JAm It! (Journal of American Studies in Italy)

This issue of JAm It! Journal of American Studies in Italy examines Indigenous Resurgence as a transformative set of practices that refuse the limits of settler-colonial recognition and imagine alternative ways of thinking, organizing, and living. Framed as cultural self-recognition and empowerment, Resurgence is situated here within a decolonial project aimed at correcting asymmetrical distributions of power and resources historically enforced by settler states in North America through genocide, exclusion, assimilation, and dispossession. Rather than seeking accommodation within existing institutions, the contributions explore how Resurgence reorients ethical and political life from the ground up.

A key throughline among various forms of Resurgence is “grounded normativity,” understood as the land-connected practices and long-standing experiential knowledge that structure relationships among humans and with more-than-human worlds. Place-based and non-hierarchical, these relations unfold nonlinearly across time and space, entail responsibilities, and remain open to self-correction and rebalancing. The interventions in this issue follow that ethical orientation across theory, cultural production, and organizing, showing how Resurgence operates as both affirmation and transformation. Collectively, the issue maps how Resurgence—rooted in reciprocity and responsibility—opens pathways that exceed colonial recognition. By centering land-based ethics, relational accountability, and community autonomy, these contributions invite readers to consider not only what must be dismantled, but also what must be rebuilt to sustain flourishing Indigenous futures.