settler colonial studies blog

The settler’s accountability: Miranda Leibel, ‘The Indigenous Public Child and Neoliberal Settler-Colonialism: Theorizing the Intersections between the White Possessive and Neoliberal Accountability Regimes’, Journal of Canadian Studies, 2021

18Sep21

Abstract: This article examines accountability discourses in Alberta’s legislative debates on child intervention during the years 2016–19. I demonstrate that the supposedly apolitical discourse of accountability functions as a form of neoliberal and settler-colonial governmentality that reaffirms the legitimacy of settler state intervention into the pathologized Indigenous family. Using the death of Serenity in Alberta’s child intervention system in 2014, and the subsequent legislative debates surrounding her death and the lack of accountability in the child intervention system as a case study, I demonstrate that accountability as both a discourse and a mechanism moves between positioning Albertans-as-Victims, Albertans-as-Stakeholders, and, finally, Albertans-as-Responsible-Agents. Ultimately, I argue that shifting discourses of accountability, which move from governmental to societal to individual accountability, re-centre a relationship of settler possession in relation to the Indigenous Public Child, whose life and death become available for consumption by settler publics in exchange for governmental credibility and accountability.

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The sociology of settler colonialism: Erich W. Steinman, ‘Settler colonialism and sociological knowledge: insights and directions forward’, Theory and Society, 2021

17Sep21

Abstract: What can the analytical framework of settler colonialism contribute to sociological theorizing, research, and overall understanding of the social world? This essay argues that settler colonialism, a distinct social formation with common statuses and predictable dynamics, has much to offer towards new sociological insight regarding the United States. In expanding the scholarly models of colonialism applied to the United States, settler colonial analysis suggests that an underlying logic of Indigenous elimination and settler replacement informs a diverse set of contemporary outcomes and structures. It provides a coherent and overarching framework for explaining such political phenomena as the vigorous presence of “extraconstitutional” tribal governments within the United States, recurrent Native-white conflicts, and the distinctive nature of contemporary Indigenous social and political agency. The essay also analyzes how settler supersession and the desire for Indigenous lands shapes the intensive state management of Indigenous identity, the differing racialization of African Americans and American Indians, and the contrasts between Indigenous and black sociopolitical agendas. Insights from a reconceptualization of the US as a settler colonial society are not limited to a focus on politics, American Indians, race, or the past. The article suggests additional directions for new research that have the potential to reveal contemporary social forces operating at multiple levels and in numerous fields of social action. Finally, the essay offers simple suggestions to sociologists who wish to incorporate settler colonialism in their research and teaching within the discipline or to contribute to interdisciplinary scholarship about American settler colonialism.

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The theatre of settler colonialism: Waylon Lenk, Durable Whiteness: Structural Settler Colonialism in California and Southern Oregon Theatre, 1849-1860 and 2018-2019, PhD dissertation, University of Oregon, 2021

17Sep21

Abstract: Theatre and Performance Studies have studied the ways in which theatre and performance act as auxiliaries of hegemonic state power at least since Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed explored the ways in which classical Greek dramaturgy coerced its audiences into pro-state behavior. Meanwhile, the theatre industry often makes interventions into the White racial hegemony that dominates the United States while in some ways reinstating the very dramaturgies that serve to oppress Indigenous Peoples, Black People, and other People of Color (Holledge & Tompkins, McDonnell). Professional theatre would be well served by looking to the critiques of scholars like Boal as well as Diana Taylor, Jisha Menon, and Rustom Bharucha. These scholars critique theatre outside the United States and since, as Laura Pulido observes, race is experienced locally, a regional analysis of theatre as an auxiliary of White hegemonic state power in the United States is needed. My dissertation focuses on the region directly affected by the California Gold Rush, which includes all of California as well as southwestern Oregon, to demonstrate how theatre participated and continues to participate in the establishment of power that oppresses Blacks, Indigenous Peoples and People of Color. I do so by using eventful historical-sociology (Sewell) to describe the Gold Rush as an event that restructured race in the Gold Rush region, and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to compare indicators of white hegemony in Gold Rush plays with plays produced in the same region in 2019. I conclude by offering policy recommendations which range from the industry-specific like emphasizing dramaturgies that highlight non-white histories and increasing access for non-white labor in professional theatre to broader reaching interventions concerning minority language rights for local tribal languages and Spanish.

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Animal settler colonialism: Barrie Ryne Blatchford, ‘”Make the desert blossom like the rose”: Animal Acclimatization, Settler Colonialism, and the Construction of Oregon’s Nature’, Oregon Historical Quarterly, 122, 3, 2021, pp. 214-249

14Sep21

Abstract: In 1881, Owen Denny introduced the ring-necked pheasant to Oregon as a game bird for sport hunters. The bird, originally from China, was soon adopted into American culture in Oregon and later established presence in nineteen other states. In this research article, Barrie Ryne Blatchford explores the species’ introduction as well as how “the pheasant’s importation to Oregon was a product of, and later a touchstone within, American settler-colonialism — the multi-faceted ideology that alleged Euro-American superiority, marginalized Indigenous peoples, and glorified the renovation of landscapes in accordance with Euro-American norms and imperatives.”

