Abstract:
This thesis explores white-seeming privilege, a term developed by the
author to describe the specific experience of racial privilege in individuals
who look white but primarily identify with a different ethnic label. The term
is discussed though its connection with different theory areas, namely
whiteness, white privilege, tribal critical race theory, Indigenous knowledge,
Indigenous identity, racial passing, and settler colonialism. Drawing
philosophical influence from both the Indigenous research paradigm and
arts-informed research, the author uses personal storytelling, poetry, and
written narrative to more fully describe the concept of white-seeming
privilege. The author argues that in the specific context of Indigenous people
who seem white, racial privilege must be situated in a deep understanding of
settler-colonialism and uses his own family history of colonization to
illuminate the way settler colonialism colours, but does not diminish, his
understanding of his own white-privilege. Framed as a talking circle
discussion between two parts of his identity, the Indigenous and the white,
the author combines Indigenous ways of knowing with Western academic
knowledge, generating what some have referred to as trans-systemic
knowledge and ultimately achieving reconciliation between his selves—an act
that can serve as a model for reconciliation on a wider scale.
