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The Grand River of settler colonialism: Cory Wilcock, Paternalism, Capitalism, and Political Suppression: Case Studies of Settler-Colonialism on the Grand River, MA dissertation, University of Victoria, 2024

07Feb24

Abstract: The Haudenosaunee of the Grand River have received immense attention as objects of study by academics, but agents and systems of colonialism have been overlooked. As such, this thesis applies a settler colonial framework to the Grand River to examine how the interplay between individual settlers, corporations, and the colonial government unfolded. Because the end point of settler colonialism is acquiring Indigenous land, there are often similarities in the process across geographic and temporal boundaries. However, the goal of this thesis is to identify unaccounted structures and processes in order to demonstrate the distinct ways that settler colonialism developed on the Grand River. This is done through two case studies that take place during two different centuries in order to identify the through lines of how settler colonialism operated as both a structure and a process on the Grand River. This thesis focusses on the Grand River Navigation Company of the 1830s, the 1924 coup d’état at the Ohsweken Council House, and the conclusion briefly discusses the 2006 Kanonhstaton land dispute in order to thematically unite the cases. Over the course of three centuries settlers, corporations, and governments used paternalism, capitalism, and political suppression as tools to dispossess the Haudenosaunee.


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High settler colonialism: Kaitlin P. Reed, Settler Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush in Indigenous Northern California, University of Washington Press, 2023

07Feb24

Description: Young countercultural back-to-the-land settlers flocked to northwestern California beginning in the 1960s, and by the 1970s, unregulated cannabis production proliferated on Indigenous lands. As of 2021, the California cannabis economy was valued at $3.5 billion. In Settler Cannabis, Kaitlin Reed demonstrates how this “green rush” is only the most recent example of settler colonial resource extraction and wealth accumulation. Situating the cannabis industry within this broader legacy, the author traces patterns of resource rushing—first gold, then timber, then fish, and now cannabis—to reveal the ongoing impacts on Indigenous cultures, lands, waters, and bodies. Reed shares this history to inform the path toward an alternative future, one that starts with the return of land to Indigenous stewardship and rejects the commodification and control of nature for profit. Combining archival research with testimonies and interviews with tribal members, tribal employees, and settler state employees, Settler Cannabis offers a groundbreaking analysis of the environmental consequences of cannabis cultivation that foregrounds Indigenous voices, experiences, and histories.


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The settler in the Platonic/Plutonic cave? (no, it’s Mars): A. Vidmachenko, ‘Which caves are better suited for living on Mars?’ Proceedings of the 4th International scientific and practical conference, 2024

04Feb24

Abstract: Now humanity has an urgent question regarding the development of Mars. For this, it is necessary to send settlers there, and provide for the possibility of ensuring their residence in a hostile environment for a long time. Planning missions to Mars is the first step toward the beginning of an era of interplanetary migration that will change human history. To master this planet, it is necessary to think about a trip to Mars, taking into account the long-term prospects of a person staying there with the goal of colonizing this planet, and with the full functioning of a person in a hostile environment for him. Mars is a relatively calm planet with a fairly cold climate, a thin atmosphere of carbon dioxide, and a very weak magnetic field. Therefore, the entire surface of the planet is constantly bombarded by cosmic rays and high-energy charged particles of the solar wind. Another feature of Mars is frequent local and global dust storms. For this reason, living and working quarters for colonists are best built below the surface. This is necessary for reliable human protection against cosmic radiation. These colonies must be provided with energy. And using solar batteries for this is not the best option. After all, the flow of solar radiation on Mars is much smaller than on Earth. In addition, the panels will be constantly dusted with sand due to frequent dust storms. A nuclear reactor may be the best option. Also, people need constant access to water resources. From the point of view of the reliability of the future housing, these requirements are best met by a volcanic lava tube with strong walls. And based on the need to provide settlements with water, a more suitable case should be considered underground caves in glacial cracks with a gentle horizontal entrance. But the walls of such settlements will be less strong, and they will require significant preparatory work. The best case would be a lava tube with strong walls found next to powerful glacial structures.


