North American Indigenous and dominant Euro-modern political traditions display irreconcilable differences. These differences disclose political options that cannot be pursued simultaneously or, in a word, disjunctures. Yann Allard-Tremblay argues that dominant Euro-modern traditions model political societies according to notions of justice, and following the determinations of an independent, autonomous people. The associated practices of governance express an ethos of mastery that is fundamentally unreciprocal and unresponsive to other humans, other-than-humans, and ecological contexts. In contrast, Indigenous traditions model political societies as part of a broader ecological context of understanding, and thus give priority to the search for, and maintenance of, harmony. These traditions provide a political model that is nonhierarchical, noncoercive, and primarily focused on the need to sustain and preserve relationships with others, other-than-humans, and the land itself. As such, they require a deep reciprocal responsiveness in governance. For contemporary political societies committed to reconciliation, choices will have to be made with regards to these disjunctures.This event will explore the consequences that recognizing these irreconcilable political options will have for the political project of reconciliation, arguing that reconciliation must be transformative, of both political structures and subjectivities.

Yann Allard-Tremblay is Professor of Political Science at McGill University, and a Research Associate of the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science at the University of Johannesburg. His work focuses on the decolonization and Indigenization of political theory. His last book, Disjunctures: Indigenous Redirections in Political Thought, was published in 2025 by Oxford Academic Press.

Leila Ben Abdallah is a political theorist and a Professor at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Her research focuses on Indigenous political thought, decolonization, racial capitalism, and the politics of emotion.