Settler colonial Israel, then and now: Jeff Halper, Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State, Pluto Press, 2021

25Jan21

Description: For decades we have spoken of the ‘Israel-Palestine conflict’, but what if our understanding of the issue has been wrong all along? This book explores how the concept of settler colonialism provides a clearer understanding of the Zionist movement’s project to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, displacing the Palestinian Arab population and marginalizing its cultural presence. Jeff Halper argues that the only way out of a colonial situation is decolonization: the dismantling of Zionist structures of domination and control and their replacement by a single democratic state, in which Palestinians and Israeli Jews forge a new civil society and a shared political community. To show how this can be done, Halper uses the 10-point program of the One Democratic State Campaign as a guide for thinking through the process of decolonization to its post-colonial conclusion. Halper’s unflinching reframing will empower activists fighting for the rights of the Palestinians and democracy for all.


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Settler colonial Taiwan: Katsuya Hirano, Lorenzo Veracini, Toulouse-Antonin Roy, ‘Vanishing Natives and Taiwan’s Settler-Colonial Unconscious’, in Shu-mei Shih, Lin-chin Tsai (eds), Indigenous Knowledge in Taiwan and Beyond, Springer, 2021, pp. 225-248

25Jan21

Abstract: What are the implications of recovering settler colonialism as a mode of domination that fundamentally shaped Taiwan’s history? The article argues that this uncovering is crucial to understanding the formation of successive polities on the island of Taiwan, but this is not to say that a settler-colonial studies lens should replace a colonial one.


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Student settler colonialism: Chen Chen, ‘(Un)Making the international student a settler of colour: a decolonising autoethnography’, Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 2021

25Jan21

Abstract: This paper reflects on my experience as a non-white international student at a top-ranked sport/kinesiology faculty in Canada, particularly the (un)learning of my complicity within settler colonialism. Following a decolonising autoethnographic approach, I juxtapose my own desired pathway of pursuing international study with shapeshifting forms of settler colonialism. The stories reveal that Canada’s marketing of higher education, settler geography, the whiteness of university, and the spectacle of ‘reconciliation’ can operate in concert to prevent international students from developing critical understandings of the violent conditions of their stay on occupied Indigenous land. While elusive opportunities of (un)learning and resisting do exist, I argue that the seemingly natural trajectory of (re)producing settlers of colour warrants critical intervention.


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More queer settler colonialism: Shannon Brown, ‘Molly Wood’s Bush: Settler Colonialism, Queer Activism, and Commemoration in Toronto’, Journal of Canadian Studies, 54, 2-3, 2020, pp. 290-319

25Jan21

Abstract: This article explores the relationship between queer activism and settler colonialism in Toronto from the 1970s to the 2000s through the commemoration of Alexander Wood, a nineteenth-century magistrate. Over the course of these three decades, Wood was reclaimed as a historical gay man by a variety of queer activists who sought to incorporate lessons from the past into their work. After briefly introducing the early liberationist interpretations of Wood, this article investigates the process through which Toronto’s gay village, Church-Wellesley Village, became legible as “Molly Wood’s Bush,” a piece of land Wood purchased in the 1820s with roughly the same geographic boundaries. Emerging homonationalist forms of queer activism that placed queer life within the bounds of national belonging provoked a reinterpretation of Wood, making him into a gay pioneer and culminating in the creation of a statue to mark the Village as queer territory. By examining a series of rewritings of Wood’s history as well as their reception in Toronto, this article argues that the role of commemoration in creating maps of belonging that facilitate integration into the settler colonial order must be included in understandings of queer activism in Canada.


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Queer settler colonialism: Laura Hall, ‘Revisiting ’69 Celebrations and Challenging Settler Homonationalism in the (Un)Just Society’, Journal of Canadian Studies, 54, 2-3, 2020, pp. 228-244

25Jan21

Abstract: Narratives about queer Canada, or queering Canada, continue to normalize the nation-state and its settler-colonial roots. During the summer of 2019, the release of the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls made it impossible to ignore settler colonialism in the Canadian context, and yet celebrations of 1969’s Criminal Codechanges attempted to frame the country as a safe haven for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer + (LGBTQ+) rights. This article will explore rhetoric surrounding Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s era including the Just Society, the criminal reforms of 1969, as well as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s moment as celebrations of the 1969 reforms unfurl. In particular, this article will look at the contrast in rhetoric between the Just Society and protests by Indigenous peoples for whom 1969 nearly ended with the passing of the white paper and subsequent extinguishment of Indigenous rights. Assimilation, and, therefore, disappearance, frames Indigenous experiences of the Just Society, while settler-colonial aspirations frame mainstream understandings of 1969’s LGBTQ+ Criminal Code reforms. At the same time, as Indigenous peoples reframe this moment, and as Canadians prepare to celebrate its meanings, a surging Far Right has announced itself across the country. In response to this problem and to the liberal problem of doublespeak and Just Society rhetoric, this article will centre the aspirations and voices of Indigenous women and Two-Spirit folks as temporal and spatial alter-Natives to the rise of homonationalism rooted in ongoing settler colonialism.


