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Settlers see (and paint) what other settlers see: settler art comparatively on display at the Denver Art Museum

13May23

Access a High Country News article on the ‘Near East to far West exhibition here.


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Resubjecting settlers: Kathleen S.G. Skott-Myhre,  Hans A. Skott-Myhre,  Jeffrey Galvin Smith,  Scott Kouri, Desettlering as Re-subjectification of the Settler Subject: Towards Alternative Traditions and Identity, Routledge, 2023

11May23

Description: This book offers an intervention into the process of decolonization through the re-subjectification of the settler subject. The authors draw on what Deleuze and Guattari call minor threads of philosophy, pedagogy, spirituality, and healing practices rooted in neglected lineages of European thought and ceremony. The book proposes a methodology for unontologizing the settler subject, which they term ‘desettlering.’ Rather than fetishizing indigenous theory and practice as a mode for resubjectifying settlers to facilitate land-based decolonization, it offers a fresh approach by looking towards alternative sets of traditions and identity. These alternatives are used to interrogate minoritarian European philosophies, practices, and beliefs, which the authors propose could be deployed to unontologize the settler within current historical conditions. Asserting that such a process is not volitional but a historical necessity, the book offers a novel and timely investigation into who settlers become if they intend to engage seriously in decolonization. It will appeal to an interdisciplinary audience of scholars and researchers in psychological science, social psychology, counseling, philosophy, indigenous studies, and sociology.


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Possessing settlers: Jay Scherer, Rylan Kafara, Jordan Koch, ‘The spectacle of settler colonial urbanism, racialized policing, and Indigenous refusal of white possessive logics’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2023

11May23

Abstract: In this article, we explore how the underlying logics of white possession continue to fuel a cycle of state-supported territorial acquisition, enclosure, and expulsion in Edmonton, Alberta’s city center through the recent opening of Rogers Place, a publicly financed $613.7-million arena and home of the National Hockey League’s (NHL) Edmonton Oilers. Drawing from a two-year ethnography, we examine how men’s professional hockey and its related land development projects are powerful mechanisms for bringing a new iteration of settler colonialism to the city, including as hockey fans re-enact a historical racial hierarchy that privileges certain lives over others, and as police enforce this racial project of accumulation and its colonial lines of force with impunity. Our research, moreover, challenges common-sense ideas about the benefits of sports-driven downtown redevelopment, as well as the widespread belief that settler colonialism is an event of the past that occurred outside of cities. Finally, as settlers renew and reproduce lines of power through these processes, we also explore the various ways in which city-center residents refuse white possessive logics in their attempts to transcend the limits of ‘settler-colonial city-making’ and policing, ‘producing urban space in their own right.’


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Europa Universalis is a settler game: Mitchell P. Losito, ‘Is EU4 only about Map Painting?’ Settler Colonial Ideology in Europa Universalis IV, MA dissertation, Georgetown University, 2023

11May23

Abstract: This thesis considers the historical strategy video game Europa Universalis IV (2013) in terms of its account of the history of the early modern era. It aims to show that this account is one which is predicated off settler colonial attitudes. To do so, this project will interrogate the game in terms of its settler colonial gameplay systems and the ways in which players interact with these systems. The two main chapters will more deeply explore these themes, exploring both how the game is a contemporary wargame, how settler colonial modes represent themselves in the underlying code, and the manners in which players navigate these modes through writing “After Action Reports” and modding. The thesis concludes by thinking about how incorporating perspectives from indigenous creators and settler colonial theorists might help move the game from being just about conquering a map and toward a more cohesive, authentic account of the game’s historical moment.


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Settler conservation against Indigenous resurgence: Lindsey R. Popken, P. Joshua Griffin, Charlotte Coté, Eric Angel, ‘Indigenous food sovereignty through resurgent self-governance: centering Nuu-chah-nulth principles in sea otter management in Canada’, Ecology & Society, 28, 2, 2023

11May23

Abstract: Although North American settler governments face scrutiny over the ecological, social, and ethical shortcomings of environmental policy, many Indigenous Nations are pursuing a resurgence of environmental self-governance according to ancestral principles and practices. On the west coast of Vancouver Island, the reintroduction and prioritized conservation of sea otters by Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) actively impedes the harvest of culturally and nutritionally significant shellfish species by Nuu-chah-nulth Nations. Integrating a range of qualitative methods, we argue that structural inequities, divergent normative and material priorities, and ontological differences animate a divide between Nuu-chah-nulth and Canadian state governing bodies in sea otter management. The DFO’s unwillingness to accommodate Indigenous knowledge, principles, and priorities in its sea otter management scheme reproduces the unequal power relations of settler colonialism to the detriment of Indigenous food sovereignty and security. We propose to reframe sea otter governance around the Nuu-chah-nulth principles of hišukʔiš c̓awaak (everything is one), ʔiisaak (respect with caring), and ʔuʔaałuk (taking care of). This reorientation is in alignment with the efforts of Indigenous peoples throughout Canada and globally to enact multi-species caretaking through the resurgence of self-governance rooted in ancestral knowledge and wisdom. Ultimately, we argue that a sea otter governance structure centering Nuu-chah-nulth principles, ecological knowledge, and leadership would be well-positioned to lead collaborations and respectful engagement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Nations.


