Beyond settler colonialism or beyond settler colonial studies? Jane Carey, Ben Silverstein, ‘Thinking with and beyond settler colonial studies: new histories after the postcolonial’, Postcolonial Studies, 2020

16Feb20

Abstract: The past two decades have seen the dramatic emergence and, according to some accounts, the seeming rise to dominance of settler colonial studies across a broad range of disciplines. As an approach has become a field, and has perhaps become institutionalised, a series of critiques and debates has prompted both revision and rearticulation. This special issue reflects on the current state of what might now be called the ‘field’ of settler colonial studies. It showcases new directions in scholarship in North America and Australia, regions which have been pivotal in the articulation of settler colonialism as a distinct political, territorial, and epistemological phenomenon.

Most narratives of the development of settler colonial studies suggest that it emerged first in Australia and (to some extent) New Zealand before spreading roughly to Hawaii and Israel/Palestine and eventually to Europe and North America. It was only with this last move that its status as a major new scholarly intervention was confirmed. As Penelope Edmonds and Jane Carey explain, in the 1990s ‘a range of scholars began to view the singular category of “colonialism” as too blunt a tool’. They began to argue that colonies where the settlers ‘came to stay’ were distinctive colonial formations with specific dynamics that required separate interrogation. In short: settler colonial studies began as a response to the perceived limitations of postcolonial theory. Where the ‘post’ in postcolonialism refers to the ongoing effects of colonial rule in states that have been formally decolonised, settler colonial studies consider those political and geographic contexts in which the colonisers never left. This scholarly position emerged through Black and Indigenous criticism. A key aim of this special issue is to return this context to current assessments of the field.


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On the sovereignty of indigenous memory: May Chazan, Jenn Colery, ‘Making memory sovereign/making sovereign memory’, Memory Studies, 2020

16Feb20

Abstract: This article foregrounds the activist memory projects of four Indigenous women artists, recorded as part of a digital storytelling project in 2018. These memory projects collectively represent a refusal of settler colonial frameworks and a grounding in Indigenous knowledges, which challenge institutional understandings of the archive and dominant conceptions of memory. Through close reading and analysis, we argue that these storytellers’ practices – rooted in Land, body, ancestral relations, and creativity – are not efforts to simply right the colonial archive, nor are they insertions into colonial narratives; instead, they remember differently, with distinct modes and mechanisms for accessing, producing and circulating memory. Their work, in concert with Indigenous scholars cited throughout this article, extends not only the epistemological basis of the archive. It also expands the ontology of memory: pushing memory scholars to expand their understandings of what is possible to remember, and how memory is accessed and shared.


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Thinking the colonial after the settler colonial: Lian Kwen Fee, ‘Retracing the Political Construction of Race and Ethnic Identity in Malaysia and Singapore: Career of a Concept’, Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Working Paper 53, 2020

16Feb20

Abstract: In this paper, I trace the development of my work on race and ethnicity over my academic career, as a reflection in part of my biographical background. My interest in race and ethnic relations originated from my experience of the race riots in Kuala Lumpur on May 13th in 1969, subsequently grounded in graduate school in New Zealand where I conducted research on the Chinese and the Maoris. My early work on returning to Singapore was on Malay identity in the region. It moved on later to writing about the marginalization of Tamils as an underclass in Malaysia and then a broader consideration of race, class, and politics in Peninsular Malaysia precipitated by the General Election of 2008. Since the 1990s the representation of race and politics has pre-occupied many social science discourses, which is reflected in my work on the politics of racialization and Malay identity in Singapore.


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Even though it would be tempting, the Court said that the settler government should not have the authority of deporting indigenous peoples: Tony McAvoy, ‘High court’s ‘alien’ decision is not surprising – but it won’t be the end of the story’, Guardian, 12/02/20

15Feb20

Excerpt: Yesterday the high court of Australia decided by a four-to-three majority that Aboriginal Australians are not capable of being “aliens” under the Australian constitution.


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It’s not the citizenship, it’s the sovereignty: Lana Tatour, ‘Citizenship as Domination: Settler Colonialism and the Making of Israel’, Arab Studies Journal, XXVII, 2, 2019, pp. 8-39

15Feb20

Excerpt: During the 1948 war, over two thirds of the Palestinian population became refugees. A small, defeated minority remained in what became the state of Israel. It is no secret that the state did not want these Palestinians. As the Zionist adage goes, Israel wanted the dowry (the land) but not the bride (the Palestinian people).1 Te adage holds true to this day. Beginning with the establishment of Israel and continuing until 1966, the Israeli state subjected Palestinians in territories under Israeli control to a Military Government regime and an elaborate system of surveillance.2 At the same time, Israel extended sufrage and then citizenship to some, but not all, of those Palestinians. Despite the award of citizenship, the Israeli state did not regard Palestinians as indigenous to the space or as natural subjects of rights. Tis view of Palestinians has not changed. I


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The theatre of settler colonialism: Yi‐Hsin Hsu, ‘Performing Shakespeare in Colonial Taiwan: Early Japanese Settlers and the Bounds of Theatrical Imperialism, 1895‐1916’, Popular Entertainment Studies, 10, 1-2, pp. 72-92

15Feb20

Abstract: Built on archival research in Japan and Taiwan, this article constructs a comprehensive history of Shakespeare performancesin colonial Taiwan. Unearthing underexplored and previously unknown production records of Shakespeare performances by Japanese settlers as well as travelling troupes, this article provides contextual readings of surviving theatre reviews and investigates their cultural and theatrical significance. It adds to current literature by presenting three findings: first, the scope and quantity of Shakespeare performances extend beyond received knowledge. Previously unknown records of The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, New Hamlet, King Lear, and a proposed performance of Romeo and Juliet will be discussed alongside details of the known records of Hamlet and Othello. Second, Shakespeare performances were sites of artistic contacts and competition, where travelling troupes, local theatres, Japanese and Taiwanese audiences interacted together and contributed to a vibrant theatrical ecology. Third, this article foregrounds the bounds and limitations of theatrical imperialism. While theatre productions were utilised as tools of empire and supported by Japan’s administrative apparatus to instruct and assimilate the colonised, in their actual reception they were viewed as popular entertainments which, as objects of criticism, must entertain and delight censorious audiences.


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Sovereignty is food sovereignty too: Priscilla Settee, Shailesh Shukla (eds), Indigenous Food Systems Concepts, Cases, and Conversations, Canadian Scholars, 2020

15Feb20

Description: Unlike any other resource on the market, this textbook explores a diverse array of Indigenous food systems from across Canada, including Anishinaabeg, Asatiwisipe, Cree, Métis, Migmag, and Tsartlip. Seeking solutions to food insecurity and well-being for current and future generations, Indigenous and non-Indigenous food practitioners and scholars document the voices and experiences of community members encountered in their research, thus promoting an understanding of the barriers and challenges to Indigenous food systems and presenting ways used to reclaim cultural identity and food sovereignty. Offering in-depth case studies and critical conversations, Indigenous Food Systems reinforces the importance of the revitalization of Indigenous food knowledges for the health and well-being of Indigenous and Canadian populations.

This unique collection is a critical resource for students studying food security and food sovereignty in Indigenous studies, public health, anthropology, and social sciences as well as a useful reader for policy-makers, researchers, and community practitioners.

Features


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Postsettlers: Josh Doble, White settlers to white Africans? Decolonization and white identity in Kenya and Zambia, PhD dissertation, University of Leeds, 2019

15Feb20

Abstract: This thesis addresses the identities of ‘white settlers’ who chose to stay in Kenya and Zambia after independence from British rule. By focusing on these racially and materially privileged minority groups this thesis unearths the ways in which racial identities have been formed and contested, in contexts in which whiteness has been inescapably historically charged. By analysing both Kenya and Zambia the thesis breaks new ground in comparing the postcolonial history of a settler colony and an African protectorate. In doing so it raises questions about the categorisations of ‘settler’ and the notion of being ‘settled’, as well as taking on the difficult label of ‘white African’ and its contested use in postcolonial Africa. This research draws upon settler colonial history in Africa and contemporary whiteness studies. As such the thesis represents a social history of decolonisation and a history of a contemporary phenomenon, whites with a colonial heritage searching for belonging and legitimacy in postcolonial contexts which invalidate their history. The thesis traces the legacies of settler colonial rule through the spatial, sensorial, linguistic and temporal dimensions of whites’ postcolonial lives. Research participants all drew upon a personal colonial lineage which connected their families to the longer colonial history of Kenya and Zambia. They represented a group of people whose life experiences mapped onto the historical ‘period’ of decolonisation. The timeframe of the thesis – from the mid-1950s to 2017 – utilises a periodisation which transcends the bounds of colonialism and postcolonialism, and as a result is able to assess continuity and change in how racial identity and privilege was constructed and reconfigured. The thesis’ originality lies not only in its comparative study of under-researched postcolonial whites, but in its synthesis of whiteness studies, settler colonial history, postcolonial history, the history of emotions and senses, and oral history.


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Settler transnational understandings: Scott Burchill, ‘Israel-Palestine: Part Two—Australian Foreign Policy and the Israel-Palestine Conflict—Avoiding the Colonialist Narrative’, in Scott Burchill, Misunderstanding International Relations, Palgrave, 2020, pp. 63-83

12Feb20

Abstract: Settler colonial societies such as Australia, the United States and South Africa have unique attributes which affect not only the way they interact with each other, but also how they regard their indigenous populations. The settler-colonial nature of Zionism not only determined the oppressive nature of Israel’s occupation of Palestine, it also explains why other settler-colonial states such as Australia, Canada and the United States have consistently been Israel’s greatest defenders in international diplomacy. It is the similar colonial history of these political communities that has constructed a distinct, supportive and mutually reinforcing series of political relationships.


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Settler colonialism persists: Natsu Taylor Saito, Settler Colonialism, Race, and the Law Why Structural Racism Persists: Citizenship and Migration in the Americas, NYU Press, 2020

10Feb20

Description: How taking Indigenous sovereignty seriously can help dismantle the structural racism encountered by other people of color in the United States 

Settler Colonialism, Race, and the Law provides a timely analysis of structural racism at the intersection of law and colonialism. Noting the grim racial realities still confronting communities of color, and how they have not been alleviated by constitutional guarantees of equal protection, this book suggests that settler colonial theory provides a more coherent understanding of what causes and what can help remediate racial disparities. 

Saito attributes the origins and persistence of racialized inequities in the United States to the prerogatives asserted by its predominantly Angloamerican colonizers to appropriate Indigenous lands and resources, to profit from the labor of voluntary and involuntary migrants, and to ensure that all people of color remain “in their place.” 

By providing a functional analysis that links disparate forms of oppression, this book makes the case for the oft-cited proposition that racial justice is indivisible, focusing particularly on the importance of acknowledging and contesting the continued colonization of Indigenous peoples and lands. Settler Colonialism, Race, and the Law concludes that rather than relying on promises of formal equality, we will more effectively dismantle structural racism in America by envisioning what the right of all peoples to self-determination means in a settler colonial state.


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