Dispossessory Citizenship: The Settler Colonial State and the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Relocation Program, 1952–1972.

This article analyzes the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Voluntary Relocation Program, initiated in 1952, as a settler colonial strategy that sought to assimilate Indigenous peoples by relocating them from reservations to urban centers while terminating federal trust restrictions. It argues that the program framed reservations as fiscal burdens and cities as spaces of "Indian freedom," yet functioned through dispossessory citizenship—a concept describing how Indigenous inclusion in U.S. citizenship was contingent upon dispossession of land and sovereignty. The BIA’s policies involved gendered surveillance, restricted Indigenous mobility, and negated Indigenous urban histories, ultimately reinforcing settler colonial domination despite later rhetorical shifts toward self-determination. Indigenous resistance and resurgence challenged these dynamics, highlighting sovereignty and autonomy as central political aims beyond mere inclusion within the settler state.