Make settler colonialism history: Janna Martin, ‘Unsettling public history: a promising methodology for settler decolonization’ Settler Colonal Studies, 2025 | settler colonial studies blog

Make settler colonialism history: Janna Martin, ‘Unsettling public history: a promising methodology for settler decolonization’ Settler Colonal Studies, 2025

25May25

Abstract: Facilitating settler decolonization is multi-faceted and non-linear. Based on existing scholarship, the key components that facilitate settler decolonization encompass taking responsibility for one’s own learning and unlearning, self-examining that leads to a decolonial practice, building relationships with Indigenous people and place, and revising settler narratives to acknowledge the settler problem and Indigenous sovereignty. While this theoretical framework provides principles for settler decolonization, there is a research gap in applying settler decolonization theory in particular places and cases. Employing theories of whiteness in this framework, I explore an approach for settler decolonization through re-storying public history. To enrich the methodology, I utilize a case study of early Indigenous-Mennonite relations in what is now the Waterloo Region. I argue that through the braiding of Indigenous and Western historiography, a decolonial public history would centre Indigenous sovereignty, recognize the settler problem, acknowledge complicity, deepen relationships with place, renew treaty relationships, disrupt affect and embrace uncertainty, and foster settler responsibility.

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