settler colonial studies blog

Remote settlers are settlers: Lindsey Drury, ‘Travelling into the Dark: The Circumpolar North, Indigenous Art, and Settler Aesthetics of Remoteness’, Arts, 2026

04Mar26

Abstract: While concepts of remoteness have long conditioned the fabulation of alterity, remoteness is not a quality ascribable to distant places and strange peoples “out there”. No one is by nature “remote”. Building from this proposition, this article argues that a heritage of European aestheticization of the “far” north grew out of European ways of imagining the world and contributed to settler social imaginaries of remoteness. Through historical analysis of travelling accounts, colonial exhibitions, and the settler art theorical work of Francis Sparshott about the “cold and remote art” of “far” northerly Inuit peoples, the concept of an aesthetics of remoteness—modes of appreciation and taste that produce a “darkness” not inherent to the Arctic itself but projected by the settler-colonial milieu, which maintains control through the creation of distance. The study shows how Indigenous Arctic art becomes aestheticized through settler sensoria of faraway and incomprehensible forms of beauty that mask histories of colonial extraction and dispossession. The article further contextualises a close, critical reading of Sparshott into relation with the wider history of trade and colonisation, to consider how colonial markets for art objects interface with both European narration of remote peoples and European markets for art from remote parts of the world. The work ultimately argues for a reorientation that refuses this projection of an aesthetics of remoteness and proposes an ethics of recognition that confronts the colonial histories embedded in art circulation and appreciation within Canada and beyond.

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Constituent Indigenous power: Melissa S. Williams, Dale A. Turner, ‘Indigenous Constituent Power’, in Peter Niesen et al (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Constituent Power, Oxford University Press, 2026, pp. 491-505

02Mar26

Abstract: The core meaning of constituent power resonates with many historical traditions of Indigenous political thought and practice. Indigenous peoples continue to exercise constituent power through the (re-)constitution of political orders at multiple scales of governance, from the local to the global. These juris-generative practices are often grounded in Indigenous spirituality and treaty-making, affirming relations of interdependence between Indigenous polities, non-Indigenous polities, and other living beings. Indigenous constituent power challenges conventional understandings on at least five dimensions: (i) its collective subject is not a state-bounded demos; (ii) it is de-linked from state-centred conceptions of sovereignty; (iii) it does not usually assert comprehensive jurisdiction over all subject matters of legislation; (iv) it generates politico-legal orders at multiple scales of politics, above, below, and across state boundaries; and (v) it constitutes orders that regulate not only human political relationships but also relations between human societies and the more-than-human environments that sustain them.

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Settler socialism? Dani Joslyn, ‘Settler socialism in the nineteenth-century United States’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2026

02Mar26

Abstract: This article argues for the utility of a category I call ‘settler socialism.’ It traces the history of a series of intersecting nineteenth-century socialist projects that variously emerged in conversation with agrarian Republicanism and predicated the reorganization of gender and class relations on the eradication of indigenous people. This category allows us to see the imbrications between some socialist efforts – in this case, largely but not exclusively utopian communal ventures – and the wider projects of westward expansion and settler colonialism. How exactly they participated in indigenous elimination ranged from endorsing President Andrew Jackson’s genocidal ‘Trail of Tears’ to training teachers in Indian boarding schools, and to more generally mythologizing, celebrating, and encouraging westward expansion and the expropriation of indigenous land and erasure of indigenous people as an opportunity for the restructuring of settler political economy. Settler socialism is both a contingent category – describing only a subset of socialism in general and US socialisms in particular – and one also that allows us to see connections between a range of movements across a large swath of space and time.

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Loaded: Lisa Marie Cacho, ‘“It’s Not Even Loaded”: Settler Colonialism, Suicide-by- Cop, and Indigenous Self-Defense’, in Lisa Marie Cacho, Complex Innocence: Defending Defiant Victims of Police Killings, New York University Press, 2026

02Mar26

Excerpt: When Renee Davis, a Black Indigenous Muckleshoot woman living on Muckleshoot land, which is located near Seattle, Washington, was shot and killed by police, she was not in the act of committing a crime, she was not being arrested, and she was not running away to avoid being arrested. In fact, the reason police came to her house was because she was mad at her boyfriend, TJ Molina, who was too tired to bring her to the fair to buy a crib for their unborn son. The feelings caused by the fight escalated, and after he left her home, she texted him with a threat that she would shoot herself and told him to call the police. State police officers do not have automatic jurisdiction over Native people in Native nations, but the Muckleshoot Nation has an agreement with the King County Sheriff ’s Department, so several sheriff ’s deputies are stationed on the Muckleshoot Nation.

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The settler game: Souvik Mukherjee, ‘How to Read a Colony on a Game Board: Settlers of Catan and Postcolonial Thinking’, Jonathan Gray, Daphne Gershon (eds), Reading Media: How to Do Textual Analysis, New York University Press, 2026

02Mar26

Abstract: Mukherjee demonstrates how we can apply postcolonial theory— which is more commonly used to consider film and liter a ture’s geopolitical, racial imaginaries, and power structures—to board games and their own icons of power, especially given the medium’s fondness for exploration and conquest.

