two articles, his statements ring true throughout much of Euro-American and First Nation people’s interactions. What Euro-Americans “observed was that instead of appropriating tracts of land as private property, most indigenous groups recognized collective, fluid and negotiable tenure of land” (70). Samson also highlighted differences between capitalist and hunter–gather societies. Capitalism sought to continue to expand industry in order to make more profit and thus needed to rigidly structure production targets. This contrasted with hunter–gatherer societies, whose efficient use of time allowed members more choice over how they spent their leisure hours (75). The fourth essay continues in this way by stating, “The liberal market economy that facilitated settler colonialism and induced transformations of indigenous peoples, continually transforms nature” (99). Capitalism placed a different value on nature than did hunter–gatherer societies. Rather than viewing the environment as a place of life-giving support, industrial capitalism viewed it as a source of raw materials to be transformed into greater profit through the manipulation of nature.

Essays 5 and 6 highlight how the shift in economy led to the industrialization of food. The change in diet was noted...