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Settler humanitarianism is a ruse: Emma Bassett, The Evolution of Humanitarian Discourse – Four episodes of colonial violence debate in New Zealand, circa. 1860-1907, MA dissertation, Victoria University of Wellington, 2024

04Feb24

Abstract: This thesis uses discourse analysis to explore humanitarian discourse in the interplay of arguments for and against official policies harmful to Indigenous peoples in four select episodes of colonial violence. It seeks to extend our understanding of the logics of colonial violence between circa. 1860 and 1907. The four episodes examined are: the “pamphlet war” debating Governor Thomas Gore Browne’s actions in connection with the Taranaki war during the period 1860-1862; debate on the confiscation of Māori land during the period 1863-1864; debate on the government’s actions in connection with the invasion of Parihaka during the period 1879-1881; and debate on New Zealand’s annexation and administration of the Cook Islands during the period 1898-1907. The humanitarian discourse used in colonial violence debate changed significantly during the period under review. During the Taranaki “pamphlet war” Browne’s critics and supporters debated his actions in rights-based discourses with strong roots in British humanitarianism. Browne’s critics judged his conduct against the British civilising mission. Humanitarian discourse underpinned by opposing notions of amalgamation was important in both justifying and opposing confiscation. Humanitarian discourse continued to evolve in new, harder ground in debates over Parihaka. Changes in racial thinking, settler demographics, and views of Te Tiriti pared humanitarian discourse back to first principles. By 1900, the British civilising mission had evolved into the more secular “white man’s burden”. Humanitarian discourse was used, rather unsuccessfully, to oppose colonial violence. But it was also consistently used as a tool that allowed Europeans to reconcile demands for land, effective sovereignty, and prestige with professed concern for the welfare and rights of the Indigenous peoples who were displaced, rendered landless, and disenfranchised by processes of colonialism. The legacy of the humanitarian discourse observed in this thesis reverberates in the present in the way non-Indigenous peoples think about history; and represent, advocate for, and engage with Indigenous peoples on issues that affect them. Engaging with the history of humanitarian discourse in colonial violence debate, and the wider history of the logics of colonial violence, is key to understanding the roots of these issues, and a crucial step on the path contemporary non-Indigenous people must take to decolonise discourse.


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Palestinans are Indigenous: Jamal Nabulsi, ‘Reclaiming Palestinian Indigenous Sovereignty’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 52, 2, 2023, pp. 24-42

04Feb24

Abstract: The 2021 Unity Intifada represented a vital moment in the history of Palestinian resistance. The unification of Palestinian struggle inherent to the uprising can be read as an expression of Palestinian Indigenous sovereignty. Drawing on the critical thought of Palestinians and other Indigenous peoples struggling against settler colonialism, I argue for a theorization of Palestinian indigeneity. Following from this indigeneity, I show that Palestinian Indigenous sovereignty is the embodied political claim to the land of Palestine. This theorization of sovereignty offers uniquely productive ways to account for and challenge Zionist/Israeli settler-colonial violence and, ultimately, to forge paths toward decolonial Palestinian futures.


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‘Asian’ unsettlement: Tian An Wong, An Asian American Theology of Liberation, Lever Press, 2023

02Feb24

Description: What does liberation mean for Asians at the core of an anti-Black, settler-colonial empire? This landmark book is the first to offer an Asian American theology of liberation for the present and future global crises. The broad scope of contemporary ideas that the book engages with will be of interest to students, activists, clergy, and scholars alike. Readers interested in radical politics, political theology, and Asian American history will find this book an important addition to their bookshelves. Providing an intersectional frame that considers the breadth and diversity of Asian American experiences alongside those of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx thinkers in the United States and across the globe, An Asian American Theology of Liberation puts Asian American theology in dialogue with theories from psychoanalysis, Afro-pessimism, Black Marxism, postcolonial studies, and queer theology. In this groundbreaking work, Wong Tian An combines archival research uncovering a much overlooked theology of liberation — born in the 1970s out of Asian Americans’ struggles for political recognition and civil rights in the United States — with powerful analyses drawing from the theological, intellectual, and political developments of the last half century. This wide-ranging study connects urgent themes such as protest movements in Hong Kong, anti-Asian violence in the United States, and Indigenous struggles everywhere, while building on Asian theologies such as Dalit theology in India, theology of struggle in the Philippines, and Minjung theology in Korea. Drawing deeply and broadly across disciplines, the book altogether revives and renews an Asian American theology of liberation for a new generation.


