The Sinking Tribe: Neocolonial Discourse and Indigenous Counter-Discourse in the Biloxi-Chitimacha Choctaw Resettlement

Abstract

Rising sea levels are forcing coastal communities across the globe to relocate to safer ground. In southern Louisiana, the Isle de Jean Charles is sinking rapidly as floods are expected to completely submerge the island in 30-50 years. The island is home to the Biloxi-Chitimacha Choctaw tribe, whose need to resettle has become an area of contention within wider Louisianian society. Dubbed America’s first ‘climate refugees’, the tribe has faced continual disappointment and broken promises from the state regarding their resettlement. Oil companies working within the state have also rejected claims their excavation has added to the rising waters, leaving the coastal communities embroiled in a bitter lawsuit. Within this thesis, I trace elements of neocoloniality through texts from the state and the oil companies to demonstrate how normative discourse surrounding the resettlement functions to uphold hegemonic, Eurocentric ideologies. Using an explicitly feminist critical discourse analytical methodology, I examine the practices of othering, presentation of neocolonial knowledges and the silencing of Indigenous voices as mechanisms within the discourse which the state and oil industry employ to suppress alternative readings of the resettlement. Offering a counter to this, I engage with a counter-discursive methodological framework to centralise the perspectives of the Biloxi-Chitimacha Choctaw tribe. This suggests an alternative reading of the hegemonic narrative represented in the neocolonial discourse, contrasting the objective and universalising narratives of the normative discourse by presenting themes of invasion and legacies of violence. Embedded in feminist and decolonial principles, my analysis examines how discourse can be deconstructed to clear space for historically marginalised voices and usher in a decolonial approach to language and representation.