settler colonial studies blog
about
definition
books
journal
«
Integration requires disintegration: Paloma E. Villegas, Breanna Barrie, Serriz Peña, Jilanch Alphonso, Alveera Mamoon, ‘Integration, Settler Colonialism, and Precarious Legal Status Migrants in Canada’, Journal of International Migration and Integration, 2019, pp. 1–17
Erasing present indigenous people by focusing on long gone ones: Lee M. Panich, Tsim D. Schneider, ‘Categorical Denial: Evaluating Post-1492 Indigenous Erasure in the Paper Trail of American Archaeology’, American Antiquity, 2019
»
Foreclosing indigenous people, literally: K-Sue Park, ‘Money, Mortgages, and the Conquest of America’, Law & Social Enquiry, 41, 4, 2016, pp. 10006-1035
01Sep19
Abstract:
In colonial America, land acquired new liquidity when it became liable for debts. Though English property law maintained a firm distinction between land and chattel for centuries, in the American colonies, the boundary between the categories of real and personal property began to disintegrate. There, the novelty of easy foreclosure and consequent easy alienation of land made it possible for colonists to obtain credit, using land as a security. However, scholars have neglected the first instances in which a newly unconstrained practice of mortgage foreclosure appeared—the transactions through which colonists acquired land from indigenous people in the first place. In this article, I explore these early transactions for land, which took place across fundamental differences between colonists’ and native communities’ conceptions of money, land, and exchange itself. I describe how difference and dependence propelled the growth of the early American contact economy to make land into real estate, or the fungible commodity on the speculative market that it remains today.
Share this:
Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
Facebook
Share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
Reddit
Share on X (Opens in new window)
X
Print (Opens in new window)
Print
Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
Email
Like
Loading...
Related
Filed under:
Uncategorized
|
Closed
Settler colonialism is a global and transnational phenomenon, and as much a thing of the past as a thing of the present. Settlers 'come to stay': they are founders of political orders who carry with them a distinct sovereign capacity.
If you're a scholar, and you find some of your work featured on the blog, then chances are that we want it for
our journal.
what’s new
The assumptions of settler colonialism need Mickey Mouse numbers: Joseph Francis, ‘How to Win a Nobel Prize Using Mickey Mouse Numbers: We Need to Talk about Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson’, The Poor Rich World, 27/05/26
Placemaking in the Indigenous new place: Kevin Pierce Wright, An Archaeological Study of Choctaw Placemaking in Nineteenth-Century Indian Territory, PhD dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 2026
The problem and its resistance: Zahi Zalloua, To Exist as a Problem: Being Black, Being Palestinian, Bloomsbury, 2026
Colonisation, financialisation, violence: Hannah Forsyth, ‘Settler capitalism: new histories of colonisation, financialisation and violence’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2026
Family therapy and settler colonialism: Olga Smoliak, Carmen Knudson-Martin, ‘The Enduring Logics of Settler Colonialism in Family Therapy: A Case Analysis of Sociocultural Attunement’, Family Process, 2026
Settler colonialism and genocide: Jacob Blau, Legal frameworks, intent, and the reality of its victims: examining process of genocide in Palestine through settler-colonialism, MA dissertation, Northeastern University, 2026
The exogeneity of Indigeneity: Olivia C. Harrison, ‘Éric Zemmour and the Ambiguities of Indigeneity Available to Purchase’, boundary 2, 53, 2, 2026, pp. 67-93
Reconciliation must ‘truly benefit Indigenous peoples’: Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles, ‘”We’re Going to Reconciliation the Shit Out of You”: Canadian Liberal Settler Violence and the Possibilities for True Reconciliation’, in Marcos S. Scauso (ed.), Indomitable Others and Liberal Violences: Critique, Contestation, and Resistance in World Politics, Bristol University Press, 2026, pp. 101-118
Settler technification: Sulagna Basu, ‘Settler militarism and technification: the case of the Navajo Code Talkers’, Australian Journal of Political Science, 2026
Eugenics and the settler crisis: Heidi Nicholls, ‘Settler Sociology: Eugenic Responses to Imperial Crises in the 20th Century’, Sociology Lens, 2026
Genocide and settler colonial violence: Jon Douglas Solomon, ‘Genocide, Settler Colonialism, and Imperial Causality’, in Jon Douglas Solomon, Foucault and Genocide: International Political Theory, Palgrave, 2026
Settlement is sovereignty: Hüseyin Sevinç, Mert Mahir Göz, ‘Settlement Policies and the Sovereignty Regime in Palestine: Demographic Engineering, Settler Colonialism, and Spatial Politics’, Journal of Humanity, Peace and Justice, 3, 1, 2026, pp. 57-78
The settler’s house: Marisa da Silva Martins, ‘Writing Back to the Canon: The Birchbark House as Counter-Narrative to Little House on the Prairie’, Via Panoramica, 14, 1, 2025
Russian settler colonialism today: Rusana Novikova, ‘”The land needs a master”: agrarian ideals and settler realities in the Russian Far East’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2026
Political settler colonial theory: David Myer Temin, Morgan Mowatt, Max Ajl, Phil Henderson, ‘Settler colonialism and political theory’, Contemporary Political Theory, 25, 2026, #38
contribute
email the editor
Reblog
Subscribe
Subscribed
settler colonial studies blog
Join 282 other subscribers
Sign me up
Already have a WordPress.com account?
Log in now.
settler colonial studies blog
Subscribe
Subscribed
Sign up
Log in
Copy shortlink
Report this content
View post in Reader
Manage subscriptions
Collapse this bar
%d