A song of settler colonialism: Anthony Trujillo, Dylan Nelson, ‘Riding on the ‘City of New Orleans’: cosmos and cataclysm on settler colonialism’s dual-rail groove’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2025 | settler colonial studies blog

A song of settler colonialism: Anthony Trujillo, Dylan Nelson, ‘Riding on the ‘City of New Orleans’: cosmos and cataclysm on settler colonialism’s dual-rail groove’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2025

08Apr25

Abstract: This article engages with the folk and country song ‘City of New Orleans’ to explore the meanings of structure, territoriality, spatial production, and historical process in settler colonial studies. We model a mode of interpreting the song’s lyrics, formal elements, gestures, and affect that reveals the habits, tastes, and dispositions (habitus) by which invasion proceeds and territoriality is reproduced. We propose the ‘dual-rail groove’ as a heuristic for identifying the interaction between historical processes (e.g. the political economy of railroads) and habitual and affective dispositions (shaped by expressive practices like songs) as constituting settler colonialism’s structure. Contemplating ‘City of New Orleans’ as a musical voyage and a tonal portrait of a railroaded American landscape invites us to ask what kind of world we not only venture into, but participate in producing, when we listen to the song and sing along with it. How are Native peoples, places, stories and histories erased through the making of this world? How are listeners enticed into hopping onto this train and accepting the logics, romance, and violences of a settler colonial world? Throughout, we also engage a chorus of Indigenous interlocutors to interrupt the settler colonial cosmos even as we tune into this world’s making and reproduction.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed