« Just ‘Black’, ‘Black’ or ‘Red’, or ‘Black’ and ‘Red’? J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, ‘Tracing Historical Specificity: Race and the Colonial Politics of (In)Capacity’, American Quarterly, 69, 2, 2017, pp. 257-265
Settler colonial studies is comparative: Saree Makdisi, ‘Elimination as a Structure: Tracing and Racing Zionism with Patrick Wolfe’, American Quarterly, 69, 2, 2017, pp. 277-284 »

Settler colonial studies is related: Robin D. G. Kelley, ‘The Rest of Us: Rethinking Settler and Native’, American Quarterly, 69, 2, 2017, pp. 267-276

02Jul17

Excerpt: In Patrick Wolfe we lost an intellectual giant. More than any other scholar, he has emerged as the leading figure in the burgeoning field of settler colonial studies and has done so much to advance its generative theoretical paradigm. We also lost another intellectual giant in 2016: Cedric J. Robinson, whose work challenged liberal and Marxist theories of political change, exposed the racial character of capitalism, unearthed a Black Radical Tradition and examined its social, political, cultural, and intellectual bases, and advanced a concept of racial regimes that deepens our understanding of the historically contingent character of racism. I learned a great deal from both men. When I first read Wolfe’s Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race, I found myself returning to Robinson’s work, to places where their ideas converge and, especially, where they diverge. Unfortunately, Robinson’s absence in the discourse on settler colonialism has, in my view, impoverished much of the work—including Wolfe’s outstanding new book. My essay is a modest attempt to wrestle with specific claims in Traces of History, with Robinson’s insights into race, racial capitalism, and colonialism, as well as traces of South African and European history, informing my critique.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed