« Older posts
Newer posts »

Militarised settlers: Federica Caso, Settler Military Politics: Militarisation and the Aesthetics of War Commemoration, Edinburgh University Press, 2024

22Mar24

Description: Analyses the relation between visual culture, militarisation, and liberal governance. Elaborates on the relationship between militarisation and settler colonialism. Reads militarisation as a governing rationality. Focuses on the under-explored case study of Australia’s militarisation. Contributes to critical military and war studies by centring settler colonial relations and Indigeneity. Settler Military Politics provides a thorough investigation of the relationship between settler colonialism and militarisation drawing from the Australian experience. In this book, Caso develops the concept of settler military politics to identify the relationship between settler colonialism and militarisation. The book argues that militarisation is a rationality for governing the settler polity and consolidates the settler colonial project. It investigates settler military politics through an in-depth analysis of the under explored aesthetics of war commemoration in Australia and the role of the Australian War Memorial.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Talk to the hand: Estée Fresco, Red Mitten Nationalism: Sport, Commercialism, and Settler Colonialism in Canada, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022

22Mar24

Description: When Canada hosted the 1976 Montreal Olympics, few Canadian spectators waved flags in the stands. By 2010, in the run-up to the Vancouver Olympics, thousands of Canadians wore red mittens with white maple leaves on the palms. In doing so, they turned their hands into miniature flags that flew with even a casual wave. Red Mitten Nationalism investigates this shift in Canadians’ displays of patriotism by exploring how common understandings of Canadian history and identity are shaped at the intersection of sport, commercialism, and nationalism. Through case studies of recent Canadian-hosted Olympic and Commonwealth Games, Estée Fresco argues that representations of Indigenous Peoples’ cultures are central to the way everyday Canadians, corporations, and sport organizations remember the past and understand the present. Corporate sponsors and games organizers highlight selective ideas about the nation’s identity, and unacknowledged truths about the history and persistence of Settler colonialism in Canada haunt the commercial and cultural features of these sporting events. Commodities that represent the nation – from disposable trinkets to carefully curated objects of nostalgia – are not uncomplicated symbols of national pride, but rather reminders that Canada is built on Indigenous land and Settlers profit from its natural resources. Red Mitten Nationalism challenges readers to re-evaluate how Canadians use sport and commercial practices to express their patriotism and to understand the impact of this expression on the current state of Indigenous-Settler relations.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Targeting Indigenous reproduction: Sarah Tomkins, Jennifer Liu, Lori ACR Campbell, ‘Meaningful Positioning: Insights on the Importance of Culturally Safe, Anti-racist Settler-Indigenous Relationships in Supporting Indigenous Maternal Health in Canada’, International Journal of Indigenous Health, 2024

22Mar24

Abstract: Indigenous women and birthing parents in Canada disproportionately face mistreatment in their maternal healthcare experiences due to systemic anti-Indigenous racism, ongoing harmful impacts of settler colonialism, and power differentials inherent in many healthcare relationships. Indigenous midwives and doulas are important leaders in resisting these conditions and reclaiming traditional Indigenous birth knowledge and practices. Ultimately, they work to uphold Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty. Grounded in an understanding of historical and current challenges regarding Indigenous maternal health, this qualitative study explored how best to situate oneself as a settler researcher and maternal health practitioner to support Indigenous maternal health in a culturally safe, anti-racist manner. In this article, key insights are shared from semi-structured interviews conducted with five prominent Indigenous scholars, midwives and community leaders. These consultants emphasized the central importance of intentional relationships in advancing the reclamation of traditional birth practices and providing culturally safe care, along with the indispensability of Indigenous midwives and doulas in these processes. Consultants also stressed the critical need for increased numbers of, and accessibility to, Indigenous practitioners in communities across the country. Settler practitioners are urged to understand the historical and contemporary impacts of settler colonialism, and the significance of building culturally safe, anti-racist relationships with their Indigenous colleagues and clients.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Educating the settler, one indigenising step at a time: Stephany RunningHawk Johnson, Anthony Angel Keola Birano, ‘Decolonizing Curricula: Indigenization and Critical Settler Consciousness’, in Sheron Fraser-Burgess, Jessica Heybach, Dini Metro-Roland (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Ethics and Education, Cambridge University Press, 2024

21Mar24

Description: This chapter begins by addressing settler colonialism and how it has affected and influenced educational practices in the United States. The authors discuss how they define decolonization and ask themselves and their readers if it is truly possible to decolonize schooling in the United States. They offer the concept of a critical settler consciousness to push back against settler colonization, and give multiple examples of communities and schools that are decolonizing their curriculums. The authors emphasize that decolonizing the curriculum is not easy; it is complicated, convoluted, and often unclear. They conclude that there is hope in the communities, parents, and students employing decolonizing practices to educate their young people.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Tenacious indigeneity: Wanda Wuttunee, Fred Wien (eds), Engraved on Our Nations: Indigenous Economic Tenacity, University of Manitoba Press, 2024

