Indigenous scholars treat refusal and incommensurability as political correctives against oppressive forms of understanding

Evidence

In recent years, indigenous leaders and scholars have explored practices of ‘refusal’, as ways of insisting on their own opacity or non-participation in certain relations, but also as a generative break that can open up new possibilities (Simpson 2014, 2017). Likewise, indigenous thinkers have called for ‘an ethic of incommensurability’, as a way of resisting attempts to understand or feel at ease with others that can easily reinforce ongoing forms of injustice and absolve dominant groups of guilt. (Tuck and Yang 2012). — Farhan Samanani, Conviviality and its others, 66

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to broader literature on epistemological humility and the ethics of not-knowing; incommensurability echoes debates about translation and irreducibility across postcolonial and science-studies work. — connects to: Place-based kinship duties anchor indigenous refusal to relocate — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 689; Total language refusal can function as a critique of a whole social order — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 627
• DEFINE: Clarifies ‘ethic of incommensurability’ and ‘refusal’ as deliberate non-participation rather than mere retreat.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Farhan Samanani, Conviviality and its others: for a…, 66