« The settler colonial archetype: Hanine Shehadeh, The Thousand-Year Crusade for Palestine: Zionist Christianity and the Settler Jew, University of California Press, 2027

Settler colonialism from the cities: Jiaxiang Liu, ‘The Japanese Paradigm of Settler Colonial Urbanism: Imperial Hokkaidō, Korea, and Manchuria’, Geography Compass, 2026

07Sep26

Abstract: This study examines Japanese settler colonialism through a comparative analysis of Hokkaidō, Korea, and Manchuria. Rather than treating these cases as a unified model of Japanese settler colonial practice, it suggests a potential paradigm, characterized by state-led colonial expansion and land appropriation, non-displacement exclusion of natives, and the reorganization of pre-existing social relations into new settler colonial orders. This formulation highlights the specificity of Japanese settler colonialism in Asia in relation to dominant Western models, while also showing how its practices varied across the cities of Sapporo, Seoul, and Anshan under different political-economic and ideological conditions. Drawing on the broader global transition in settler colonial forms from the 19th to the twentieth century, this study also reveals a historical transformation within Japanese settler colonialism, from the Hokkaidō model characterized by a settler majority, to the later colonial formations of Korea and Manchuria, where Japanese settlers remained privileged minorities ruling over much larger local populations. Meanwhile, this article underscores the significance of Indigenous agency in settler colonies by showing how Indigenous peoples contested, negotiated, and compromised within urban space. It is hoped that this paper will serve as a foundation for future geographers to apply a settler colonial perspective in more extensive studies of Japanese colonialism in Asia.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed