« It’s a British thing: Susan Kingsley Kent , British Settler Colonialism since 1530: Indigenous Peoples in an Imperial World, Bloomsbury, 2025
Liberia as a settler polity: Franka Vaughan, Settler Colonialism in Liberia: Disavowal of the Marginalised and Contemporary Citizenship Debates in Post-War Liberia, Springer, 2026 »

Settlers having fun: Judy Davidson, Matt Ormandy, ‘Stolen land for private clubs: leisure, land use, and climate coloniality along the kisiskâciwani-sîpiy’, Leisure Studies, 2025

08Jan26

Abstract: Western leisure studies scholars are beginning to grapple with how leisure practices have emerged through and continue to act as technologies of settler colonialism. In North America, one of the most iconic markers of settler leisure is membership in private sports clubs. Constituted through white wealth, these spaces provide respite for the propertied elite on stolen land. Using archival documents, this paper critically assesses three private sports clubs that lease public land in the river valley in amiskwaciwâskahikan (nêhiyawak/Cree for Beaver Hills or what is now known as Edmonton, Alberta in Canada): the Highlands Golf Club, the Royal Mayfair Golf Club, and the Royal Glenora Club. In so doing, we explore questions about space and land, namely how the kisiskǎciwan-sîpî/North Saskatchewan river valley has been used for these particular leisure pursuits. Detailing the historical development and ongoing flourishing of these exclusive enclaves provides a Foucaultian genealogical case study to engage in structural critical conversation about how elite leisure social organisations are deeply imbricated in climate coloniality and the climate change crisis in the Canadian context. We conclude by discussing contemporary examples of Indigenous ‘placekeeping’ practices along the kisiskǎciwan-sîpî in Edmonton.


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