The settler’s arrested development: Shuya Su, ‘Indigenous Girlhood, Radical Resurgence, and the Question of Settler Growth in Jen Ferguson’s The Summer of Bitter and Sweet’, Children’s Literature in Education, 2026

17Mar26

Excerpt: This paper examines Jen Ferguson’s YA novel The Summer of Bitter and Sweet (2022), arguing that it exposes the ongoing colonial violence against Indigenous women and girls in Canada while articulating a framework of Indigenous-led radical resurgence that critically engages with the settler society. Narrated by Lou, a Métis adolescent in contemporary Alberta, the novel foregrounds the inherited colonial trauma shaping Indigenous girlhood. This includes her biological father’s history of sexual assault and the boundary-crossing behavior of her white ex-boyfriend, Wyatt. Lou’s skepticism about Wyatt’s potential for growth encapsulates a central tension in the text: whether settlers can experience moral development, and on what terms.


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Digital dispossession: Tyler McCreary, David Hugill, ‘Digital Colonialism, Fossil Capitalism, and Indigenous Dispossession’, Capitalism Nature Socialism, 2026

17Mar26

Abstract: This paper argues that North America’s emerging digital economies are materially and politically grounded in ongoing regimes of settler-colonial extraction. While scholarship on “digital colonialism” has illuminated new forms of data appropriation, corporate concentration, epistemic domination, and frontier discourse, it has often underemphasized the extent to which digital infrastructures remain tethered to fossil capitalism and Indigenous dispossession. We contend that digitization is not post-extractive. Rather, it amplifies extractive relations, relying on energy-intensive infrastructures powered by fossil fuels from Indigenous lands. Focusing on Calgary, a Prairie petropolis that has rebranded itself as a “smart city,” we examine how urban digital transformation is embedded in, and extends, settler-colonial fossil regimes. We develop four interrelated claims: (1) the appropriation of resources from Indigenous lands remains foundational to digital economies; (2) corporate power in both fossil and tech sectors is mutually reinforcing within the political order of the petro-state; (3) the digitization and automation of extraction reconfigure labor geographies, undermining Indigenous employment while distancing work from land-based lifeways; and (4) these dynamics intensify colonial violence, with profound consequences. By situating digital capitalism within the historical and ongoing logics of settler colonialism, the paper reframes debates on digital colonialism in grounded, place-based terms.


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The colony as a prison: L. N. Billington, ‘L.N. (2026). ‘Incarceration as Colonisation: Indigenous Imprisonment and Self-Determination in Australia and Kanaky’, in T. Anthony, M. Bhatia, K. Pillay, J. M. Williams (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Racial Injustice and Resistance, Palgrave Macmillan, 2026, pp. 245-270

17Mar26

Abstract: For generations, prison population rates in colonial carceral systems have reported breathtakingly high levels of Indigenous incarceration. While Canada, Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and the United States of America (CANZUS) are most often cited in this regard, Indigenous hyperincarceration manifests in colonial carceral jurisdictions across the globe. Positioning Indigenous incarceration as an integral part of a colonial project which is both lived and ongoing, this chapter scrutinises the imperialist logics driving historical and contemporary exercises of colonial carceral control over Indigenous nations. This chapter draws on two colonial carceral case studies: Kanaky (New Caledonia) and Australia. Building on the observations and reflections of those with lived experience of prisons in these jurisdictions, as well as on both critical scholarship and Indigenous advocacy work in Australia and Kanaky, this chapter examines the structural relations between colonisation and incarceration, and between decolonisation and decarceration. Analysing the ways colonialism and Indigenous incarceration are fundamentally entwined in these jurisdictions, this chapter demonstrates the purposeful and continued deployment of carceral control over Indigenous nations as a tool of the modern-day colonial project to subdue, subjugate, dispossess and eliminate Indigenous peoples. Drawing on illustrations from Kanaky and Australia, this chapter concludes that the inherently colonial nature of Indigenous incarceration necessitates the fundamental fracture of the contemporary structures of colonial invasion—including the prison. Only then can Indigenous decarceration become a reality.


