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Prototypical settlers: Rashid Khalidi, ‘Settler’, New Literary History, 56, 2, 2025, pp. 395-406

29Nov25

Abstract: This essay takes a comparative perspective, looking at both Ireland and Palestine in order to assess the term “settler.” It argues that the planting of settlers in Ireland and Palestine was intended by Britain to subjugate their peoples and take control of their land, while providing a loyal local garrison for the colonial power, all of this under the rubric of a noble “civilizing” mission to tame and uplift the natives. Stripped of its ideological baggage, and placed in context, whether that of Ireland, North America, or Palestine, the term “settler” reeks of aggression toward, and disdain for, the native.


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Indigenous peoples have reservations: Isabelle Merle, ‘Indigenous Reservations in Australia and New Caledonia: A Colonial Reality and Its Variations in Aboriginal and Kanak Worlds’, The Journal of Pacific History, 2025

29Nov25

Abstract: Based on the study of colonial archives relating to New Caledonia and on the rich historiography on Australia, especially pertaining to the colony of New South Wales, this article focuses on the ‘indigenous reservation’ as a particular object of study and attempts to shed light on its origins and its development in two territories built and conceived by France and Britain as settler colonies. Rather than providing a direct comparison, the article places in parallel two colonial contexts in which the ‘indigenous reservation’ became a familiar reality during the 19th and 20th centuries as a solution to ‘the problem’ of indigenous presence in territories claimed as ‘new’ by Europeans. As this article lays out, however, the indigenous reservations in New Caledonia and Australia had neither the same history nor the same function.


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Should space law follow settler law? Muhammad Faisal Rasheed, Shouping Li, ‘Emerging Trends of Neo-Colonialism on Earth and the Future of Space Law’, Beijing Law Review, 16, 3, 2025

29Nov25

Abstract: The future of outer space and space law is closely related to the newly developing wave of neo-colonialism on earth. The increasing impact of major power relations, resource driven agendas and with this transformation in global geopolitics, world has seen populist leaders such as Donald Trump emerge in the United States, which means that much of mankind’s colonization in space will be shaped by these factors that are discretely happening on earth. This paper contends that as emerging geopolitical dynamics and the expansion of corporate entities in space alter the prospects for outer space and space law, there are also new challenges. The historical neo-colonial behavioral patterns on earth have increased the risk of “space colonialism”. Such practices threaten peaceful and sustainable exploration of space for all. The study looks at the weaknesses of current space law, particularly the Outer Space Treaty; resource exploration, the activities of the private sector i.e. non state actors and conflict prevention. It calls for a legal framework which is both robust and accommodating of the increasing participation by private actors, protecting equitable access to space resources and preventing this from being monopolized by just a few. The paper explores the need for international cooperation, innovative public private governance models and new mechanisms of law to manage resources to protect the environment and resolve conflicts. It emphasizes the need for perspectives from developing countries to be taken into account, to ensure that benefits are equitably shared and not widening already existing global inequalities. Finally, this paper calls for a multidisciplinary approach which combines perspectives from international relations with those of space law so that all humans can look forward to a time when development in outer space is peaceful, sustainable and fair.


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Bypassing settler colonialism: Ken Wilson, Walking the Bypass: Notes on Place from the Side of the Road, University of Regina Press, 2025

27Nov25

Description: Reflections from the lone traveller, for whom a highway was never the intended destination. Walking the Bypass recounts Ken Wilson’s singular experience of walking alongside the decidedly pedestrian-unfriendly Regina Bypass, all while situating the highway within the ongoing history of settler colonialism in southern Saskatchewan. Through a series of ambitious and unconventional walks, Wilson sets out to understand the arrival and significance of the new (and politically contentious) highway encircling Saskatchewan’s capital as well as the Global Transportation Hub, a sprawling warehouse park the Bypass was intended to serve. He offers a new perspective on these heavily travelled yet untrodden spaces in a region dominated by industrial agriculture and high-speed transportation. Reflecting on the profound transformations to the land since the arrival of settlers in the 1880s, he wonders whether it’s possible to form a connection with the land through walking—even on the gravelly edge of the freeway. In vivid and sincere prose that captures the thoughts of a man trudging along the roadside, Walking the Bypass explores how walking can transform non-places into places and enable settlers to forge a relationship with the land around them.


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The settler repressed re-emerges as horror: Laura Hall, Bloodied Bodies, Bloody Landscapes: Settler Colonialism in Horror, University of Regina Press, 2025

27Nov25

Description: Turning a lens on the dark legacy of colonialism in horror film, from Scream to Halloween and beyond. Horror films, more than any other genre, offer a chilling glimpse—like peering through a creaky attic door—into the brutality of settler colonial violence. While Indigenous peoples continue to struggle against colonization, white settler narratives consistently position them as a threat, depicting the Indigenous Other as an ever-present menace, lurking on the fringes of “civilized” society. Indigenous inclusion or exclusion in horror films tells a larger story about myths, fears, and anxieties that have endured for centuries. Bloodied Bodies, Bloody Landscapes traces connections between Indigenous representations, gender, and sexuality within iconic horror classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th. The savage killer, the romantic and doomed Indian, the feral “mad woman”—no trope or archetype escapes the shadowy influence of settler colonialism. In the end, horror both disrupts and uncovers colonial violence—only to bury its victims once more.


