Foreclosing settler colonialism (also dishonestly): Rosanne Kennedy, ‘Decolonial memory frictions: Tracking the tent in activism, art and memory from Indigenous Australia to Palestine’, Memory Studies, 19, 5, 2026, pp. 1500-1524

29Oct26

Abstract: To explore the frictions of decolonising Memory Studies, a field which originated in Europe and has been driven, in part, by the study of Holocaust memory, I turn to Documenta, a prestigious German art festival. Held in Kassel in 2022, documenta fifteen marked a transition in the festival’s history, for the first time curated by a Global South artist collective. The festival, however, was derailed by controversies over antisemitism. In this article, I contribute to decolonialising the study of memory through three interconnected arguments. First, I argue that Germany’s overly broad understanding of antisemitism trivialised the decolonial initiatives pioneered at documenta fifteen and instead recentred European Holocaust memory and protected Israel’s settler colonial practices in Palestine. Second, I argue that settler colonialism offers a productive analytic frame for decolonising memory studies, enabling researchers to identify connections between histories and memories of dispossession and resistance that are often on the periphery of the field. Third, using a settler colonial analytic, I identify the tent as a recurrent symbol of dispossession and a commemorative form in anticolonial memory activism and art. To ground these arguments, I take First Nations Australian artist Richard Bell’s Embassy (2013–) installation at documenta fifteen, which features a canvas tent commemorating the Aboriginal land rights movement, as an entry point for analysing cultural memories of dispossession and resistance to settler colonialism. I then track Embassy’s (2013–) connections with Palestinian memories of dispossession, including a Palestinian festival in Jerusalem (2016), and with Emily Jacir’s (2001) Memorial to 418 Palestinian Villages which were Destroyed, Depopulated and Occupied by Israel in 1948, and Dina Mattar’s Summer Day in Gaza (2017). I argue that the tent, as a portable commemorative form, brings into view surprising connections between memories of dispossession and resistance to settler colonialism that we miss if we start from the Global North.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Forgetful settlers (by design): Paulina R. Johnson, ‘Settler-colonialism’s ability to forget Nêhiyawak memory’, Memory Studies, 19, 5, 2026, pp. 1475-1484

29Oct26

Abstract: Memory is essential to Indigenous knowledge sharing, as it shapes how history, culture, and traditions are understood and maintained. Yet, the history of Settler Canada has been in contention with Indigenous understandings of the past as settler-colonialism has worked to minimize historical truths and create alternative and often blind histories. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada worked to share the lived experiences and atrocities of Indian Residential Schools and, over the last few years, has gained recognition for September 30th as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The overall aim has been to highlight the truths about Indian Residential Schools, but in doing so, Canadian society has normalized the narratives of trauma without moving forward to not only the 94 Calls to Action but what Reconciliation means, and the actions needed to undertake this responsibility as a collective for all of Canada and not just Indigenous Peoples. This article examines the role of memory and recollection from a Nêhiyawak (FourSpirit/Plains Cree) point of view as it examines the normalization of one of Canada’s greatest atrocities, further harming Indigenous Peoples.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

The village that does not breathe: Isra Sarsour, Ahmad Khalilia, ‘Fragmented landscapes: The impact of Israeli settlements on Palestinian identity — A case study of Deir Nidham village’, Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 2026

