In his latest book, Disjunctures: Indigenous Redirections in Political Theory, Associate Professor Yann Allard-Tremblay, offers a thorough theoretical account of the irreconcilable differences between Indigenous and Euro-modern political traditions. In engaging with the work of various Indigenous and decolonial scholars, Allard-Tremblay presents makes the case for a redirection of political theory and conduct toward Indigenous systems and decolonization.
We spoke to Professor Allard-Tremblay about the research behind Disjunctures, the importance of a better understanding of the politics of reconciliation and how Disjunctures has been discussed among peers.
Q: How did the idea for this book come about, and how has your previous research shaped its contents?
A: This book originates from a dissatisfaction with the ways in which political theory as a discipline, and politics more generally, have often assumed that they could fully account for the claims of Indigenous peoples, without having to change much. Too often, Indigenous political claims are apprehended through the existing categories and frameworks of dominant political theories, but much is to be gained by engaging these claims on their own terms. Further, reconciliation is too often approached as requiring no choices or sacrifices to be made on the part of the state and non-Indigenous people. The book is accordingly conceived as a way of emphasizing that reconciliation cannot properly be pursued without duly considering the theoretical and political choices it leads to.
More generally, I have long been interested by the relationships between politics and epistemology, and more specifically by the ways in which the terms by which we govern ourselves can be subjected to proper inquiry. More recently, I have become interested in settler colonialism and coloniality and the ways in which they impede the achievement of legitimate terms of governance, including through various forms of epistemic oppression and injustice. While Disjunctures is manifestly about the political context of reconciliation, the comparative engagement of Indigenous and dominant Euro-modern political theories it offers is deeply informed by the epistemological considerations shaping my prior work.
Q: You characterize ‘disjunctures’ as the irreconcilable differences between Indigenous and Euro-modern political thought and traditions. What types of disjunctures do you address in the book, and how can they lead us to a better understanding of the politics of reconciliation?
A: ‘Disjunctures’ are indeed about irreconcilable differences between political traditions, but more importantly they refer to political options that cannot simultaneously be realized and that therefore require choices to be made. They are about concrete options before us, not merely about theoretical differences. A disjuncture is thus a crossroad, a point where a choice must be made between different paths that cannot simultaneously be pursued. Disjunctures seeks to explain the main paths offered by Indigenous political traditions along which political theory and politics may fruitfully be redirected. For instance, one of the chapters is concerned with the notion of political rightness, an overarching normative consideration seen as binding on other pursuits within political society. I argue that dominant liberal political theories tend to conceptualize political rightness as equivalent to justice. In contrast, Indigenous political traditions largely prioritize the notion of harmony over justice. I contend this offers another way of conceptualizing political rightness. In other chapters, I also discuss how Euro-modern and Indigenous political traditions conceptualize governance in irreconcilable ways: as a form of top-down exercise of authority that extend mastery over nature versus as a form of relational governance of conduct that demands mutual responsiveness both to other humans and other-than-humans.
I believe this offers a better critical and pragmatic understanding of the politics of reconciliation. It offers a better critical understanding because it makes clear just how much reconciliation without transformation denies the political import of Indigenous political traditions. It offers a better pragmatic understanding of the politics of reconciliation by articulating specific and concrete irreconcilable political options.
Q: What is ‘Indigenous Disruptive Conservatism’, and how can it challenge our understanding of Euro-centric political models? How can this approach be applied comparatively to reconciliation efforts in other settler colonial contexts, such as Australia and New Zealand?
A: I develop this approach in the book’s most theoretically dense chapter. In that chapter, I reflect on methodological considerations relevant to articulating different disjunctures between Euro-modern and Indigenous political theories. The problem is about how, and on what grounds, a political theorist can identify, articulate, and defend Indigenous political options. I present the various methodological considerations discussed as ‘Indigenous Disruptive Conservatism.’ This approach seeks to change and transform the world – to disrupt the current dispensation – by defending better political options. These options are neither utopian nor purely rationally deduced. They are rather identified and defended through a critical and reflexive engagement with, and grounding in, Indigenous political traditions. As such, ‘conservatism’ is not in reference to contemporary political parties but marks the resonance with classical conservatism and the importance it grants to tradition as a source of knowledge and wisdom. In using this term, I am also pointing to the possibility of fruitful encounters between Indigenous political traditions and non-dominant strands of Euro-modern political theory.
Indigenous Disruptive Conservatism is primarily designed to explain how to carry out the work Disjunctures demands. It offers a useful synthesis and characterization of critical approaches to political theory that centers Indigenous political traditions, which I argue are broadly taken up by otherwise diverse Indigenous authors. It will help other scholars pursuing related projects of decolonization and reconciliation, and I hope will resonate for Indigenous authors here and in other settler colonial contexts, but I do not claim that it offers a normative statement of how to methodologically and theoretically approach reconciliation everywhere.