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Words matters (colonialist entomologists): Janice Vis, ‘Whose Colony? Rethinking Terminology and Insect Relations’, Environmental Humanities, 18, 1, 2026, pp. 78-95

17Mar26

Excerpt: The following essay examines the term colony in relation to insect communities. It uses a combination of interdisciplinary critique and personal reflection to track the term across reference texts, entomology articles, popular science books, and humanities research. In doing so, it considers how the word colony circulates in and outside of academic settings as a vague synonym for community but still carries politically fraught histories that are rooted in settler-colonial understandings of natural history. Thus, from one perspective, this essay is a story about paying attention to a word, and it demonstrates how word-tracking can be a methodology that reveals connections and tensions in knowledge systems. 


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Sabotage as counterinfrastructure: Kyle R. Matthews, Joanna Kidman, Sophie Bond, Karen Nairn, ‘How does settler-colonialism problematise the concepts of infrastructure and sabotage? Insights from debates about the Treaty of Waitangi in Aotearoa’, Human Geography, 2026

16Mar26

Abstract: We problematise the concepts of ‘infrastructure’ and ‘sabotage’ using a decolonial lens based on insights from recent acts of political resistance in Aotearoa.1 By tracing three case studies we ask: what is the infrastructure? Who is the saboteur? And how do temporalities inform these questions? We hold infrastructure as a contested concept in settler-colonial states that incorporates both state infrastructure which acts as the vehicle for colonial violence, and Indigenous infrastructures which have been subject to, and resist, that violence. This understanding provides the potential to read the state as a saboteur that continues to implement ways to challenge, undermine, and reduce Indigenous sovereignty, perpetuating colonial processes and world views. Using publicly available documents and media reports, we mobilise these insights using three case studies in Aotearoa that relate to debates about the place of the Treaty of Waitangi, Aotearoa’s key constitutional document, in contemporary politics. We use these examples as a heuristic to trouble the boundaries of the concept of infrastructure sabotage in the context of settler-colonialism. We argue that there is value in considering how our understandings of infrastructure and sabotage enact colonial violence, and demonstrate this by examining state sabotage and resistance to it, while avoiding applying colonial terms to Indigenous movements for justice.


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Africa’s last settler colony? Robert Flahive, ‘Western Sahara as a design project: tracking the architecture of counterrevolution for “Greater Morocco”‘, Settler Colonial Studies, 2026

16Mar26

Abstract: This paper excavates the spatial politics of Moroccan settler colonialism in Western Sahara between 1975 and 2010. Taking the 2010 Gdeim Izik protest, as a starting point, the paper maps Morocco’s spatial strategies of conquest in Laâyoune and Western Sahara. The Moroccan government refashioned Western Sahara as part of ‘Greater Morocco’ to be pursued through what Samia Henni terms the architecture of counterrevolution, the production, destruction, and reorganization of built forms to consolidate control. I detail these spatial transformations across three phases: (1) closing the frontier of Greater Morocco (1975–1991), infrastructure for the elimination of the Native in Laâyoune (1991–2003), and refashioning assertions of sovereignty (2003–2010). By accounting for the Moroccan government’s counterrevolutionary spatial practices in Laâyoune and wider Western Sahara, this paper invites further inquiry into the how both urban space and the built environment serve as resources for analyzing settler colonialism in and beyond Western Sahara.


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Evacuative settler colonialism: Peter Adey, ‘Settler-colonial-evacuative infrastructures of mobility’, Geographical Reserach, 64, 2, 2026, e70057