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Surveying settlers: Daniel Rück, ‘The continuity of settler colonial narratives: the diary of a nineteenth-century dominion land surveyor and the enduring language of harm’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2024

02Feb24

Abstract: This article analyzes the writings of a prominent Canadian nineteenth-century land surveyor and scientist to show the continuity of settler colonial narratives from his time until ours. As a Dominion Lands Surveyor, Otto Julius Klotz (1851–1923) was part of the vanguard of his white-supremacist, expansionistic, industrializing society; a group of front-line invaders who facilitated the taking of land from Indigenous people and nations, and transferred it to mostly white men. Employing a biographical microhistorical approach to settler colonialism, this research examines Klotz’s personal diary and the events contained in it. Klotz was able to live the ideals of heteropatriarchal white masculinity and middle-class respectability, and his voluminous, live-long diary demonstrates the ways in which his privilege was actively advanced by dehumanizing others. I show the ways this land surveyor mourned the world he was destroying at the same time as he celebrated the world he was bringing into being, and how this apparent contradiction is central to settler colonialism and anti-Indigenous racism, and is still with us today. I argue that understanding the continuity of settler colonial narratives can help us to better understand our world while we strive to construct decolonial narratives and find ways to reconnect to one another and the land.


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Jesus, the unsettler? Michael Mawson, ‘Unsettling Jesus Christ: Indigenous and Settler Christologies in the Aftermath of Colonisation’, in Brian Fiu Kolia, Michael Mawson (eds), Unsettling Theologies Memory, Identity, and Place, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, pp. 37-55

02Feb24

Abstract: This chapter proposes that in the aftermath of colonisation at least two different Christologies or images of Christ are required. First, the author outlines some of the creative, constructive work currently being done by Indigenous theologians, focusing on Lee Miena Skye and Wayne Te Kaawa. Second, the author suggests the need for a theologia crucis for white Christians in Australia and Aotearoa, an image of Christ that can interrupt settler strategies for avoiding responsibility for colonisation and ignoring Indigenous challenges.


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Decolonising settlers: Hayley Goldthorpe, An (Anti)colonial Genealogy: Exploring Pākehā Challenges to White Settler Colonialism in the Nineteenth, Twentieth, and Twenty-First Centuries, MA dissertation, Victoria University of Wellington, 2024

02Feb24

Abstract: This thesis is about how Pākehā can be auxiliaries to the contemporary decolonial struggle. To address this present, I orient to the past. I propose that there exists a genealogy of Pākehā (anti)colonial action and that critically remembering, reflecting, and drawing upon such a genealogy can help guide ethical and meaningful Pākehā contribution to decolonisation. The titular ‘(anti)colonial’ analytic befits this critical interrogation and is used to refer to action that either is, or purports to be, against white settler colonisation yet simultaneously enacts, perpetuates, and/or advances white settler colonial harm. To outline the proposed genealogy, I use three case studies of Pākehā (anti)colonial action, one for each century since the formal British annexation of Aotearoa New Zealand in 1840. These case studies are: the evangelical humanitarians’ Pamphlet War protest of the Waitara dispute and ensuing First Taranaki War, the Anti-Springbok Tour protests, and the recent campaigns for Aotearoa New Zealand history to be taught in schools. Each of these historical moments is narrated with emphasis on the context of white settler colonialism and how the Pākehā agents acted within it, and how (and if) they acted with and listened to Māori. The thesis discussion then combines all three case studies and reiterates their genealogical framing, explicating on this and its utility through a hauntological and utopian lens. I emphasise how white settler colonialism is not relegated to the past, and how, only through critical engagement in our own white settler colonial history and reckoning with our own positionalities, can we
draw strength from past (anti)colonial Pākehā action.


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The settlers are fracking up: Rebecca R. Scott, Land of Extraction: Property, Fracking, and Settler Colonialism, New York University Press, 2024

02Feb24

Description: Explores fracking’s dual impact on settler colonial culture and sustainability Through meticulous research and poignant storytelling, Land of Extraction unravels the complex web of relationships between humans, places, and the environment, all bound by the concept of private property. It presents a thought-provoking analysis of how settler colonial culture imposes limits on environmental politics. Drawing on real-life events, fictional portrayals of fossil-fuel driven apocalypses, and firsthand ethnographic accounts of the fracking and pipeline boom in West Virginia, Rebecca R. Scott argues that the American dream’s promise of empowerment through property ownership actually restricts action against extractive industries and hampers the progress of environmental justice coalitions. As the ever-expanding reach of natural gas and pipeline industries takes its toll on communities, the book reveals the fractures in landowners’ reliance on private property, opening the door to more sustainable futures. A powerful call to reevaluate our perspectives and challenge the status quo, this book will leave readers questioning the foundations of our society and the possibilities that lie ahead.


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