More settler made disasters: Kate Fitch, Treena Clark, Lee Edward, ‘Authentic or performative? Social licence to operate in settler colonial contexts – Rio Tinto, the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples and the destruction of the Juukan Gorge rock shelters’, Communication and the Public, 2026

10Feb26

Abstract: In May 2020, global mining corporation Rio Tinto destroyed the historic Juukan Gorge rock shelters, prompting
a public outcry, a government inquiry, and financial and personal sanctions for the company’s senior management,
suggesting that the company’s actions were both surprising and shocking. We challenge Rio Tinto’s interpretation
and reasoning of the rock destruction by drawing on theories of social licence to operate and settler colonialism to
illustrate how their actions were a logical outcome of its operating context. We treat the destruction of Juukan Gorge
rock shelters as an explanatory case study, which reveals how Indigenous Australian voices were curtailed in the
pursuit of mining wealth, despite Rio Tinto’s public commitment to a highly regarded Reconciliation Action Plan. We
conclude that the effectiveness of a social licence to operate is determined by its relationship to both political and legal
licences to operate in the same space; that Reconciliation Action Plans, as a mechanism for claiming a social licence to
operate, have limited impact on corporate practice; and that Indigenous stakeholder engagement with the Australian
extractive industries remains a fragile exercise.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Settler made disaster: Jackie Erlon-Baurjan, ‘The Fugitive Steppe: Climate and Colonialism on the Kazakh Steppe, 1860–1916’, Environment and History, 2026

10Feb26

Abstract: This article examines how Russian imperial ambitions to transform the Kazakh steppe between 1840 and 1914 were shaped by and in turn reshaped understandings of climate. As Russian scientists and administrators encountered Central Asia’s continental climate, with its extremes of heat and cold, they developed theories that recast the steppe’s aridity from an immutable natural barrier into a condition that could be ‘improved’ through European cultivation and settlement. It reveals how environmental theories became instruments of empire. The resulting transformations not only made Kazakhs increasingly vulnerable to the climate, but would set off the changes that would magnify the scale and tragedy of ensuing famines. This history illuminates both the origins of Russian schemes to engineer climate – which would culminate in the Soviet era’s Great Transformation of Nature – and the broader relationship between environmental knowledge and imperial power in the nineteenth century.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Settler self-government leads to settler colonialism (I know, right?): Jarett Henderson, ‘Elections, Self-Government, and Settler-Colonial Rule in British North America’, in Eduardo Posada-Carbó, Andrew W Robertson (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Revolutionary Elections in the Americas, 1800–1910, Oxford Academic, 2026

10Feb26

Abstract: The decades of political unrest that erupted in widespread violence in Canada in 1837–38 were followed by efforts to implement responsible self-government, culminating with the federal union of the British North American colonies in 1867. This evolution of liberal imperial rule consolidated white male authority and legitimized England’s settler-colonial projects across northern North America. Many early Canadian historians were perhaps reluctant to draw attention to events such as the rebellions—historians worked to explain the economic, social, and national factors that led British North Americans to demand the abolition of the irresponsible system of colonial self-rule that had governed their lives since the American Revolution. In doing so, they taught us much about the political machinations of establishment, reform, and imperial politicians and the social and political movements they ushered in or resisted. Canadian historians have shown little interest in how demands for self-government in settler colonies were linked to settler colonialism itself.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Can the Indigenous person speak? Stephen Gray, ‘Petitioners, Protestors or Protectors? A Short History of Indigenous People and Protest’, in Azadeh Dastyari, Maria O’Sullivan (eds), International Law and the Regulation of Protest, Routledge, 2026

