Social Class and the Indigenous Lifeworld

The concept of social class (class) is intricately entwined into the discipline of sociology. Both the discipline and societal concern with class emerged from disruption of the Industrial, American, and French Revolutions in the 18th and 19th centuries. All noted sociological scholars since those times have addressed class as a core aspect of their work. Yet the literature on the class position of Indigenous Peoples is scant to the point of nonexistence. This chapter examines the place and conceptualizations of class as understood within the Western sociological literature. These conceptualizations are then interrogated on their applicability and their usefulness for Indigenous Peoples living in Anglo-colonized nation-states. The concept of class is then re-envisioned through the theoretical lens of the Indigenous lifeworld. The chapter concludes that the Indigenous class position cannot be understood unless it is placed and analyzed within its present and past social structural context of colonization