Islanding settler colonialism: John Scott, Zoe Staines, ‘Invasion’, in John Scott, Zoe Staines, Island Criminology, Bristol University Press, 2023, pp. 60-79 | settler colonial studies blog

Islanding settler colonialism: John Scott, Zoe Staines, ‘Invasion’, in John Scott, Zoe Staines, Island Criminology, Bristol University Press, 2023, pp. 60-79

16Jan23

Abstract: This chapter explores islands as locations that have been shaped, but also created, through processes of human invasion. It considers the role of (neo-)colonial forces in moulding the spaces and places of islands, broadening previous theorizing of island spaces to incorporate islands situated on terra firma and bounded by desert. In respect of the latter, the chapter focuses primarily on the example of remote Indigenous communities scattered across Australia’s sparsely populated ‘outback’ as islands in the desert. These islands have been created and shaped under violent settler colonialism as carceral reserves, thereby producing distinct crime histories and patterns. This enables an exploration of how island spaces can be created and mobilized as part of a broader array of governing techniques for dealing with deviance, which are interlinked with racialized Othering, including bordering of spaces, places, and bodies. ‘Islanding’ is in this case co-opted as a socio-political technique to maintain and perpetuate the white settler state’s legitimacy and claims over stolen Indigenous lands: a sort of ‘islanding as erasure’. The chapter draws comparisons to settler colonies elsewhere and demonstrates the importance of weaving together socio-political and spatial histories to enable a fuller understanding of how islands can inform criminological theorizing.

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