« Older posts
Newer posts »

Settler colonial inroads (in Brazil): Adriana Gomes Santos, ‘“The road that kills:” the projects of the Business-Military Dictatorship and indigenous peoples, Estudos Históricos (Rio de Janeiro), 37, 82, 2024

11Aug24

Abstract: This research focused on understanding the process of productive occupation of the Amazon and the impact on the forms of existence of Indigenous peoples during the Brazilian dictatorship (1964-1985). We analysed numerous documents from the collection of the National Information Service processes and reports from the Federal Public Ministry and Parliamentary Inquiry Commissions. From the analysis of the immanence of the sources, the constitutive links showed the Paranapanema company in its complexion – capital, partners, economic areas of activity, mineral production -, as well as the mechanisms of territorial appropriation engendered by the relations established between the business and the military sectors in power.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Staging settler ventriloquism: Amy Hull, ‘Re-Reading The Ecstasy of Rita Joe: Ventriloquism and Indigenous Representation on the World Stage’, Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 20, 1-2 , 2024

11Aug24

Excerpt: Considered to be one of the most celebrated works of Canadian theater, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, a play about an Indigenous woman who moves from the reserve to the city and is eventually murdered, evades critical, postcolonial critique on an international scale. This play, originally written by Ukrainian-Canadian playwright George Ryga in 1967, has become a symbol of Canadianism and Canadian multiculturalism, attracting the attention of scholars from Hungary, Japan, Jordan, and India, to name a few localities. Enduring in memory, performance, and literature in its play, ballet, and opera forms, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe remains a Canadian classic, and Rita Joe a symbol of both Indigenous peoples and of the impacts of colonial violence and biopolitics.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

On the built environments of settler colonialism: Misbah Imtiyaz, Spatial Battlegrounds: Examining the Architecture and Urban Dimensions of the Kashmir Conflict, Doctoral dissertation, Politecnico di Torino, 2024

11Aug24

Abstract: Drawing from the inspiration from Eyal Weizman’s “Frontier Architecture”, this thesis aims to represent Kashmir through the same lens of analyzing the use of spaces as a tool in occupation and resistance. It aims to study spaces not just as social functional forms but rather as weapons in the context of Kashmir being the highest military zone in the world. It examines the transformation of spaces due to heavy military presence and the gradual spatial processes that led to settler colonialism. The study aims to use an interdisciplinary approach integrating urban theories and spatial critical social theories, with architecture and infrastructures acting as its assemblage units. Spatial analysis tools like cartographic and territorial mappings are employed to understand further the political ramifications embedded within the architecture and urban forms. The study area of the thesis focuses particularly on Srinagar, the summer capital city of India-administered Kashmir. The case studies are these thematic structures, such as camps and cantonments as separate gated territories of Indian occupation in Kashmir, bunkers, and barricades as the control on mobility, shrines, public squares, and parks from being mostly politically mobilized to becoming spaces of remembrance, grief, and protests. Icons and symbols like cinemas and clock towers symbolize authority and control. Bridges tracing memories back to the 90s conflict. and so on. The research aims to understand these urban elements within the conceptual framework of existing scholarship on the relationship between conflict and the built environment. In this thesis, most key points related to defining the link between the two have been studied well to conclude the patterns following the Kashmir occupation and resistance movement. It examines the role of nationalism, graham’s “urban militarism”, the concept of Agamben’s “State of exception”, neo settler colonialism, urbicide, memoricide and spatio-cide. Moreover, understanding how spatial memory, identity and narrative are used as political discourses and how new developments and destruction are used to erase selective memories and replace them with new structures and spatial memories. Thus, the research tries to understand Spatial forms in the context of war and conflict in a neo-colonial zone by critically analyzing the tangible aspects of urban warfare and the transformation of spaces.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Neosettler colonialism: Luccas Gissoni, Freedom Mazwi, ‘Editorial: settler colonialism in the late neocolonial stage’, ASN Research Bulletin, January-April 2024

11Aug24

Excerpt: We must, therefore, ask what is the role of settler colonialism in this late neocolonial
stage, and how do the trajectories of the settlercolonial states help us to understand it.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Decoy settler colonialism: James Collie, Christopher Alcantara, ‘Decoy politics: How settler states deflect Indigenous threats’, Politics and Space, 2024

10Aug24

Abstract: Anglo settler states like Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States were built through the dispossession of Indigenous lands and through the disruption of Indigenous political, social and economic systems. Over time, however, Indigenous nations have challenged the unjust foundations of these states, forcing settler states to respond with repression but also with accommodation, especially in the face of successful Indigenous mobilization. Yet even during these moments, state actors have resisted changes to state sovereignty, sometimes by creating new institutions that seem responsive, but which simply reinforce the status quo. To make sense of these moments, we introduce the concept of “decoy politics” and develop a theory for why states might turn to decoy politics, with a particular focus on Canada. Our findings suggest decoy politics may help explain why reconciliation with Indigenous nations remains difficult despite seemingly genuine attempts at meaningful institutional and policy change.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Antiterrorist settler colonialism: Michael Clarke, ‘Xinjiang in the 21st century: Surveillance, social reengineering and settler colonialism in Xi Jinping’s “new era”‘, in Czeslaw Tubilewicz (ed.), Critical Issues in Contemporary China, Routledge, 2024