16Mar26

Abstract: This paper explores the origins and early years of the Flying Doctors of Australia and what I call counter circuits or infrastructures of settler-colonial-evacuative mobilities—an important but overlooked modality of settler-colonial mobility and infrastructural development. While drawing an important distinction between the service today and its origins, I argue that the service’s early provision of medical care constituted not only a particular form of settler-colonialism but a particular infrastructural technique that made possible its pursuit. Circuits of evacuative mobility under the logics of supporting the settler-state promised the hope of both projection and an assurance of return—often supported by numerous affective and emotional constructions such as relief, consolation, and reassurance. The Flying Doctors evolved not just as a symptom of colonialism but as a supporting practice, driven by a colonial, administrative and cultural logic that has imagined Australia’s inland, and especially its north, as semi-vacant, natural, and problematic. The article is not intended to make any broader application to the services of the present-day, but to rather understand the incredible and difficult origins of the service. It considers what this might tell us about the emergence and evolution of settler-colonial extractive formations through aerial medical infrastructures and mobilities, and how “evacuative” logics of mobility may persist, and complicate and coincide with other more projective or reparative ones.


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Settler colonialism in Bangladesh: Anwar Hossain, ‘The Position of Bengali Settlers in Development Dynamics: The Case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh’, Asia Social Issues, 19, 3, 2026, #285525

15Mar26

Abstract: The paper portrays the positioning of Bengali settlers within the development dynamics of the Chittagong Hill
Tracts (CHT). The development ventures counteract several contested questions, such as land disputes, concerns related
to the resettlement of Bengalis, the economic and political challenges facing ethnic minorities, the biased access to trade
and tourism, and the unfriendly sociocultural relations. Besides, the inclusion of Bengali settlers as unwelcome guests
through the resettlement program creates a counterproductive conflict and displacement politics between the government
and the Pahari political groups, which situates the settlers in a disadvantaged position. The findings recognised that the
social, political, and economic circumstances of the Bengali settlers are more subpar than those of their counterparts. The
state and its agencies’ mandates are a potential source of contention in terms of resettling internally displaced settlers in
CHT. Since the settlers represent nearly a quarter of the marginalised communities, they seek equitable development
initiatives that benefit all. The article theoretically examines the politics of development through the lens of the motives
and the rationalisations of resettlement. Based on empirical research, the study employed an integrated approach to
explore the everyday experiences of Bengali settlers living in the CHT, utilising both qualitative and quantitative methods
to support the findings with empirical evidence.


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Heightened risk: Gabriel L. Schwartz, Theresa Rocha Beardall, Jaquelyn L. Jahn, ‘Heightened risk of fatal police violence in and around reservations for American Indian/Alaska Native peoples in the United States’, PNAS, 123, 11, 2026, #e2521002123

15Mar26

Abstract: One in 1800 Indigenous men in the United States will die from fatal police violence if current rates hold. We find that this risk is overwhelmingly concentrated in and around reservations, where structural disinvestment and unique policing models appear to put Indigenous peoples in harm’s way. We also show that the types of officers responsible for fatal police violence in these areas (mostly federal, state, and tribal) differ dramatically from those of responsible officers elsewhere (mostly municipal and county), as do the reasons police give for stops in and around reservations. We thus quantitatively demonstrate the geographic and policy areas where police violence interventions are most needed to protect Indigenous communities.


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Settler colonialism in Morocco: Ahmed Bendella, Ugo d’Ambrosio, Emily Caruso, Gary Martin, Soufiane M’Sou et al, ‘Rights to Land among Amazigh Peoples in Morocco’, in William Nikolakis (ed.), Land Rights Now: Global Voices on Indigenous Peoples and Land Justice, Cambridge University Press, 2025, pp. 229-248

15Mar26

Abstract: Morocco sustains a rich diversity of cultures, languages, and livelihoods. Like in other countries, the social organization of the rural populations is closely linked to their historical relationship to land and to their immediate biophysical environment, as well as to centuries-old and ever-evolving demographic, legal, cultural, economic, and political transformations. In this chapter, we focus on Amazigh peoples living in the Moroccan High Atlas (see map, Figure 11.1), who have demonstrated resilience in the face of significant scarcity and uncertainty, through customary systems of natural resource governance– the agdal systems. Despite the many social, cultural, and legal shifts and its degradation or disappearance in many places, the agdal system still remains a robust institutional framework, which is not only a bulwark against the dispossession of communal lands but also sustains the cultural and economic relationships for stewarding resources among High Atlas populations.


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