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A history of settler colonialism: Arnon Degani, ‘Zionism’s flipside: a reconsideration of settler colonialism in Israel/Palestine’, Journal of Israeli History, 2026

02Mar26

Abstract: This article offers a corrective for how the concept of settler colonialism is often understood and used in research and commentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For more than a decade, the term “settler colonialism” has become central to scholarly and activist discussions about Zionism, the Palestinians, and their ongoing conflict – especially after October 7, 2023. This article applies a settler-colonial framework to Zionism to explain two simultaneous trends: the aggressive ethnonationalism that impacts Palestinians today and a historical drive toward Jewish-Arab parity and integration. In doing so, this article suggests that current perspectives on Zionism frequently overlook its historical dynamism and the role of Palestinians in shaping it. Such a shift in understanding of settler colonialism and Zionism promises not only a richer historical analysis but also a more constructive approach to engaging with the realities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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A settler colony is nature remade: Allison Carruth, Novel Ecologies Nature Remade and the Illusions of Tech, Chicago University Press, 2025

02Mar26

Description: Tracing the convergence of ecology and engineering over the last three decades, this book pinpoints a new environmental paradigm that the author calls Nature Remade. Allison Carruth’s Novel Ecologies shows how the tech industry has taken up the wilderness mythologies that shaped one strain of American environmentalism over the last century. Calling this twenty-first-century environmental imagination Nature Remade, Carruth describes a distinctly West Coast framework that is at once nostalgic and futuristic. Through three case studies (synthetic wildlife, the digital cloud, and space colonization), the book shows Nature Remade to be a quasi-religious belief in venture capitalism and big tech. This paradigm thus imagines a future in which species, ecosystems, and entire planets are re-generated and re-created through engineering. Novel Ecologies challenges the conviction that climate change and other environmental crises must be met with ever larger-scale forms of technological intervention. Against the new worlds conjured by Google, Meta, Open AI, Amazon, SpaceX, and a host of lesser-known start-ups, Carruth marshals writers and artists who imagine provisionally hopeful environmental futures while refusing to forget the histories that have made the world what it is. On this track of the book, Carruth discusses the works of Octavia Butler, Becky Chambers, Jennifer Egan, Ruth Ozeki, Craig Santos Perez, Tracy K. Smith, Jeff VanderMeer, Saya Woolfalk, and many more. Their novels, poems, installation artworks, and expressive media offer a speculative world built on livable communities rather than engineered lifeforms.

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The Marvel of settler colonialism: Shelagh Roxburgh, ‘Mainstreaming mutants: the colonization of Danielle Moonstar in film and TV adaptation’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2026

27Feb26

Abstract: This article explores the ways that critical representations of injustice are suppressed in the adaptation of comic book content to television and film. This analysis focuses on how the mainstreaming of Marvel X-Men comic books and related titles has produced watered-down representations of the political and social conflicts depicted in the original works. Centering on the character of Danielle Moonstar, an Indigenous mutant in the Marvel Universe, this article demonstrates how rare and radical commentary on settler colonialism presented by this character is suppressed and distorted in television and film. Through this example, this article demonstrates how instead of maintaining the core elements of this character, popular adaptations co-opt Danielle to reproduce and reinforce colonial discourses that normalize violence against Indigenous women and girls.

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Destroying to replace, destrying to not rebuild: Mohammed Nijim, ‘The dialectics of reconstruction in Gaza: settler colonialism and the impossibility of rebuilding Gaza’, Settler Colonia Studies, 2026

27Feb26

Abstract: This paper explores the reconstruction process in Gaza, which I see as dialectical, emphasizing its impossibility, at least on organic Indigenous terms. I suggest that any organic reconstruction of the native sector under Zionist settler colonialism is highly unlikely, especially when Western powers support such a regime and its pursuit of native destruction. I contend that genuine efforts at reconstruction stand in stark contradiction to Zionist ideology, which demands the full elimination of the natives, making calls for reconstruction highly dialectical. These dialectics are reflected in the settler regime’s unruly desire to eliminate Palestinians from Gaza, while seemingly engaging with reconstruction initiatives. The unprecedented destruction in Gaza is not a break from an old pattern but rather emphasizes the character of the Zionist project. Israel’s destruction, now and in the past, occurred without a solid response from Western actors, which further suggests the dialectics of sudden calls for reconstruction. As such, I argue that organic reconstruction is not possible without decolonization and genuine pressure from regional and Western actors. I build on existing literature on settler colonialism, genocide, and reconstruction. I also use survivor testimonies to highlight destruction in the current genocide.

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Seeing like a settler colony: Peter K. Hazlett, Patrick Fitzsimmons, ‘Seeing Like a Colony: The Virginia Land Surveyor’, European Economic Review, 185, 2026, 105274

27Feb26

Abstract: Surveyors in colonial Virginia were among the wealthiest members of society, with a social status rivaling that of members of the House of Burgesses and plantation owners. Many received large land grants from the Governor’s Council, which directly led to their wealth. We argue that allowing surveyors to acquire extensive land holdings advanced the colonial government’s ambition to expand the boundaries of the colony, most effectively achieved by settling people on the frontier. Surveyors, who had a comparative advantage in knowing the geography, location, and quality of unclaimed land, could reduce the measurement and search costs associated with locating fertile tracts. By granting property rights to the western frontier to surveyors, the government enabled them to identify the best lands and sell them to settlers, thereby lowering transaction costs in land markets. Using newly constructed data on Virginia surveyors, land grant records, and maps of surveyors’ land, we provide evidence of how surveyors acquired agriculturally productive land to sell to incoming settlers.

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