Q: In Disjunctures, you draw upon work already done by various Indigenous thinkers on the theoretical implications for normative political theory and the practical political consequences of presuming ‘irreconcilable differences between Indigenous and dominant Euro-modern traditions.’ Which Indigenous thinkers have you referenced in your book, and how did their contributions inform your research? How will their work help readers of your book better understand political theory in general, and the disjunctures you refer to, more specifically?
A: This is a very difficult question to answer. For one thing, there are too many scholars to name here. For another, when I try to think about shorter lists, I end up with unrepresentative lists. In writing Disjunctures, I wanted to articulate differences with dominant Euro-modern traditions, but without negating nor erasing the diversity of Indigenous traditions associated with different Indigenous nations. As such, while being synthetic, I have nevertheless tried to be wide-ranging in my engagement with Indigenous thinkers. There are names that appear more often than others, but overall, my research has been informed by a multiplicity of distinct, and sometimes contrasting, but equally relevant Indigenous contributions. This cannot be reduced to the influence of a few scholars. More generally, properly understanding the disjunctures I refer to, and Indigenous political theories more generally, requires significant, demanding, and ongoing work to learn from others and humbly encounter them in their complexities and diversities.
Q: Chapter Four addresses the Two Row Wampum. What significance do living artifacts such as the wampum hold in understanding the long history of political relationships between Indigenous peoples and settlers?
A: Leaving aside specificities associated with the Two Row Wampum, a complex political agreement that requires a great deal of unpacking – too much to undertake here – this is a good moment to emphasize that Disjunctures is not only concerned with political theories as they are developed in written texts. Political theories are embodied and manifested in political conduct, practices, and institutions. The practices of treaty-making, for instance, is differently carried out in Indigenous and European traditions, disclosing different lifeworlds and ways of thinking and enacting politics. These practices are neither self-explanatory nor transparent, but they offer rich expressions of the different nature and content of political traditions. By engaging with these manifestations of political traditions, and the account given of them by relevant sources, it becomes easier to understand how they concretely shape political life, and thus the disjunctures with which we are faced.
Q: In your book, you engage with accounts of reconciliation that call for “disalienation and transformation”, responsabilities that rest on the shoulders of settlers to “rejoin humanity.” What steps should be taken to answer this call to action? How can Indigenous traditions transform our understanding of, and reckoning with, the past and the future?
A: This is a very complex question, and I seek to address it in one of the longest chapters of the book. As such, I risk being superficial, here. Importantly, I do not provide a blueprint for answering this call to action. Instead, my goal is to emphasize that reconciliation requires both structural and subjective transformation; such transformation should unmake social positions of dominance and associated subjectivities. Largely, modern political subjects have understood themselves as members of nations or peoples entitled to exercise final and supreme authority over a territory. To properly approach reconciliation, this self-understanding cannot be sustained: there is a need to ‘remake’ ourselves otherwise, so as to sustain mutually responsive relations of governance with one another and with other-than-humans through which we strive for harmony. How to do so will take different forms for different people and in different contexts. Importantly, it is wise to account for the subjective sense of loss this is likely to produce. To those ends, Indigenous political traditions contain relevant teachings about how to collectively surmount loss to sustain ongoing political relationships, and I discuss other relevant examples like that of South Africa. In this respect, Disjunctures offers a politics of sacrifice and hope: certain practices and ideas, including of the self, to which we are deeply attached must be abandoned and transformed. There is loss, but loss for the achievement of a better world. We can have hope that we can make a better world together, although this may be very demanding.
Q: How has the book been received amongst your peers and colleagues? What discussions has it inspired in your classroom and beyond?
A: The book only physically came out in October, so I am still waiting to read reviews and to see how it gets taken up! I can say however that I have received extremely encouraging feedback from colleagues in political science, philosophy, and law at the book launch. I can also note the enthusiastic responses I received from colleagues across the country who accepted to participate in author-meets-critics roundtables at conferences in the coming year. Finally, the book has already attracted some attention, since I was invited to give an online book talk with The Philosopher in January.
Q: What’s next for you in 2026?
A: I am currently on sabbatical until September. I have a few projects related to discussing the arguments of the book and expanding some related ideas. For instance, I’m interested by the issues associated with engaging and collaborating across intellectual traditions, a project I have notably begun to explore in collaboration with John McGuire. I am also working with Elaine Coburn on a co-authored book related to our project on what we call the Flying Heads of Settler of Colonialism, where we critically take up persistent ideologies supporting the settler colonial project across a wide range of contexts. Finally, as I mentioned earlier, I like to frame Disjunctures as offering a politics of sacrifice and hope. I am developing a project more closely examining these two notions – sacrifice and hope – asking how they have been taken up, notably in Indigenous political contexts, and how they can inform the current political moment.
Yann Allard-Tremblay is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at McGill University and a Senior Research Associate of the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science at the University of Johannesburg. He is a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the Universities of St Andrews and Stirling. As a member of the Wendat First Nation, his work is committed to the decolonization and Indigenization of political theory.