09Feb26

Abstract: This chapter discusses the exercise of the right to protest by Indigenous peoples. Specifically, it seeks to address the legacy of colonialism and the way in which it has shaped the act of protest by Indigenous peoples. The chapter focuses on historical examples from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and Norway. Protests by Indigenous peoples have taken many forms, including petitions, lobbying, using the coloniser’s law, sit-ins and fish-ins, as well as strikes and demonstrations. Importantly, the chapter notes that protests by Indigenous peoples have included assertions of Indigenous law or sovereignty and expressions of relationship to and connectedness with land. It makes a contribution to existing literature by questioning the definition of ‘protest’ under international human rights law and its applicability to Indigenous peoples. That is, whether ‘protest’ as an international human rights concept provides an adequate reflection of the historical and structural effects of colonialism on the ability of Indigenous people to protest. Against this context, the chapter presents a case for conceptualising an Indigenous understanding of ‘protest’ to more adequately reflect those important historical and structural factors.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

The city of settler colonialism: Rebecca Kiddle, ‘Beyond inclusion: reckoning with settler colonial cities’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2026

09Feb26

Abstract: This commentary explores how settler colonial cities have been built upon the erasure and ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples. Drawing on Chomsky’s observation that Indigenous communities lead global environmental protection efforts despite being dismissed as ‘backward,’ I argue that colonial urban planning has systematically ignored Indigenous spatial knowledge and relationships with land. Existing city structures—from orthogonal street grids to property markets—perpetuate colonial violence by treating Indigenous peoples as visitors rather than original inhabitants. Moving beyond mere inclusion, I propose fundamental transformations including returning land to Indigenous control, decolonising planning processes, incorporating Māori ecological knowledge, and recognising Indigenous self-determination over urban territories. The paper contends that genuine reconciliation requires reimagining cities as sites of Indigenous resurgence where Indigenous peoples can thrive according to their own laws and relationships with whenua (land) and wai (water), rather than spaces demanding assimilation. This reckoning necessitates uncomfortable power redistribution from settlers and structural economic changes to address historical and ongoing injustices.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Settler colonial epistempophilia: Alexis Shotwell, ‘Learning How To Not Steal: Settler Practices for Being in Relation to Indigenous Sovereignties in Entangled Worlds’, Theory & Event, 29, 1, 2026, pp. 140-157

09Feb26

Abstract: “Epistemophilia”—a love of knowledge—is key feature of colonialism. It includes the belief that knowing more is better, that knowledge should be shared, and that knowledge is separable from context. Settler-colonial education systems are in part systems of epistemic extraction and theft that buttress material and relational extractivism, attempting to steal land, relations, and practices. In this paper I explore how white settlers doing research, learning, and teaching can resist extractivism in our work, including creating space to not know, to recognize situated and embodied forms of knowledge that are not transferable across context, and to respect boundaries.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Off white? Fully settler: Uzma Jamil, ‘Off-White: The tensions of Whiteness in Quebec’, Identities, 2025

09Feb26

Abstract: This paper focuses on the internal tensions of Whiteness in the dual settler colonial contexts of Quebec and Canada through the relationship between the province as a White, francophone minority/majority and White anglophone Canada. Whiteness in Quebec is mediated through its settler colonial history, language and complexity of its minority/majority position to create an off-white Quebec national identity. It operates through the racialization of French as a language, from its White settler colonial roots to the present-day context of a post-Quiet Revolution society. Despite its specificities, Quebec echoes themes in global configurations of Whiteness and coloniality.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Municipal settler colonialism: Margaret Ellis-Young, Municipal Interpretations of Indigenous-Settler Reconciliation in Planning for Urban Redevelopment and Regeneration, PhD dissertation, University of Waterloo, 2025