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Hydraulic settler colonialism: Theo Claire, Kevin Surprise, ‘Moving the Rain: Settler Colonialism, the Capitalist State, and the Hydrologic Rift in California’s Central Valley’, Antipode, 2021

14Sep21

Abstract: Agricultural development and water infrastructure constitute the central features of California’s Central Valley. Marxist ecological theory has examined the development of capitalist agriculture in the Central Valley, while decolonial scholarship has critiqued the disproportionate impact of California’s water resource management on Indigenous communities. We bring together Marxist ecology and critiques of settler colonialism through an examination of land reclamation in California, culminating in the development of the Central Valley Project (CVP) in the 1930s. Reclamation combined the twin logics of capitalism (accumulation) and settler colonialism (elimination) to produce landscapes conducive to capitalist agriculture. Faced with ecological limits to accumulation, colonial-capitalist expansion required state intervention in the form of infrastructure projects to secure water for agricultural production. The CVP generated a rift in California’s hydrologic cycle, causing significant declines in water quality and fisheries and giving rise to forms of resistance and restoration that challenge colonial-capitalist water development in the Central Valley. The reciprocal restoration of salmon fisheries offers a method to begin mending this hydrologic rift while disrupting ongoing settler colonial violence in California.

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Hypocritical settler colonialism: Zoë Laidlaw, Protecting the Empire’s Humanity: Thomas Hodgkin and British Colonial Activism 1830–1870, Cambridge University Press, 2021

14Sep21

Description: Rooted in the extraordinary archive of Quaker physician and humanitarian activist, Dr Thomas Hodgkin, this book explores the efforts of the Aborigines’ Protection Society to expose Britain’s hypocrisy and imperial crimes in the mid-nineteenth century. Hodgkin’s correspondents stretched from Liberia to Lesotho, New Zealand to Texas, Jamaica to Ontario, and Bombay to South Australia; they included scientists, philanthropists, missionaries, systematic colonizers, politicians and indigenous peoples themselves. Debating the best way to protect and advance indigenous rights in an era of burgeoning settler colonialism, they looked back to the lessons and limitations of anti-slavery, lamented the imperial government’s disavowal of responsibility for settler colonies, and laid out elaborate (and patronizing) plans for indigenous ‘civilization’. Protecting the Empire’s Humanity reminds us of the complexity, contradictions and capacious nature of British colonialism and metropolitan ‘humanitarianism’, illuminating the broad canvas of empire through a distinctive set of British and Indigenous campaigners.

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Radioactive settler colonialism: Jessica Urwin, ‘The Radioactive Dr Mawson: Douglas Mawson and the Quest for Australia’s Radium Riches, 1904–58’ Australian Historical Studies, 2021

14Sep21

Abstract: In Australia, our history with nuclear matter and its processes has its origins in the early twentieth-century scientific adventurism of famed Antarctic explorer Douglas Mawson. As much as Mawson’s life has come to be defined by his forays into the ice, an examination of his personal and academic papers provides insight into how his relationship with radium was also of great importance, mirroring the shifting political and historical forces impacting upon the geologist. These are forces that he impacted in turn. Further to this, charting Mawson’s relationship with the radioactive from 1904 until his death in 1958 demonstrates the ways that Australia’s nuclear history entwines with scientific discovery, settler nationalistic ambition and colonialism.

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Settler space is constructed: Adam J. Barker, Making and Breaking Settler Space: Five Centuries of Colonization in North America, UBC Press, 2021

13Sep21

Description: Five hundred years. A vast geography. And an unfinished project to remake the world to match the desires of settler colonizers. How have settlers used violence and narrative to transform Turtle Island into what is currently called North America? What does that say about our social systems, and what happens next? Deploying analytical tools from diverse disciplines, and drawing on sources ranging from archives to pop culture and personal experience, Making and Breaking Settler Space addresses pressing questions left by the complex and obscured process of colonization. Adam Barker articulates a dynamic analytical model to explain how settler spaces have developed and continue to evolve. He traces the trajectory of settler colonialism, drawing out details of its operation from the imperial colonization of Turtle Island in the 1500s to contemporary contexts that include problematic activist practices by would-be settler allies. Making and Breaking Settler Space proposes an innovative, unified spatial theory of settler colonization in Canada and the United States. In the process, it uncovers systemic weaknesses that can inform the decolonization efforts of resurgent Indigenous nations and settler activists alike, and argues for relationships founded on solidarity and shared acknowledgment that the settler project is a failed one. This thought-provoking work will be of great use not only to scholars and students of settler colonialism but also to activists and political commentators concerned with Indigenous people’s future beyond the settler colonial society.

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Becoming? What if one already is? Cameo Dalley, ‘Becoming a Settler Descendant: Critical Engagements with Inherited Family Narratives of Indigeneity, Agriculture and Land in a (Post)Colonial Context’, Life Writing, 18, 3, 2021, pp. 355-370

11Sep21

Abstract: Using personal reflections from my experiences as a descendant of settlers, I undertake an autoethnographic interpretation of how my inherited family history of agriculture and memory structures my
relationship to land. Agricultural identities have been foundational to the formation of the Australian nation and in the metamorphosis of settlers into settler descendants. Memories formed by settlers and inherited by their descendants as family stories become a consubstantive force in the determination of relationships to land. At the same time, I recognise how the dispossessory overtures of these sentiments continue the erasure of autochthonous Indigenous belonging by the colonial settler state. Thus, my work critically engages with how an
autoethnographic approach to issues of settler colonial identity in the historical past might stifle or conversely open up critical engagement with ethical responsibility to Indigenous peoples in the political present. This analysis reflects on the broader society’s proclivity toward agricultural identities, borne out in the recent debates surrounding Indigenous author Bruce Pascoe’s book. Dark Emu [Pascoe, Bruce. 2014. Dark Emu. Broome: Magabala Books monograph], which positions Indigenous people as Australia’s first agriculturalists. These trends follow scholarship that seeks to expose normative and racist beliefs about Indigenous others through attentiveness to troubled colonial history.

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Black Indigeneity: Bennett Brazelton, ‘On the erasure of Black Indigeneity’, Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 2021

11Sep21

Excerpt: Black Indigeneity complicates the native/settler/slave triad that many scholars rely upon in order to make sense of the relationship between Black and Native peoples.

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