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Competing colonialism in twentieth century Hawai’i: Jessica Wang, ‘Agricultural expertise, race, and economic development: small producer ideology and settler colonialism in the Territory of Hawaii, 1900-1917’, History and Technology, 2021

16Jan21

Abstract: This essay explores the technical practices of economic development in early twentieth-century Hawaiʻi, where agrarianism, race, and competing colonialisms shaped agricultural experts’ perceptions of the islands’ future. Technical activities in the form of horticultural experiments aimed at introducing new crops, research on soil and fertilizers, work on plant diseases and insect pests, shipping experiments and marketing efforts, analytical testing services, and outreach to farming communities constituted the key means by which the United States Department of Agriculture’s Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station pushed for fundamental economic and social transformations in the Territory of Hawaii. A populist anti-imperialist ideology drove the experiment station’s agenda, in an explicitly stated project of Americanization that sought to break Hawaiian dependence on sugar and plantation agriculture, expand small farming, and remake the islands’ racial order through white settlement from the mainland. Ultimately, the USDA’s brand of settler colonialism failed to supplant the existing plantation economy.


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Competing settler colonialism in nineteenth century Hawai’i: Christen T. Sasaki, ‘Emerging Nations, Emerging Empires: Inter-Imperial Intimacies and Competing Settler Colonialisms in Hawai’i’, Pacific Historical Review, 90, 1, 2021, pp. 28-56

16Jan21

Abstract: This article covers the controversy that followed the March 16, 1893 escape of prisoner Yosaku Imada to the Japanese warship, the Naniwa, which was docked in Honolulu. Imada’s act of seeking refuge onboard the ship occurred at a time when the provisional government of Hawai‘i had no extradition treaty with Japan. This created a diplomatic event that entangled leaders from Japan, the provisional government, and the United States. To further complicate matters, Issei and Meiji government officials were also pressing for franchise in the Islands, a right that a majority of the community did not have access to at home. By placing Imada’s escape and the Issei fight for voting rights in the context of the uncertainty that followed the January 17, 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, this article emphasizes Hawai‘i’s relevance as a site where inter-imperial dynamics aligned with competing settler colonialisms.Keywords:


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Settler colonial spaces: Avery Smith, Hine Funaki, Liana MacDonald, ‘Living, breathing settler-colonialism: the reification of settler norms in a common university space’, Higher Education Research & Development, 40, 2021, pp. 132-145

16Jan21

Abstract: Common university spaces are often lauded as inclusive spaces where everyone is welcomed, but is that really the case? Universities in Aotearoa New Zealand receive social, material, and financial benefits from positioning themselves as ethnically and culturally diverse, yet these institutions were established through acts of colonial invasion that severed Indigenous communities from land, language, and culture. The silencing of violent colonial histories is typical of settler societies and in institutions like universities in order to progress the idea of harmonious settler-Indigenous relations. Historical amnesia caters to settler sensibilities and the need to feel a sense of belonging to migrated territories, yet colonial violence continues to negatively impact Indigenous peoples’ lives. In this article, we consider how the logics of settler-colonialism underpin the workings of a large communal university space at one Aotearoa New Zealand university, to explore how the ideals of equity and inclusion function in normal day-to-day operations. Our research applied collaborative focused ethnographic methods to the performative and cultural dimensions of whiteness, to reveal ways in which settler normativity – settler ways of being, thinking, and doing – were evident in this communal space. Settler normativity was constructed by the predominance and location of settlers in space, the comfort settlers displayed, design of the space, and normalisation of wealth. We argue that common university spaces function as a microcosm of settler colonialism, where indigeneity is displaced, settlers assert their permanence, and universities profit.


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Migrants and the question of Indigenous sovereignty: Soma Chatterjee, Tania Das Gupta (eds), Special Issue: Migration and Indigenous Sovereignty in a Chronically Mobile World, Studies in Social Justice, 14, 2, 2020

16Jan21

Access the special issue here.


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Settler girls: Stephanie-Danielle Claude, Presencing Settler Colonialism: White Settler Girls’ Engagement with Colonial Violence, PhD dissertation, University of Ottawa, 2021

16Jan21

Abstract: Euro-Western girls are well represented within the field of girlhood studies. However, there exists a silence in the girlhood literature vis-à-vis the ways that white settler girls maintain and resist systems of colonial injustice. Everything that is known about white, North American girlhood is, therefore, predicated on a foundation of settler colonialism that has never been interrogated. The current research disrupts the colonial fixation on Indigenous “dysfunction” in order to interrogate settler identity. More precisely, drawing on girlhood theory, Indigenous feminist theories, and settler colonial theory, I examine the ways that white settler girls negotiate recently emerging discourses related to colonial violence against Indigenous women and girls. Using feminist, qualitative, narrative methods, I conducted twelve in-depth, semi-structured interviews with white settler girls, aged fifteen to seventeen, living in Winnipeg, Thunder Bay and Montreal. My analysis of the interviews offers critical insights into white settler girlhood in the following ways: the complex ways that Canadian identity and whiteness are intricately linked; the ways that white settler girls disrupt and support national narratives that erase Canada’s relationship to colonialism; the ways that Canadian curricula fail to adequately prepare settler girls to make sense of colonial violence; and the complex ways that settler girls tend to situate colonialism in the past. These insights reveal the on-going structure of colonialism in Canada and the way it shapes the identities and lived realties of settler and Indigenous girls. They also create space for further discourses surrounding the socio-political interventions required to restructure relations of colonial oppression in radical ways.


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