10Aug24

Abstract: This chapter examines the Chinese Communist Party’s policies towards Turkic Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It argues that the systematic repression of Xinjiang under Xi Jinping’s leadership demonstrates that the Party-state’s approach is an outgrowth of the convergence of two distinct yet interrelated imperatives – an ideological shift toward assimilation of ethnic minorities and adaptation of global models of ‘counterterrorism’ – that seek to eradicate Turkic Muslim identities and replace them with ‘domesticated’ ethnic identities aligned with Han Chinese political and socio-economic norms. The ideological shift toward outright assimilation of ethnic minorities is informed by a perception that the security threat posed by the ‘extremism’ is generated by the Party’s perception that there is an inherent link between socio-economic ‘under-development’ and Turkic Muslim identity. As such, a core goal of the Party is to break this link through the application of a development strategy that facilitates the economic, social, demographic and physical transformation of Xinjiang into a ‘normal’ Chinese province. The adaptation of global models of ‘counterterrorism’ to Xinjiang, in turn, has yielded a system of surveillance designed to predict and interdict ‘terrorism’ before it occurs based on the collection and assessment of outward ‘signs’ of ‘deviancy’.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Settler infrastructure must be defended: Jenna Inch, ‘Securitizing “Critical Infrastructure” in So-Called Canada: Petro-Colonialism, Land Defence, and Alberta’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act’, On Politics, 17, 1, 2024, pp. 1-19

09Aug24

Abstract: In June 2020, Alberta’s United Conservative government under Jason Kenney passed the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act (CIDA). This provincial act codifies penalties for trespassing or obstructing various forms of “critical infrastructure,” including infrastructure attributed to Alberta’s fossil fuel economy. However, unbeknownst to many, CIDA was passed in direct response to Wet’suwet’en land defenders blockading pipeline infrastructure on their lands in the central interior of British Columbia and the cross-country solidarity blockades which followed. This paper analyzes the securitization of pipeline infrastructure throughout Canada’s contemporary history, showcasing how fossil fuel infrastructure has been discursively lodged as “critical” for Canada’s socio-economic well being since Stephen Harper’s reign as Prime Minister. As a consequence, Indigenous land defenders have been narrativized as extremist threats by actors within Canadian settler-state governance, including actors within the Alberta provincial government during the passing of CIDA, in an effort to maintain fossil fuel hegemony and uphold the present petro-colonial order. In doing so, the settler-state has inhibited Indigenous communities from protecting their own “critical infrastructures” – the lands, waters, and non-human others – without legal penalty, threatening the survival of Indigenous nations and the planet at large whilst compromising future exercises of peaceful civil disobedience in Alberta.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Settlers curate the city: Taylor Nishimura, ‘Rebuilding the City of Political Depression’, On Politics, 17, 1, 2024, pp. 59-75

09Aug24

Abstract: Drawing from Billy Ray Belcourt’s (2020) A History of My Brief Body, this article draws an analogy between the City of Victoria, B.C., located on unceded Lekwungen territory, and a museum to explore the affective nature of settler colonialism within the urban landscape. Like a museum, cities are curated. Each piece of art in a museum is collected and positioned relative to each other to tell a story. Likewise, the relationships between the people, objects, and spaces that make up the city denote the place’s meaning. This article considers how the ubiquity of Coast Salish symbols and imagery in the public art of Victoria’s built environment stands in comparison to the resurgent stewardship of the kwetlal (camas) system on Lekwungen traditional territories. Examining these elements through the lens of place, affect, and materiality, this article subverts the notion of “public art” in a critical examination of how different creative expressions of Indigenous presence are accentuated or made invisible in the built landscape. Illuminating the stories that have been hidden in urban spaces highlights the transformative power of collective expressions of Indigenous creativity.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Escaping the settler monopoly on external relations: Evgeniia (Jen) Sidorova, ‘Canadian foreign policy analysis and Inuit within Canada’, Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, 2024

09Aug24

Abstract: This article examines transnational Indigenous cooperation among Permanent Participants in the Arctic Council using decolonialism and Indigenization in Canadian foreign policy analysis. The mainstream IR approaches primarily consider Indigenous NGOs as civil society groups united by common interests and cultures and as organizations that promote social change. This study argues that unlike other types of NGOs, Indigenous organizations have a complex social identity, which is influenced by settler-colonial heritage. Besides this, transnationalism promotes collective Indigenous agency. Like feminist IR, Indigenous IR scholarship challenges dominant worldviews and conceptualizations of Westphalian sovereignty, nation-state, and security. This study suggests comparing the state-centred IR concepts and Inuit within Canada’s understandings of the same terms. Although the Inuit within Canada perceive international relations distinctly, their conceptualizations of IR should be recognized by state structures. The article suggests that CFPA should incorporate Indigenous ways of knowing and promote transnational Indigenous IR studies to decolonize foreign policy and include Indigenous views in analysis.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Perhaps they are not even settlers? (and perhaps it is not decolonisation either) Yehezkel (Ezekiel) Lein, ‘Why do they stay? A spatial perspective on settler colonialism, decolonization and the case of Kosovo Serbs’, Space and Polity, 2024

09Aug24

Abstract: This study offers a new perspective on settler colonial theory through the case of Serbia/Kosovo. It develops two hypotheses: (1) settler colonial projects in neighboring territories differ markedly from those overseas, necessitating a revised conceptualization called here ‘contiguous settler colonialism,’ and (2) these projects may prompt settlers to remain amid decolonization despite adverse conditions. The empirical analysis identifies three key factors leading to this outcome: the ’Serbianization’ of the physical environment, the (im)mobility arrangements of Kosovo Serbs, and Serbia’s coercive cooptation system, resulting in a ’settler colonial make-believe space’ between the former colonial state and the emerging decolonizing polity.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed
« Older posts
Newer posts »