09Feb26

Abstract: Municipalities in settler-colonial countries such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are placing new emphasis on improving Indigenous-settler relations and addressing colonial injustices in the city, in discourse if not in practice. In Canada, municipalities increasingly identify comprehensive planning projects that define future change and (re)development in the city as a space through which to advance these ‘reconciliation’ objectives. However, such projects are also intertwined with gentrification outcomes, outcomes that include Indigenous displacement, dispossession, and erasure. While a growing body of scholarship underlines these settler-colonial dimensions, it is unclear if such connections are made in practice as municipal planners turn their attention to both advancing Indigenous-settler reconciliation and mitigating gentrification-induced displacement. This dissertation deepens emerging dialogue between gentrification scholarship and literature on settler-colonial urbanism and Indigenous recognition as it examines tensions between gentrification, reconciliation, and displacement mitigation within municipal comprehensive planning. To identify the continuity and/or disruption of colonial-capitalist relations therein, I interrogate 1) how reconciliation discourses are translated into area redevelopment plans, 2) how municipal planners represent reconciliatory planning practice, and 3) how planning responses to gentrification concerns address the colonial dimensions of displacement. The research looks at comprehensive planning projects in cities across Canada, with a particular focus on Vancouver and Montréal. I draw on critical discourse analyses of both project documents and interviews with municipal planning staff and other relevant actors. The findings reveal that municipal planners negotiate multiple colonial-capitalist ‘boundaries’ at the nexus of redevelopment and reconciliation: those of Indigenous recognition, existing planning structures, and status quo regeneration objectives. While these boundaries are often reproduced as planners look to advance reconciliation and mitigate displacement within their constraints, more transformative policies, approaches, and mentalities are also beginning to emerge. The research expands on the (im)possibilities of state-led reconciliation through a planning lens, nuances the dynamics of Indigenous recognition in planning within a new context, and provides insight into discursive and policy shifts regarding gentrification and displacement, including limitations therein. It also underlines the importance of building planners’ motivations and capacities to disrupt colonial-capitalist planning relations.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Thrivance as the end of settler colonialism: Ashik Istiak, Fairooz Saiyara, ‘From survivance to thrivance: the becoming of a defiant Indian self in Zitkála-Šá’s American Indian Stories’, Cogent Arts & Humanities, 13, 1, 2026, #2623567

09Feb26

Abstract: Zitkala-Ša’s autobiographical short story collection American Indian Stories presents the coming of age of an Indian girl. The protagonist finds herself in a cruel Indian-hating boarding school system that continuously ‘disciplines’ her Indian self. However, going back to her mother in the reservation land, she regains a sense of belonging leading her to be a defiant Indian woman. This paper identifies the first phase of the protagonist’s life at boarding school as a form of survivance as described by Gerald Vizenor since at that time it was necessary for her to survive though she made occasional resistance. Then, the phase of her soul-regaining and finally, resigning the job from a settler colonial institution may be seen as a form of thrivance as described by Taté Walker. This way, the paper maps a journey from survivance to thrivance observing the life of the protagonist in select stories that appeared in American Indian Stories.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

The settler colonial sovereignty of policing: Brieanna Watters, Policing Sovereignty: Tribal-State Policing Agreements and Settler Colonial Governance, PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota, 2025

09Feb26

Abstract: This dissertation examines how tribal–state policing agreements operate as technologies of settler-colonial governance on the Green Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. Although these agreements are publicly framed as pragmatic solutions to jurisdictional complexity and as exercises of tribal sovereignty, I argue that they simultaneously extend state authority, constrain Indigenous autonomy, and reproduce racialized spatial inequalities. Using a multi-method qualitative design—archival research, interviews, and ethnographic police ride-alongs—I trace the historical rise of tribal policing from mid-century termination and relocation policies, through the Red Power era, to the expansion of federal policing grants in the 1990s. Across this trajectory, two mechanisms emerge: conditional recognition, in which tribal policing is acknowledged only when structured through state-defined standards and oversight; and jurisdictional siphoning, through which authority that appears to flow toward the tribe is simultaneously pulled back into county and state regulatory systems. Ethnographic analysis shows how officers’ daily practices create working geographies that assign most tribal officers to predominantly Native, economically marginalized spaces while select tribal officers police whiter, wealthier areas—producing racialized boundaries of belonging, risk, and deservingness. The dissertation argues that these agreements do more than coordinate policing; they reorganize colonial power while Indigenous leaders engage in strategic, pragmatic forms of governance within these constraints.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed
« Older posts

Archives

stats for wordpress