settler colonial studies blog

Mourning the child (really, but not really): Miranda Sophia Leibel, Writing our Wrongs: ‘Justness’, Accountability, and Transparency in Provincial Child Death Inquiries in the Context of Neoliberal Settler Colonialism, PhD dissertation, Carleton University, 2022

21Dec22

Abstract: This dissertation examines the child death inquiry as a performative ritual of liberaldemocratic governance in the contexts of ongoing settler colonialism and the implementation of New Public Management in Canadian public policy. I ask: what is the performative work of public inquiries in constituting political relationships in contemporary Canada? I situate the child death inquiry as a particular form of public inquiry shaped by settler affective responses to Indigenous child deaths and assembled by contradictory logics that emphasize the universal generalizability of Indigenous loss, while articulating a specific and targeted anger with liberal, democratic governments, who ought to be accountable to their taxpaying-settler-publics. I trace the movement of figures as they are re/produced in the inquiry process: the ‘Indigenous Public Child’, the taxpayer-citizen and the benevolent settler public, and the ir/responsible government. I then consider how these relationships are produced, contested, and reaffirmed, as well as what kinds of impacts, concerns, and possibilities exist in the political spaces and relationships produced. I demonstrate how the dispositif of the child death inquiry moves from organizing hegemonic forms of visibility (through mainstream media), structuring the vocabulary of problematization (through legislative debate), establishing normative ‘solutions’ (through public reports), and articulating ‘progress’(through policy commitments). The shift to private-sector-infused managerialism as a proposed solution to the contradictions of settler colonialism reflects a transformation from justice (as a political demand) to justness (as a technocratic form of ‘resolution’ and a commitment to continuous self-improvement). In Manitoba, one child becomes a symbolic stand-in for the various political failures of what is portrayed to be a bloated bureaucracy; in Alberta, government accountability comes to be framed through the quantification (and publicization) of child deaths; finally, in Ontario, the absence of the figure of the Indigenous Public Child, compounded by the preemptive commitment to self-improvement, reveals how the dispositif of the child death inquiry changes when the benevolent settler public does not accept moral responsibility for the Indigenous Public Child. Each case study demonstrates how, in different ways, lives and deaths are made to be public in the settler state, and to what end.

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Southern Ukraine as a settler colonial locale: Olivia Irena Durand, ‘”New Russia” and the Legacies of Settler Colonialism in Southern Ukraine, Journal of Applied History, 2022

17Dec22

Abstract: Russia’s conquest of the northern shores of the Black Sea in the late eighteenth century and their renaming as ‘New Russia’ contributed to a wider movement of colonisation, settlement, and re-signification of territories worldwide under the aegis of imperial ideology. The adoption of the new name was also a way to erase the memory of the former inhabitants of the region—in the case of Southern Ukraine, its Tatar and Cossack populations, as well as its Greek and Jewish minorities. However, the coloniality of ‘New Russia’ was always up for debate in Russian official discourse: because the conquests happened in contiguous territories, Southern Ukraine was both an object of colonisation and an agent of further conquest, especially in the direction of the Caucasus. Inventing ‘New Russia’ thus asserted the colonial and ‘oriental’ significance of the Black Sea steppes, while entrenching Russia’s own imperial status and suggesting a place where Russia’s future might be.

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The heritage of settler colonialism: Robert Flahive, ‘Remaking the “World” in the World Heritage List: International Organisations, Settler Colonialism, and Architectural Preservation in Brasilia’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 2022

17Dec22

Abstract: This article explores the entanglements of settler colonialism with the integration of the 20th century-built environment onto the UNESCO World Heritage List by focusing on architectural preservation in Brasilia. The addition of Brasilia to the World Heritage List in 1987 was the realisation of a longstanding effort to enhance institutional legitimacy by expanding the representation of 20th century sites in geographies from the Global South. However, I argue that the addition of the pilot plan as Brasilia implicated both the World Heritage Committee and purveyors of Brasilia’s significance to architectural history in circumscribing the pilot plan from surrounding urban fabric. This argument is advanced by drawing on settler colonial studies, architectural history, architectural preservation, histories of Brasilia, and meeting notes from the World Heritage Committee. The article concludes that the preservation of the pilot plan as Brasilia 1) legitimates of spatial fragmentation in Brasilia through architectural history, 2) shows how settler colonialism is constitutive of the legitimacy of the World Heritage List, and 3) illustrates how international organisations have the potential to serve as vehicles for the reproduction of the logic elimination and the consolidation of settler spatial control.