28Oct26

Abstract: The article examines the profound and multifaceted consequences of the relationship between Palestinian identity and the expansion of Israeli settlements through a qualitative case study of Deir Nidham Village in the central West Bank. Often described by its residents as “the village that does not breathe,” Deir Nidham has experienced a history of dispossession, particularly with the occupation of its hilltop to establish the Halamish Settlement. The study employs a qualitative case-study approach, combining spatial and historical analyses of land-use change with semi-structured interviews conducted with villagers across different generations to capture personal experiences and collective memories. This is achieved through a comparative study of the landscape before and after settlement expansion, and by examining changes in land access, agricultural practice, and daily spatial use. Interview narratives captured villagers’ traditional livelihoods, their cultural expressions, and their sense of belonging. In doing so, the article underscores the resilience of Palestinian identity while exposing the profound pressures exerted on it by ongoing settlement activities. This transformation has affected not only the village’s physical environment but also its social fabric, cultural continuity, and psychological well-being. By situating the village within the broader framework of settler colonial practices, the research seeks to understand how settlement activity has disrupted Palestinian daily life, reshaped spatial practices, and weakened long-standing connections and attachments to the land. By placing the village within the broader framework of settler colonial practices, the research seeks to move beyond macro-scale analyses to examine the overall impact of settlement in its daily lived experience at the micro-scale, an aspect insufficiently explored in current studies.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Resurgence: Brandon Montour, ‘Beyond the Indian Act: Restoring Traditional Government in Kahnawà:ke through Haudenosaunee Law’, Osgoode Hall Law Journal, 63, 1, 2026

28Oct26

Abstract: The Kanien’kehá:ka of Kahnawà:ke have been subjected to the Indian Act since 1889. Its forceful imposition has eroded ancestral governance systems and severed vital threads of cultural and social life. In 2024, the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke—the Indian Act band council—declared its intent to restore traditional governance and unilaterally end the Indian Act’s reach within the territory. This work is presently underway in Kahnawà:ke. Against this backdrop, and in light of generations of collective experiences of trauma brought on by the forces of settler-colonialism, this article considers what role Haudenosaunee law can play in bringing community members together to build inclusive governance and law-making practices beyond the Indian Act. This article suggests that Haudenosaunee law, and more specifically, Kaienerekowa – the Great Law of Peace, can serve as a constitutive and guiding legal framework for Kahnawà:ke at this critical juncture. More broadly, the article explores how the resurgence and practical application of Indigenous laws can offer a path forward for Indigenous communities seeking to restore traditional governing practices that are grounded in the collective wisdom, knowledge, and legal traditions of our ancestors.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

The portability of frontier religion: Alexandru Lazăr, ‘From New England to Indiana: Religious Mobility and the Expansion of Universalist Christianity Across the American Frontier’, SSRN, 2026

28Oct26

Abstract: The expansion of Universalist Christianity in the United States was closely linked to the broader process of westward migration that transformed the American religious landscape during the nineteenth century. Emerging from the theological developments associated with James Relly, John Murray, and Elhanan Winchester, Universalism evolved from a predominantly New England movement into a frontier denomination that accompanied settlers into the Old Northwest. This study examines the relationship between religious mobility and the spread of Universalist Christianity across the American frontier, focusing on the state of Indiana as a case study. Drawing upon denominational records, contemporary publications, and historical data concerning local congregations, the article reconstructs the development of Universalist communities in Indiana from the early nineteenth century to the first decades of the twentieth century. Particular attention is given to missionary activity, institutional organization, denominational networks, and patterns of community survival. The analysis demonstrates that while Universalism achieved remarkable success in disseminating its message through itinerant preaching and migratory networks, it proved less successful in establishing durable institutional structures. The Indiana case reveals a broader paradox of frontier religion: rapid expansion often coexisted with organizational fragility. As a result, the cultural influence of Universalist ideas ultimately exceeded the institutional longevity of many Universalist congregations.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Culture wars? Lorenzo Veracini, ‘AIPAC jeremiad: on Adam Kirsch′s settler colonialism’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2026

26Oct26

Excerpt: Atlantic senior editor, Columbia University faculty member, critic and poet Adam Kirsch’s Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence, and Justice (2024) is disconnected from morality and not informed by facts. To genuinely engage, I will refrain from offering a moral rejoinder and will respond in accordance with its logic. Should I remind readers that Palestinians are human, and that this carry consequences, including political consequences, or refer to a genocide that was and is broadcast worldwide and in real time? No need: most readers would know about humanity and about genocide, and other reviews of the book have drawn attention to this its fundamental biases. Besides, I assume that Kirsch knows they know, and this is probably why he builds a straw man argument. The straw man in the argument is named ‘settler colonialism’.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

