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The non-indigeneity of settler colonial studies: Shino Konishi, ‘First Nations Scholars, Settler Colonial Studies, and Indigenous History’, Australian Historical Studies, 50, 3, 2019, pp. 285-304

14Aug19

Abstract: Over the last decade or so settler colonial studies has become a key prism through which to interpret the colonial cultures and histories of former British colonies where Indigenous people have since become a marginalised minority in their own homelands, ‘replaced’ by European settlers who sought to ‘eliminate’ them and their connections to the land. Yet, in recent years this approach has been subject to more critical evaluations, key amongst them, by some First Nations scholars. In this article I explore how Indigenous scholars advocate, interrogate, critique or challenge settler colonial studies as an emerging field of enquiry. I conclude by discussing Indigenous-authored extra-colonial histories, which bypass colonial expropriation and exploitation to focus on Indigenous worlds.


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Settler tourists do not ‘come to stay’: Bryan S. R. Grimwood, Michela J. Stinson, Lauren J.King, ‘A decolonizing settler story’, Annals of Tourism Research, 79, 2019

14Aug19

Abstract: In this paper, we intervene in tourism’s entanglement with colonialism by presenting a decolonizing settler story in tourism. This story is constructed from narrative research with the Łutsel K’e Dene First Nation concerning their connections to the Thelon River watershed in sub-Arctic Canada, a landscape with high appeal among wilderness tourists. We use the story to open up possibilities for decolonization, particularly in terms of Settler’s taking responsibility for colonial resistance, learning from Indigenous peoples, and shedding desires and entitlements to know. Informed by a range of settler colonial, Indigenous, and tourism literatures, we argue that this and other stories are needed to productively disrupt settler colonialism and construct decolonizing space in tourism and tourism research.


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Ancient Greek settler colonialism: Aaron Sterngass, It’s Complicated: Relations Between Greek Settlers and Indigenous Sicilians at Megara Hyblaea, Syracuse, and Leontinoi in the 8th and 7th Centuries BCE, Undergraduate Dissertation, Haverford College, 2019

14Aug19

Abstract: Greek interactions with indigenous Sicilians in the Archaic Period have traditionally been examined through the lens of violent colonization by historians from Ancient Greece all the way through the mid-20th century. Recently, postcolonial studies and a new emphasis on material evidence have led scholars to change this narrative, highlighting the possibility of more peaceful and synergetic exchanges between Greeks and natives. This paper examines the relations between Greeks and native Sicilians in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE at Megara Hyblaea, Syracuse, and Leontinoi, three sites at which Thucydides recorded early interactions between Greek settlers and native communities/authorities. To supplement the evidence found at these sites, native communities and other Greek settlements associated with these sites were also analyzed. Through the analysis of ancient sources, material evidence, and modern interpretations which combined both, this paper argues that the earliest Greek settlers at Syracuse, Leontinoi, and Megara Hyblaea had far more complex relations with indigenous Sicilians than is described in the ancient texts and the all-but-recent scholarship. However, it also concludes that while the modern model of more peaceful and cooperative encounters is useful in studying Greco-native relations, it does not fully account for localized differences in these interactions, which often varied widely over short distances and periods of time. The paper advocates for an historical portrayal of indigenous Sicilians as dynamic and innovative whose influences on the Greeks are often overlooked in textbooks, but also encourages the depiction of both Greeks and indigenous peoples as active participants in systems of exchange instead of maintaining static, onedimensional relationships such as “cordial” or “hostile.”


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The renewal of settler colonialism: Chad Walker et al, ‘Are the pens working for justice? News media coverage of renewable energy involving Indigenous Peoples in Canada’, Energy Research & Social Science, 57, 2019

14Aug19

Abstract: Some are suggesting that renewable energy by, for, and in Indigenous communities can provide a vehicle for both Indigenous-settler reconciliation, and climate change mitigation in Canada. Yet very little empirical research aimed at understanding this kind of energy transition has been published to date. In this paper, we present findings from an analysis of five large, mainstream (CBC, Globe and Mail, National Post, Vancouver Sun, Toronto Star) and Indigenous (APTN) Canadian media outlets from 2008 to 2017 (n = 153). Using Etuaptmumk (Two-Eyed Seeing) and energy justice frameworks, we are interested in the ways Indigenous Peoples are being written about and perceived among the Canadian public. We use content analysis to understand more about the types of issues being brought forth into the public eye, and critical discourse analysis to assess each outlet’s telling and framing of these stories. Findings indicate that stories of Indigenous opposition to large scale hydro development dominate our sample – articles of protest, lawsuits, and threats to nation-to-nation-building that are more commonly seen in extractive industries. Stories covering other technologies (e.g. solar, wind) showcase excitement, positive socio-economic benefit, and opportunities for reconciliation. Second, and against the backdrop of historical misrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples, we find what some may deem exemplars of fair coverage of Indigenous Peoples and renewable energy. Despite the absence of overt racist phrases — as seen in the recent past — authors rarely attend to the colonial history that has created structural issues prevalent in communities today. In the face of long-standing (energy) injustices, we question how far the coverage goes towards raising alternative and Indigenous perspectives. We close the paper with what we see as potential for future research trajectories to critically consider the role of the news media in addressing nation-to-nation relationships in Canada and other colonized territories.


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The settler-colonial archive: Tiffany Shellam, Joanna Cruickshank, ‘Critical Archives: An introduction’, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 20, 2, 2019

14Aug19

Excerpt: This special issue presents a critical approach to working with Indigenous Australian communities and the archive. Since 1788, the archive created in and about the place now known as Australia has been shaped by the process of settler colonialism and its “logic of elimination,” in which Indigenous people have been removed from their territories through violence, segregation and/or assimilation. The creation, preservation and interpretation of public historical records has been almost entirely in the hands of settlers and their descendants, making institutional archives a highly fraught space for many Indigenous people, as well as a significant space for creative resistance. Part of this resistance has included insisting on a broader definition of what should be considered evidence of the past, and thus here we take “archive” to have many meanings and forms, from texts, institutions, digital platforms and the environment to the intangible.


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Mining settler colonialism: Joseph Whitson, ‘Monumental Mines Mine Tourism, Settler Colonialism, and the Creation of an Extractive Landscape on Minnesota’s Iron Range’, The Public Historian, 41, 3, 2019, pp. 49-71.

14Aug19

Abstract: Through an analysis of three interpreted mines in northeastern Minnesota, this article illuminates how the region’s public history is complicit in the ongoing process of settler colonialism. Largely controlled by iron mining interests, the region’s public history and tourism industry is deeply invested in the future of mineral extraction, representing mining and white-ethnic mining culture as natural and indigenous to the landscape. This narrative erases Ojibwe presence in the region, ignoring both the role mining played in past environmental injustices as well as how it continues to threaten Ojibwe political and resource sovereignty.


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Settler indigenisation through inebriation: Daniel Monterescu, Ariel Handel, ‘Liquid indigeneity: Wine, science, and colonial politics in Israel/Palestine’, American Ethnologist, 2019

13Aug19

Abstract: Israel/Palestine is a site of bitter struggle over definitions of indigeneity and settlerness. In 2008 the first Palestinian “indigenous wine” was released, introducing a discourse of primordial place‐based authenticity into the wine field. Today, winemakers, scientists, autochthonous grapes, and native wines reconfigure the field of gastronationalism. Palestinian and Israeli wine industries can now claim exclusive historical entitlement in a global era in which terroir, that is, the idiosyncratic place, shapes economic and cultural value. Against the dominance of “international varieties,” this indigenous turn in the wine world mobilizes genetics, enology, and ancient texts to rewrite the longue durée of the Israeli/Palestinian landscape. The appropriation of the indigenous grape illustrates the power of science, craft, and taste to reconfigure the human and nonhuman politics of settler colonialism.