21Mar24

Description: A testimony to Indigenous resilience in business. Despite investments in nation building, self-autonomy, and cultural resurgence, Indigenous economic development has remained an underexplored and underestimated area of research. Engraved on Our Nations overturns the discouraging deficit perspective too common in policy and academia and amplifies the largely undocumented history of successful Indigenous economic activity in Canada. Following David Newhouse’s overview of Indigenous economic history, the authors of this collection illustrate how First Nation and Métis individuals and communities have met and overcome an array of challenges. Case studies focus on First Nations from Membertou (Nova Scotia) to Tahltan (British Columbia) and Indigenous-led enterprises like McDonald Brothers Electric (Northwest Territories) and Neechi Commons (Manitoba). Simultaneously celebrating Indigenous entrepreneurs and exploring concerns around sustainable development, the book also asks: can capitalism be Indigenized? This first-of-its-kind collection shares stories not only of entrepreneurial excellence and persistence but savvy leadership, innovation, and reciprocity. In doing so, Engraved on Our Nations provides hope to Indigenous business leaders, youth, and elected officials working on the front lines to improve economic conditions and achieve “a good life” for their communities.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Comic settler colonialism: James J. Donahue, Indigenous Comics and Graphic Novels: Studies in Genre, University Press of Mississippi, 2024

21Mar24

Description: In recent years, studios like Marvel and DC have seen enormous success transforming comics into major motion pictures. At the same time, bookstores such as Barnes & Noble in the US and Indigo in Canada have made more room for comic books and graphic novels on their shelves. Yet despite the sustained popular appeal and the heightened availability of these media, Indigenous artists continue to find their work given little attention by mainstream publishers, booksellers, production houses, and academics. Nevertheless, Indigenous artists are increasingly turning to graphic narratives, with publishers like Native Realities LLC and Highwater Press carving out ever more space for Indigenous creators. In Indigenous Comics and Graphic Novels: Studies in Genre, James J. Donahue aims to interrogate and unravel the disparities of representation in the fields of comics studies and comics publishing. Donahue documents and analyzes the works of several Indigenous artists, including Theo Tso, Todd Houseman, and Arigon Starr. Through topically arranged chapters, the author explores a wide array of content produced by Indigenous creators, from superhero and science fiction comics to graphic novels and experimental narratives. While noting the importance of examining how Indigenous works are analyzed, Donahue emphasizes that the creation of artistic and critical spaces for Indigenous comics and graphic novels should be an essential concern for the comics studies field.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

German-Texan settler colonialism: Daniel J. Gelo, Christopher J. Wickham, The German Texas Frontier in 1853: Ferdinand Lindheimer’s Newspaper Accounts of the Environment, Gold, and Indians, University of North Texas Press, 2024

20Mar24

Description: Ferdinand Lindheimer was already renowned as the father of Texas botany when, in late 1852, he became the founding editor of the Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung, a German-language weekly newspaper for the German settler community on the Central Texas frontier. His first year of publication was a pivotal time for the settlers and the American Indians whose territories they occupied. Based on an analysis of the paper’s first year—and drawing on methods from documentary and narrative history, ethnohistory, and literary analysis—Daniel J. Gelo and Christopher J. Wickham deliver a new chronicle of the frontier in 1853. Lindheimer reports in detail on the area’s Indian peoples. Some Lipan Apaches are killed when the army does not learn of their peaceful intentions; restitution is made at Fredericksburg. The Penateka band of Comanches honors the peace agreement they signed with the Germans six years earlier, but their days in the region are numbered.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Settler control (and its limits): Alaa Tartir, Timothy Seidel, Tariq Dana (eds), Resisting Domination in Palestine: Mechanisms and Techniques of Control, Coloniality and Settler Colonialism, Bloomsbury, 2024

17Mar24

Description: This meticulously curated edited volume presents an assemblage of insightful, critical, and contemporary perspectives on how Israeli domination has been sustained and reproduced in new forms and means using various mechanisms and techniques of control, coloniality, and settler colonialism. Based on original empirical fieldwork, the contributors to this book adopt interdisciplinary and decolonial approaches in their examination of the intricate functions and structures of domination that permeate Palestinian life by illuminating the power dynamics at play and revealing the mechanisms that sustain the settler-colonial regime. This book identifies sites of colonial control and domination exerted on Palestine by Israel, and demonstrates how these sites of control are also sites of Palestinian resistance. The first section explores the political sites of control by focusing on governmentality, institutions, and technologies and mechanisms of control including how Israel manages access to health, life and death. The second section examines the economic mechanisms of exploitation, dispossession, and de-development including banking, taxation and the relationships between finance capital, aid and military occupation. The third section turns attention to environmental sites of control, focusing on land, indigeneity, space and racial capitalism. Finally, section four scrutinizes the intellectual sites of control, highlighting how norms, narratives, and knowledge production perpetuate domination.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Land is the demand: Keith Cherry, ‘”The Kids don’t want reconciliation, they want Land Back”: thinking about decolonization and settler solidarity after the death of reconciliation’, Contemporary Political Theory, 2024

17Mar24

Abstract: When Wet’suwet’en matriarch Freda Huson declared that ‘reconciliation is dead’ and called on supporters to ‘Shut Down Canada’, activists responded with a nationwide series of blockades and occupations. Many commenters, even those sympathetic to the Wet’suwet’en, rushed to defend the idea of reconciliation. Such responses fail to take the contributions this movement offers to decolonial thought seriously. Drawing on interviews with movement participants, I explore what participants mean by reconciliation and what they intend by declaring it dead, showing how participants reject forms of decolonization that center the needs of the settler state. I also explore Land Back as an emerging, grassroots alternative to reconciliation that centers the resurgence of Indigenous governance systems in place of the settler state. Finally I explore settlers’ place within this project and considers its relation to the resurgence school of thought.


Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Closed

Playing the Little Ruin of settler colonialism: Fiona Johnson, ‘Generating narratives’, Landscape Architecture Australia, 181, 2024, pp. 20-23

17Mar24

Excerpt: In Lucernal’s game Little Ruin, players explore the ambivalent space of settler colonialism through the story of Isobel, a teenager entangled in a civil war.


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