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The settlers and the feds: Julius Wilm, ‘Old Myths, Turned on Their Heads: Settler Agency, Federal Authority, and the Colonization of Oregon’, Oregon Historical Quarterly, 123, 4, 2022, pp. 326-357

17Dec22

Abstract: The modern historiography of Oregon’s settler colonization distances itself radically from the euphemistic accounts that were common into the mid-twentieth century. Some assumptions, however, are rarely challenged. In his article, author Julius Wilm addresses three areas where local agency continues to be overemphasized in modern historiography at the expense of national forces or it is misunderstood in its effects. The article covers the negotiation of the “Oregon Question” in the U.S. Congress during the late 1830s and early 1840s, the passage of the Donation Land Claim Act in 1850, and the extreme violence of settler militias against Indigenous people in the war of 1855–1856. As Wilm argues, ‘re-introducing the U.S. government as an important agent of Oregon’s colonization…provides crucial context for the colonial push into the Pacific Northwest and the violence it unleashed’.

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Teaching settler colonial studies as part of Israel Studies? Amelia Rosenberg Weinreb, ‘Start with Them: Ethnic Studies, Israel Studies, and the “Others”‘, in Amelia Rosenberg Weinreb, Teaching Israel Studies: Global, Virtual, and Ethnographic Approaches to Active Learning, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

17Dec22

Abstract: This chapter explores the four key areas of difference between Ethnic Studies and Area Studies on the one hand and Jewish Studies and Israel Studies on the other as each set of fields relates to (1) nourishing ethnic pride, (2) advocacy and cultivating allies, (3) relationship to Europe, whiteness, colonialism, and the West, and (4) prescriptivist messaging. Familiarity with these areas of differences can help instructors build a more robust, intentional, balanced, and student-centered course that is legible on contemporary college campuses and aligns with your intellectual values. The chapter concludes with practical frameworks for maintaining narrative diversity in a syllabus and strategies for keep multiple perspectives part of a dynamic process that actively includes student voices throughout the semester.

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Another settler colonial triangulation: Fiona Probyn-Rapsey, Lynette Russell, ‘Indigenous, Settler, Animal; a Triadic Approach’, Animal Studies Journal, 11, 2, 2022, pp. 38-68

17Dec22

Abstract: In his Indigenous critique of the field of animal studies, Billy-Ray Belcourt (Driftpile Cree Nation) describes it as having an analytic blind spot when it comes to settler-colonialism, a blind spot that manifests through universalising claims and clumsy arguments about ‘shared’ oppressions, through assumptions that settler colonial political institutions can be a neutral part of the solution, and through a failure to engage with ‘Indigenous studies of other than human life’ (20). In the same article, he calls on decolonial projects to do more to include animality within their purview, to include critiques of animal agriculture and to incorporate critiques of anthropocentrism as ‘a key logic of white supremacy’. Belcourt’s critique of both Animal studies and decolonial projects on the basis of an unequal but mutual marginalisation is an important starting point for research projects like ours that hope to bring Animal studies and Indigenous studies approaches into dialogue about the cultural impacts of introduced animals. Our approach sets out to be ‘triadic’, always involving at least three sides; Settler- Coloniser, Indigene and Animal.

