Abstract: Behind every colonial and imperial project laid a persistent constellation of ideas in which rights, obligations and duties were specified to justify colonialism and establish ownership of land. This constellation of ideas provided the reasons for European expansionism, in addition to forming part of the ideological practices of the land-centred settler colonial project of […]

Abstract: This article concerns the Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women from its formation in 1919 to its closure in 1964 upon the withdrawal of the Treasury grant that provided the bulk of its funding. Describing the imperial network of voluntary organisations and migrants, through which the Society operated, it shows continuity in […]

Abstract: Based on interviews with thirty women, this article examines white attitudes to the coming of Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980. As it details, many of the interviewees construct problematic versions of the past, foregrounding what Annie E. Coombes has termed the ‘deceptively benign’ nature of settler colonialism. Through an examination of the context in which […]

Abstract: Using media coverage of the withdrawal of OxyContin in Canada in 2011 and 2012 as an example, this article describes a systematic analysis of how news media depict First Nations peoples in Canada. Stark differences can be seen in how First Nations and non-First Nations individuals and communities are represented. In First Nations communities, […]

Abstract: Indigenous people often occupy different overlapping or co-existing food environments that include market-based foods, land and water based foods, and combinations of the two. Studying these food environments is complicated by the cultural and geographic diversity of Indigenous people and the effects of colonialism, land dispossession, relocation and forced settlement on static reserves, and […]

Abstract: This article explores understandings of postcolonial national belonging through an analysis of cinematic representations of humans, animals and the environment. It does so by analyzing a series of Australian films about plants, animals or people who are out of place or out of control. The article registers some of the changing representations of Australian […]

Abstract: My objective in this thesis is to trace how mining laws politically inscribe Indigenous space and territory. In doing so I situate gold mining regulations as central to Canadian settler colonialism and the legal dispossession of Indigenous land. I examine the origins of British Columbia’s mineral staking regulations and juxtapose these historical regulations with […]

Abstract: Female political activism and economic engagement in the Australian colonies are usually located within the last decades of the nineteenth century, yet a reexamination of the 1850s reveals that the twin issues of women’s political rights and activities within the public sphere were raised much earlier. This article shows that as the Australian colonies […]

Description: Planetary spaces such as the poles, the oceans, the atmosphere, and subterranean regions captured the British imperial imagination. Intangible, inhospitable, or inaccessible, these blank spaces existed beyond the boundaries of known and inhabited places. Siobhan Carroll interrogates the role these blank spaces played in the construction of British identity during an era of unsettling […]

Abstract: This essay examines the concept of “Indian nullification” in the political writings of William Apess by situating his defense of native self-determination in the context of debates about the legitimacy of nullification in U.S. constitutionalism. It illustrates how Indian nullification operates, not as a feature of constitutional design asserting minority rights over the tyranny […]