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The consciousness of decolonisation: Abraham Bradfield, ‘Decolonizing the Intercultural: A Call for Decolonizing Consciousness in Settler-Colonial Australia’, Religions, 2019

11Aug19

Abstract: Throughout this article I make a case for decolonizing consciousness as a reflexive orientation that reforms the ways in which Indigenous and non-Indigenous life-worlds are navigated and mutually apprehended in a settler colonial context. I consider how through decolonizing dominant habits of thought and action an intercultural dialogue responsive of diverse and mutually informing realities may be cultivated. This article aims to first introduce the key characteristics of ‘decolonizing consciousness’, this being reflexivity, deep listening, and border thinking. Using the Darling River in New South Wales, Australia, as a backdrop, I consider how place and environment are agents and facilitators of a contested intercultural dialogue where Indigenous and non-Indigenous ontologies, epistemologies, and axiologies often come to head. Drawing on fieldwork conducted with Aboriginal residents in far western New South Wales, as well as literature on decolonizing theory and Indigenous knowledge systems from different socio-cultural contexts, I argue that intercultural dialogue begins with reflexive contemplation of how one’s lived experiences is embedded in the realities of others.


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If settlers must reproduce they must grow adult too: Ken Gelder, Rachael Weaver, ‘The Australian Kangaroo Hunt Novel (1830–1858) as Bildungsroman’, Australian Literary Studies, 34, 1, 2019

09Aug19

Abstract: In Australia – and no doubt in other outposts of empire – hunting provided a rite of passage for ambitious young men to learn about local conditions and establish their colonial credentials. This article argues that the kangaroo hunt narrative therefore operated as a kind of colonial bildungsroman or novel of education. It examines three kangaroo hunt novels written by women who had in fact never travelled to Australia. The first is Sarah Porter’s Alfred Dudley; or, The Australian Settlers (1830). Porter’s novel shows that the kangaroo hunt is incompatible with the bourgeois sensibilities of an aspirant settler who revolts from ‘scenes of blood’. But other colonial bildungsromans invested in the adventure of hunting as a reward in itself. The second published kangaroo hunt novel is Sarah Bowdich Lee’s Adventures in Australia; or, the Wanderings of Captain Spencer in the Bush and the Wilds (1851); the third is Anne Bowman’s The Kangaroo Hunters; or, Adventures in the Bush (1858). Lee’s novel gives free play to the kangaroo hunt, exploring its possibilities for both Aboriginal and settler identities, while Bowman’s novel puts the kangaroo hunt into an ethical discussion of killing on the frontier. These British novelists imagine frontier experiences in colonial Australia by drawing on a range of Australian source material. Their novels present Australia as a testing ground for young male adventurers. The kangaroo hunt is their defining experience, something to survive and in some cases, finally, to disavow as they transition from emigrants to settlers.


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Systematic colonisation is a powerful force: Philip Steer, ‘Edward Gibbon Wakefield on Systematic Victorian Colonization and Its Discontents’, Brewminate, 01/04/19

09Aug19

Abstract: In 1829, Edward Gibbon Wakefield published his first statement of a “systematic” theory of settler colonization, A Letter from Sydney: The Principal Town of Australasia. Wakefield offered a novel economic theory of the relationship between population density and successful colonization, hinging on the establishment of a minimum or “sufficient” price on colonial land, and he spent the next few decades at the forefront of efforts to promulgate and profit from it. The theory of systematic colonization was first put into practice in 1836 in the new colony of South Australia, and then more extensively in New Zealand in 1839; in both cases, speculative mania in Britain precipitated the invasion of thousands of settlers, even though the settlements were as yet unmapped. Wakefield’s theories were also at the center of a new imperial imaginary that emerged in Britain by the 1850s, which established Australia and New Zealand as pastoral locations capable of restoring damaged British subjects. In spurring the vast expansion of migration to Australia and New Zealand, contributing to the genocide and dispossession of indigenous populations, and accelerating the destruction of local ecosystems, systematic colonization constitutes one of the most powerful and destructive examples of the ability of Victorian representations to permanently reshape the globe.


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