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Settler colonial hauntings: Liana MacDonald, Kim Bellas, Emma Gardenier, Adrienne J. Green, ‘Channelling a Haunting: Deconstructing Settler Memory and Forgetting about New Zealand History at National Institutions’, Public History Review, 29, 2002

15Dec22

Excerpt: The Aotearoa New Zealand’s Histories curriculum is a landmark document through which national history must be taught to all year 1-10 students. The new curriculum is significant for a country that prides itself on a treaty partnership that purports to equally include Māori and Pākehā interests in government institutions. Yet it fails to deliver equitable social outcomes for Indigenous peoples in, for example, health, youth suicide and incarceration, as well as education. The content of the new curriculum presents an opportunity to get to grips with our nation’s history warts and all. There are hopes it will provide a more meaningful pathway towards reconciliation between Pākehā and Māori, and ways to build a society that is more in line with the intent of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding document.

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A new take on a COVID elimination strategy: Nicolas Howard, Emily Schneider, ‘COVID-19 Vaccination in Palestine/Israel: Citizenship, Capitalism, and the Logic of Elimination’, Health and Human Rights Journal, 24, 2, 2022, pp. 265-279

15Dec22

Abstract: Despite Israel’s responsibility under international law to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics in its occupied territories, Israeli officials have refused to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Through a critical discourse analysis of Israeli officials’ statements regarding Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, this paper explores how Israel evades this responsibility while presenting itself as committed to public health and human rights. We find that Israeli officials strategically present Palestinians as an autonomous nation when discussing COVID-19 vaccinations, despite Israel’s ongoing attempts to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. Relatedly, Israel justifies its refusal to vaccinate Palestinians on the grounds of the Palestinian Authority’s economic independence, thereby obscuring Israel’s control over the Palestinian economy. In this way, Israel relies on citizenship and economic inequality, as internationally sanctioned forms of exclusion, to deny Palestinians their right to health. Drawing on theorists such as Michel Foucault, Achille Mbembe, and Jasbir Puar, we argue that withholding vaccines from Palestinians reveals the ways that Israel furthers its settler-colonial aims under the guise of liberal humanitarianism and economic growth. Instead of directing these conclusions toward Israel as an exceptional case, we contend that these processes reveal how settler-colonial societies use liberal frameworks of citizenship and capitalism to carry out their racialized projects of elimination.

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Nothing new, but also nothing convincing: Bernard D. Goldstein, ‘Is There Anything New in Antisemitism? Settler Colonialism’, in Adebowale Akande (ed.), Handbook of Racism, Xenophobia, and Populism, Springer, 2022, pp. 805-829

13Dec22

Abstract: The accusation of “settler colonialism” is increasingly used to attack Israel and justify its destruction. Settler colonialism was originally developed to describe and analyze a colonialist activity which includes settlers from the mother country subjugating and displacing Native occupants and their language and culture. I argue that settler colonialism is a useful formulation which is pertinent to Natives in America and elsewhere. But it requires too large a conceptual and factual stretch to provide accurate or valuable insight into the Israel-Palestine conflict. Surprisingly, considering its roots in left wing academic discourse, settler colonialism would be a better fit for the narrative espoused by right-wing White nativists to provide a theoretical explanation and justification, however inappropriate, for their anti-immigrant and antisemitic views, than it is to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. White nativists often believe that they are being pushed into the minority by immigrant “settlers”; that the force behind this immigration effort are Jews or the hidden state; and that White private property and culture are under attack. Settler colonialism may well join intersectionality, genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid on a list of otherwise valuable terms that deserve an asterisk warning about their misuse for antisemitic purposes.

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Settler colonial urbanism, or looking at a metaphorical structure without considering the actual structures: David Hugill, Michael Simpson, ‘On structures and events’, Urban Geography, 2022

13Dec22

Abstract: Patrick Wolfe’s description of settler-colonialism as a “structure, not an event” has made a lasting impact on the field of settler-colonial studies and beyond. This short intervention considers what the metaphors of “structure” and “event” reveal and what they conceal when they are deployed in the service of understanding settler-colonial urbanism. It emphasizes the point that settler-colonial cities are multi-scalar entities produced by an intersecting range of forces and asks whether an over-reliance on Wolfe’s most famous phrase might sometimes relieve analysts of the burden of accounting for the complexity of these entanglements.

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