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The borders of settler colonialism: Anne Mai Yee Jansen, ‘Borders’, The Routledge Companion to Politics and Literature in English, 2023

11May23

Abstract: This chapter begins with a broad overview of the field of border studies from the 1980s to the present. It traces the roots of U.S.-based border studies from Gloria Anzaldúa to the present, paying special attention to major trends and intellectual shifts in the scholarship. It then uses a passage from Efrén Divided to demonstrate three different conceptualizations of the border in literature and delves into the way borders have been theorized in literary studies. Following this discussion, the chapter considers what can be gained by bringing Indigenous studies and border theory into conversation, especially where concepts of sovereignty, mapping, and settler colonialism are concerned. To that end, it turns to Empire of Wild to explore the useful plasticity of border theory.


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Settler colonial slow violence: Alyssa Martin, The ‘Disposable Others’: Settler Colonial Processes of Industrial Pollution in Cancer Alley, Louisiana, 1964-2023, MA dissertation, University of North Carolina, 2023

11May23

Abstract: This thesis uses the lens of settler colonialism to bring memory, place-making, space, and history into the discussion of environmental racism in Louisiana. The effects of environmental racism are most obviously seen through higher rates of health problems or death. Less obvious are the effects that environmental racism has on the history and culture of people of color. To address this historiographical gap, this thesis explores how residents of Cancer Alley, Louisiana, have experienced emotional, generational, and physical erasure. The proliferation of industrial plants in poor Black communities has led to an alarming rise in mortality rates among Black Americans. Cancer Alley is one of the worst examples of this, as the parishes in this area rank in the top 5 percent nationally for cancer risk from toxic air pollution. Although there have been historical works published on environmental history, the history of race and environment, and environmental racism in Louisiana, Cancer Alley itself has not yet been subject to historical scrutiny, despite its uniquely high levels of pollution and large presence of community activism. This thesis seeks to answer the following questions: How have these residents organized and been ignored by local, state, and federal governments? To what extent have historical and cultural elements been affected by the increased presence of petrochemical plants? How has the increasing threat of climate change impacted the history and culture of these communities?


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Settler colonial genocide is always somewhere else: Reid Gerbrandt, Truth Before Reputation: An Analysis of Canadian Political Discourses on Settler-Colonialism and Genocide in China and Canada, MA dissertation, University of Manitoba, 2023

11May23

Abstract: The discovery of 215 potential unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in May 2021 sparked one of the last big debates on settler colonial genocide in Canada. On June 10, 2021, NDP MP Leah Gazan presented a motion to declare the Indian Residential School System (IRSS) genocide. However, it did not gain unanimous consent as politicians from several political parties voted against it. This was surprising as only a few months earlier Parliament had voted to recognize the ongoing Uyghur crisis in China genocide. What made this recognition significant was that several processes of group destruction that were part of the IRSS are evident in the Uyghur crisis, and several politicians even identified Uyghur destruction as settler-colonial in nature. The questions remain: why did Canadian politicians view settler-colonialism in China as a process of genocide, while avoiding this label for settlercolonialism in Canada? And what discursive strategies did they employ to highlight genocide in one context while minimizing it in another? Using the frameworks of conceptual constraint and “blame games,” this thesis examines how Canadian politicians portray China as a stereotypical “Villain” nation while upholding Canada as a “Hero” nation. It will also show how these views are maintained in the public sphere, and why we need to continue to monitor this latter discourse despite the Canadian House of Commons finally recognizing the IRSS as a genocide in October 2022.


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Settler colonialism, rusting away? Claire W. Herbert, Michael Brown, ‘Race, Property, and Erasure in the Rust Belt: Viewing Urban Changes through a Binocular Colonial Lens’, Du Bois Review, 2023

11May23

Abstract: This article builds on settler and domestic colonial histories and theories to advance our understanding of urban changes in segregated, disinvested, U.S. Rust Belt cities. While many major cities have rebounded in population and experienced gentrification since the mid-twentieth century, many Rust Belt cities have continued to decline. The resulting conditions call for new theories to describe their changes, trajectories, and the impacts for majority poor Black populations. We construct a Binocular Colonial Lens: an analytic framework that superimposes shared conceptual descriptions and theoretical explanations of settler and domestic colonialisms. With this lens, we can elucidate the practices of erasure that are deployed throughout colonized communities and focus them on phenomena associated with urban decline and revitalization. While some urban scholarship has used metaphors and language of settler colonialism to describe gentrification, most of these works at best reflect the salience of settler ideology, and at worst reinforce Indigenous erasure. Foregrounding shared conditions of colonization and conquest in the United States, we train this Binocular Colonial Lens on Detroit, which reveals myriad urban processes like ghettoization, urban renewal, suburbanization, and gentrification as ongoing colonization, wherein domestically colonized populations are subject to numerous forms of erasure at the behest of the settler state and toward the advancement of settler society. This lens advances urban theory by expanding the depth of our analyses of urban changes, and scaffolds connections with other axes of racialized inequality by revealing shared tools of erasure operative in, for example, mass incarceration and environmental injustices.


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Settler colonial remembrance is targeted: Daniel S. Murphree, ‘Remembering the “Dade Massacre”: Regional Memory, Settler Colonialism, and Native American Perspectives’, The Public Historian, 45, 2, 2023, pp. 108-133

09May23

Abstract: Just over a hundred years ago, the state of Florida created Dade Memorial Park to commemorate 108 US soldiers killed by Seminole Indians in 1835, an engagement at the time labeled “Dade’s Massacre.” Whereas the event itself briefly gained much attention throughout the United States and triggered the Second Seminole War (1835–42), the site’s creation and interpretations tell us much about the factors that shaped historical memorialization in public spaces in Florida and the Deep South. Specifically, this article examines the role of settler colonialism theory and Native American perspectives in the setting’s evolution into today’s Dade Battlefield Historic State Park.


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