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Racial and settler capitalism: Zophia Edwards, ‘W. E. B. Du Bois on the Logics of Settler Colonialism’, Sociological Forum, 2025

27Nov25

Abstract: Many scholars have noted that while Du Bois clearly analyzed, theorized, and critiqued racialized labor exploitation, he did not have a framework for understanding settler colonialism. This paper systematically examines Du Bois’s corpus of works and adds nuance to this claim. The paper argues that Du Bois did, in fact, theorize settler-colonial dynamics as evidenced by his work on Kenya and South Africa, but he had a narrow, singular conceptualization of settler colonialism as having only one modality—the logic of dispossession. He did not take into consideration eliminatory logics that also form part of settler-colonial domination. The paper excavates the strengths of Du Bois’s analysis of settler colonialism, while highlighting its noteworthy limitations.


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Radical healing as decolonisation: Laurie D. McCubbin, Christine Park, Fei Bi Chan, ‘Indigenous Resurgence as Radical Healing Among Native Hawaiians’, in Zed Zhipeng Gao, Maria I. Medved (eds), Global Perspectives on Cultural Politics in Indigenous Psychology, Palgrave Macmillan, 2025, pp 239-259

27Nov25

Abstract: Given the pervasive and detrimental effects of colonialism on Indigenous people, Indigenous resistance and resurgence to colonial politics and policies are essential in sustaining Indigenous peoples’ capacity to protect, restore, and celebrate Indigenous knowledge, values, and practices through ancestral connections. Like many Indigenous communities, Kānaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiians) face structural and systemic oppression through settler colonial violence, capitalism, and commodification of their land and culture. Recognizing the importance of Indigenous resistance and resurgence in the context of oppression, this chapter expands the discourse of Indigenous Psychology by centering on the political, land-based resistance movements among Kānaka ʻŌiwi. As original stewards of the land, connection to ʻāina (land) is essential for the overall wellness of the Kānaka ʻŌiwi. Re-centering Indigenous systems, structures, values, and practices with the ʻāina creates spaces for cultural revitalization and perpetuation, creating viable pathways toward social justice and radical healing. The intersection between the connection to the land, resistance to colonial forces, and the resurgence of Indigenous systems of knowledge can be illustrated in three key political land and water rights events: Kaho’olawe, Mauna Kea/Thirty Meter Telescope, and the Red Hill fuel storage facility. These land and water rights activism events exemplify Kānaka ʻŌiwi refusal, resistance, and resurgence.


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Displaceable in the settler city: Uri Ansenberg, Erez Tzfadia, Oren Yiftachel, Oded Haas, ‘Displaceable! Precarious urban citizenship in Israel/Palestine’, Politics and Space C, 2025

27Nov25

Abstract: This article introduces the special issue dedicated to the ‘displaceability’ of urban citizenship. Centred on Israel/Palestine as a ‘laboratory’ of ‘southeastern’ urban governance under conditions of conflict, settler-colonialism, and neoliberal restructuring, the collection conceptualizes displaceability not simply as forced removal but as a chronic condition of contemporary urban citizenship– one marked by continous mobility, governed through precarity, insecurity, and uneven rights. The seven articles in this volume explore key questions such as: where and how is displaceability produced– legally, fiscally, and through planning and redevelopment? Who enacts itstate, municipal, market, settler, and civic actors, and to what ends? And how do affected communities endure, resist, or transform displacement into forms of ‘emplacement’? Together, the contributions range from Jerusalem’s property, digital and colonial regimes, to heritage-led renewal in Tel Aviv–Jaffa, Bedouin forced urbanization in the Negev/Naqab, LGTBQ urban rights, and the ceaseless displacement of Palestinians under settler expansion in the West Bank. The articles collectively establish a critical agenda for examining displaceability as a defining condition of contemporary urban citizenship, articulated from a southeastern perspective rooted in Israel/ Palestine.


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Settler refugeeism: Khoi Nguyen, ‘Beyond Kinh(ship): The Making of Vietnamese Settler Refugeeism Through Land and Dispossession’, Journal Journal of Transnational American Studies, 16, 2, 2025

27Nov25

Abstract: In 1954, the US expanded its military presence in South Viet Nam following decolonization from France, claiming to help refugees escape communism. However, Vietnamese people rarely use the term “refugee,” seeing themselves as internally displaced people who never crossed international borders. I examine how the concept of “refugee” functions as a settler colonial technology that fosters Vietnamese settler refugeeism, serving both the US empire and Vietnamese ethnonationalist goals. The article explores two key points: first, how refugee resettlement in the Cái Sắn canals consolidated Kinh dominance and dispossessed Indigenous Khmer Krom in the Mekong Delta; second, what it means to engage with the land as a form of relationshipbuilding. Centering internally displaced Vietnamese within the land’s history, this work offers a counter-narrative to US state-sponsored historiography. Grounded in migration and settler colonial studies and engaging with Vietnamese studies, I posit that the internal refugees should not be treated solely as a pathological or juridical object, but rather as an analytical category linked to broader practices of domination and exploitation.


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Settler ghosts, settler storytelling: Jamie Ashworth, ‘”The ghosts of bygone ages rude”: Ecology, Religion, and the Gothic in the New Zealand Settler Fable, 1845-1878’, AJVS, 29, 2, 2025, pp. 56-72

27Nov25

Excerpt: In mid-nineteenth century Aotearoa New Zealand, settler-colonial literary encounters with the Indigenous ecologies of the archipelago only served to reinforce this Gothic “mechanism of repression and haunting” (Kavka 59). For instance, in 1888, settlerpoet Douglas Sladen described his view on “the oppressiveness of the forest,” concluding that “the forest means ennui – and a prison” (28). To Sladen, the “very depth” of the colonial environment was a near-personified entity embodying both “hidden beauty” and “cruel” wilderness (Sladen 28), a perfect setting for the construction of “literary animals” (Blackham 33).


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