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Settler moves to worthiness: Yukiko Tanaka, ‘Racialized settler moves to worthiness’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2026

13May26

Abstract: In this paper, I engage with Tuck and Yang’s (2012) work on settler moves to innocence in the case of racialized immigrants in settler colonial societies. Drawing on interviews and sharing circles with immigrants to a mid-sized Canadian city, I develop the concept racialized settler moves to worthiness, wherein immigrants and refugees attempt to position themselves not as innocent, but as worthy and deserving citizens. First, I argue that immigrants make investments into whiteness by drawing boundaries between themselves and Indigenous peoples. Second, I contend that these moves to worthiness must be understood in the context of postcolonial struggles for autonomy and recognition. Third, I assert that these moves are produced through Canadian immigration policy, which demands self-reliance. By showing how contemporary “settlement” happens vis-á-vis Indigenous people, this paper advances our understanding of immigrant agency in the face of structural constraints of settler colonialism, postcolonialism and Canadian immigration policy.


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