Abstract: As humanity moves closer to establishing settlements beyond Earth, libraries must be reconceptualized as autonomous, adaptive, and ethically grounded systems that support human survival, learning, and cultural continuity in extraterrestrial environments. This paper presents a conceptual framework for “extraterrestrial librarianship,” integrating insights from space science, digital preservation, human-computer interaction, and Library and Information Science (LIS). The proposed three-layered model—Sensing, Processing, and Interaction—guides the design of space libraries capable of functioning under extreme conditions such as microgravity, radiation, communication latency, and social isolation. Comparative and functional analysis tables distinguish traditional Earth-based libraries from their space counterparts and map practical use-cases ranging from mental health support to conflict mediation. The paper expands the librarian’s role into that of a knowledge architect, ethical curator, cultural diplomat, and emotional support agent. Through speculative yet grounded scenarios—including Martian knowledge pods, bio-encoded interstellar archives, and zero-gravity VR story lounges—the study demonstrates the transformative potential of libraries in future space civilizations. It affirms that wherever humans venture, libraries will remain critical infrastructure for preserving memory, fostering identity, and sustaining civilization beyond planetary boundaries.


Abstract: In urban Nigeria, the indigenous and the settler groups meet on a daily, long-lasting basis, challenging the questions of belongingness, recognition, and power. The research explored how ethics and culture influenced peaceful coexistence between indigenous and settler people in Ketu, a multi ethnic neighbourhood in Kosofe Local Government Area in Lagos State. An exploratory qualitative design was employed; the interviews applied were semi-structured (n=8), paired (n=4), and nonparticipant observation in markets and communal settings. A total of twelve participants were chosen purposively to include indigenous residents, settler residents, and community gatekeepers. Thematic analysis showed that in Ketu, coexistence was considerably governed by ethical commonalities like respect, tolerance, hospitality, and common responsibility, which defined the day-to-day interaction and cooperation in economic and religious settings. Nevertheless, coexistence was not equal and unconditional. Authority systems based on indigeneity meant that settlers were limited in their participation in the leadership and decision-making processes, which strengthened the symbolic and practical limits of belonging. The effect of these dynamics was that they created a negotiated form of coexistence that was characterized by moral restraint in place of institutional inclusion as a means of containing peace. The research found that, although in Ketu, civic ethics prevailed in everyday life with peaceful relations, subtle forms of exclusion, which are based on indigeneity, nonetheless dictated the local way of governance and the social hierarchy.


Excerpt: Settler colonialism is multi-faceted and widely debated. Emerging in the 1990s through foundational scholars like Patrick Wolfe and Jürgen Osterhammel, the field of settler colonial studies is relatively young. Even amongst scholars, finding a definition for the term is a difficult task. Osterhammel expresses this difficulty, calling colonialism a “phenomenon of colossal vagueness.” Scholars differ in their priorities for what constitutes settler colonialism; thus, the term varies in interpretation and often conflicts between authors. Beginning by defining settler colonialism from the perspectives of Osterhammel and Veracini, I stress the universal question of settler polities: What should be done with the native population? I explore the ways in which settlers decide to deal with indigenous populations, either through assimilation of natives into the settler colonial society or via non-assimilationist, exclusionary tactics. In examining historical examples of settler colonialism, I argue that assimilation, as an expression of settler colonial removal and replacement of indigenous people, is one of the defining characteristics of settler colonialism. To further develop a framework of assimilation in settler colonialism, one must also understand exceptions to this element. Nonassimilationist practices occurred to claim lands, prevent indigenous uprisings, and promote exclusion through racial hierarchy. Conversely, assimilation occurred in settler societies as part of a demand for labor, reproduction, and land acquisition. While not present in all examples, such as the ancient Greeks, early United States, and present-day Israel, assimilation is a core strategy in suppressing indigenous peoples as seen in Rome, New Spain, and New Zealand.





Abstract: This project engages long-standing paradoxes surrounding the German imaginary of Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island by moving the study of ‘Indianthusiasm’ beyond predominant Eurocentric frames. Indianthusiasm gained its prominence as a broader GermanEuropean infatuation with North American indianness, largely centering on “playing indian” within Europe’s many hobbyist scenes. Too little attention has been paid to the ongoing political functions of self-indigenization within contemporary German and European national(ist) movements. Despite Germany’s undying yearning for ‘indigenousness’ through fictionalized indian narrative across media, pop-culture, and politics, the relevance of Indigenous critiques and critiques of Indigeneity in Germany often remains contested. I therefore scrutinize the structural factors that condition the hyperpresence of indian imagery, symbolism, and rhetoric in German public discourse but simultaneously disconnect them from structures of Indigenous dispossession and erasure like settler colonialism, self-indigenization, and genocide. Applying Critical Discourse Analysis, I problematize Indianthusiasm as a cultural placeholder for German exceptionalism that inverts settler-colonial logics of (self-)indigenization as a nativist politic of normalizing, redeeming, and securing white supremacist and heteropatriarchal modes of German sovereignty. While the desire for a racial-territorial prerogative to eliminatory dominance animated Germans’ performance as Aryan indians during the Third Reich, settler-colonial politics of ‘indigeneity’ continue to shape contemporary German politics of reconciliation, remembrance, and rehabilitation via redemptive performances: as also moral-territorial claims to dominance. By proving the breadth of Indigenous Studies’ theories, methodologies, and disciplinary commitments applicable beyond settler-state boundaries, this project calls to center Indigenous sovereignty (of critique) as a necessary component of the critical study of whiteness in Europe.


Abstract: This article makes the case for studying fin de siècle geopolitical thought from the margins—at the Nordic periphery. While recent scholarship in the history of international thought has revisited canonical figures or turned to non-Western contexts, the Nordic margins of Europe have remained largely unexplored. This article addresses that lacuna by examining the geopolitical thought of Jón Ólafsson, an Icelandic journalist, transatlantic migrant and settler colonialist. Writing from Iceland and within Icelandic-speaking communities in North America, he engaged with and reworked dominant Anglo-Saxonist discourses of imperial federation. Blending these ideas with emerging geopolitical themes, Ólafsson developed an ambitious, Darwinist vision of geopolitical transformation: a world shifting from a European system of nations to one dominated by global racial empires. While adopting the racialized logic of Anglo-Saxonism, he extended its boundaries on the grounds of transnational whiteness—proposing a imperial federation encompassing the Teutonic race to both safeguard smaller nationalities against rising “alien” powers and empower the Anglo-Saxons in the race to enclose the world’s interiors. A reluctant Teutonist, Ólafsson was sharply critical of Anglo-American imperial conduct toward weaker states, but concluded that moral principles had to adapt to the evolutionary imperatives dictating the future shape of world order. By reconstructing these arguments, the article contributes to efforts to globalize the history of international thought, demonstrating how creative and critical geopolitical imaginaries emerged from peripheral actors beyond the traditional canon.






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