A settler neighbourhood: Samuel Jacob, ‘Nearer Neighbors: Settler Sublimation and Human Gardening in the Russian-American Neighborhood of Crèvecoeur’s Letters From an American Farmer’, American Literary History, 38, 4, 2026, pp. 464-489

26Oct26

Abstract: Of the twelve letters comprising J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur’s Letters From an American Farmer (1782), the penultimate eleventh stands out. It is narrated not by the titular Farmer James but by “Iwan,” a Russian gentleman who declares America and Russia “nearer neighbours” (262). This essay recovers the unacknowledged work Russian-American neighborliness performs within Crèvecoeur’s vision of American futurity. I show how Crèvecoeur borrows an eighteenth-century grammar of the neighborhood to both depict and predict Russian and American settler expansion as parallel, even doubled, projects. I further argue that Iwan is not, as he is often interpreted, a continuation of James’s narrational function, but is Crèvecoeur’s historically inflected amalgam of Fedor Karzhavin, a Russian traveler throughout colonial America. Finally, turning to Iwan’s conversations with the botanist John Bartram, I demonstrate how Crèvecoeur uses botanical language to recast slavery and serfdom as benevolent forms of human gardening, a refiguration that sublimates Russia and America’s systems of enslaved labor and indigenous dispossession into shared fictions of cultivation and care. Against the backdrop of contemporary diagnoses of the “Russification” of US government, I show that tracing early American expressions of Russia and America as “nearer neighbors” promises new trajectories for US literary scholarship.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Settler maths: Nicholas Pitt, Matthew Birchall, Nancy Cushing, Jarrod Hore, Simon Ville, Alison Bashford, ‘Rethinking settler-colonial populations with sheep and cattle – a conversation around the Australian colonies’, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 27, 2, 2026

26Oct26

Excerpt: What happens if we include sheep and cattle in our analysis of British settler-colonial populations during the early to mid-nineteenth century?


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Homemaking projects: Kandice L. Grossman, ‘Home Is at the Heart of Place: Coalition Possibilities at Standing Rock’, in Michelle I. Gawerc, Rachel L. Einwohner (eds), Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change: Coalition-Building and Solidarity Across Difference, Emerald, 2026

26Oct26

Abstract: This research examines the participation of a diverse group of activists in the 2016–2017 Standing Rock movement, led by Oceti Sakowin tribal members, on the borders of the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The movement resisted the pipeline in the name of water protection, Indigenous sovereignty, protection of sacred burial grounds, treaty rights, climate justice, and more. Approximately 10 months into the effort, it was halted by the state, and the pipeline was installed. This paper emerges from a larger qualitative study that examines the politics, possibilities, and risks of coalition surrounding the Standing Rock movement. Data collection involved in-depth interviews with 27 activists, content analysis of 13 activist stories, and participatory research and observation. Findings show that for activists in the camps, placework, or place-based protest, enacted a “call and response” form of politics, based on shared callings to protect and critical responses to settler colonial-capital culture, specifically dispossession of land and property. Relationship to a sense of “home” shaped political motivations, a sense of belonging or lack thereof, and strengthened activists’ willingness to participate. This study suggests the analytical categories of place and home are productive for future sociological research on mobilization and coalition building across difference.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Bilingual settler colonialsm: E. Haque, ‘Dual white settler coloniality and the genealogy of indigenous language policy’, Language Policy, 2026

26Oct26

Abstract: In order to examine the disjuncture in responses to the Indigenous Languages Act (ILA) between different Indigenous groups, in this paper I will explore the genealogy of Indigenous language policy in Canada by examining various government and community reports, documents, as well as parliamentary and committee debates from the 1960s onwards, which is when Canada’s first official language policy was announced. I argue that the continued state prioritization of official white settler languages means that even for a region like Inuit Nunangat with relatively good linguistic vitality through decades long efforts by the Inuit to prioritize Inuktut, the development of an Indigenous languages act cannot guarantee the future reclamation and ongoing vitality of Indigenous languages in Canada.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed
« Older posts

top posts today

Archives

stats for wordpress