Settler Colonial Studies is a field of research which has developed dynamically in recent years. Most of the scholarly work, however, focusses on theoretical and conceptual questions, as Tracey Banivanua-Mar and Penelope Edmonds have emphasized in their volume Making Settler Colonial Space (2010). Analyzing the relationships of power, the violent acts as well as the micro-practices which established and sustain (postcolonial) settler societies until today has been neglected so far.

The efforts of the DFG-research group on the history of “Settler Imperialism in North America and Australia”, by contrast, aim at reconstructing the micro-history and -practices of appropriating indigenous land, of dispossessing, evicting and eliminating indigenous societies. Moreover, it reflects on the political and gouvernemental programs that went hand in hand with these practices. Ultimately, the projects aims at answering one central question: What are the economic, political and cultural conditions of settler violence at the frontier?

This one-day workshop connects the researchers engaged in this project with an international group of scholars who investigate this particular problem from different perspectives in their ongoing research. Together, they will investigate the various dimensions of settler imperialism as a historical phenomenon by discussing carefully chosen case studies in a transnational and comperative perspective. Particular emphasis will be put on reconstructing the roles different actors played in these processes, their individual experiences as well as on the social and physical (re-)organization of settler colonial space. The case studies will look at examples from across the Anglo-world including the United States, Australia, Canada, and Aotearoa New Zealand.

The workshop will be conducted in English and German. Interested guests are welcome. Please contact Dr. Eva Bischoff to register (bischoff@uni-trier.de). Deadline for registration is 6 December 2012.

PROGRAMM

Dienstag, 11. Dezember 2012

14.00  Prof. Dr. Ursula Lehmkuhl (Trier): Begrüßung

14.15 – 15.45 Dimensionen der Landnahme: Messen und Ordnen

Hanno Scheerer (Trier)

Settlers, Surveyors, Speculators: Settler Imperialism in Ohio’s Virginia Military District, 1787-1810

Julius Wilm (Berlin)

“No man will go to Oregon unless you hire him to go there”: The Congressional Design of the First U.S. Homestead Laws

Björn Beyen (Köln)

Koloniale Reorganisation im postkolonialen Siedlerstaat? Der Native-Title-Fall der Yorta Yorta in Australien

15.45 – 16.15 Kaffeepause / Coffee Break

16.15 – 17.45 Dimensionen der Frontier: Zwischen Middle Ground und Low Intensity Warfare

Rebecca Burke (Wellington, NZ)

“Friendly relations between the two races were soon established”: Maori-Pakeha Interaction in Wellington, 1840-1860

Dr. Eva Bischoff (Trier)

Arms and Amelioration: Negotiating Quaker Peace Testimony and Settler Violence in 1830s Van Diemen’s Land

Prof. Dr. Ursula Lehmkuhl (Trier)

Cultures of Resilience: Innovation and Persistence in Western Australia and the Canadian Prairies, 1830-1860

17.45 – 18.15 Abschlussdiskussion

Moderation: Dr. Eva Bischoff (Trier)