settler colonial studies blog

Cold climate settler colonialism: Jonathan Adsit, From Orthodoxy to Enlightenment: Discourse, Territory, and Settler Colonialism in Siberia, 1670-1740, MA dissertation, The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2022

21Jun22

Abstract: Though many scholars argue that settler colonialism did not firmly come into practice until the late 18th century in Russia, through an analysis of both 17th century historical chronicle narratives and 18th century explorer accounts, I argue that settler colonial discourses and knowledges are already present, laying the groundwork for later settler practices. In the 17th century, chronicle narratives portrayed Siberian territory as a darkened wasteland turned radiant paradise by the presence of Russian Christians and the expulsion of indigenous non-Christians. In the 18th century, discourse changed to produce the increasing view of Siberia as an object of knowledge, great potential, and riches to be extracted and utilized for the state as naturalists and explorers began to describe Siberia in their accounts. Maps, too, produce this shift in knowledge as Russian maps change from traditional and river-oriented in the late 1600s to mathematical and ‘rational’ western mapping by the 1730s. In addition, recent scholarship on settler colonialism has provided greater nuance and context to settler colonies and their character, supporting the conclusion that some aspects of Russian colonialism from 1670-1740 were indeed settler colonial in nature, though unlike more intense western versions. Through discourse analysis of historic chronicles of the late 17th century and traveler accounts of the early 18th century, I argue that settler colonial discourses were present in narratives about Siberian territory since the 17th century and are governed by the epistemes that allowed these discourses to flourish.

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Photographs of erasure: Megan K. Friedel, ‘The Indians are Quiet: White Supremacy in the First Photographs of Native Peoples in Oregon’, Oregon Historical Quarterly, 123, 2, 2022, pp. 134-169

21Jun22

Abstract: Can White violence toward Indigenous peoples be perpetuated in a photograph? Between 1857 and 1861, U.S. Army officer Lorenzo Lorain photographed the people and landscapes of Fort Umpqua, an isolated military outpost on the southern Oregon coast. Stationed there to enforce the removal of regional Indians to the nearby Umpqua Reserve, Lorain’s salt prints, now held by the Oregon Historical Society’s research library, include thirteen portraits of Coos, Lower Umpqua, Siuslaw, Klamath, and Modoc men and women. Today, these are the earliest known photographs of Oregon’s Indians. They are also the earliest photographs documenting the Army’s role in the genocide and erasure of Native peoples’ lifeways and communities in Oregon during the mid-nineteenth century. Viewed through Lorain’s personal letters and military records, we come to understand how the photographer’s beliefs in colonialism and White supremacy contributed to erasing the identities and histories of the people in his images.

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Is Indigenous sovereignty ‘creationism’? Robert Geroux, ‘Science and White Supremacy (Part 1): Evaluating Elizabeth Weiss’s polemic against NAGPRA’, The Unmuted Posthorn, 24/05/22

21Jun22

Excerpt: In a recent legal case, Professor Elizabeth Weiss argued that the limitations imposed by NAGPRA (and the California state equivalent) represent an infringement on her First Amendment rights. More specifically, she contends that NAGPRA represents a subtle but nevertheless real attempt at imposing religion, which of course would be problematic under the establishment clause. That clause states that the state isn’t supposed to establish, or even prefer, a certain religious position or stance as it regulates the various actions that take place as part of the process of scientific research. NAGPRA does this, or so Weiss argues, in its imposition what she calls “Creationism” …

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Instagrammable settler colonialism: Laura Rodriguez Castro, Barbara Pini, ‘The “White middle-class farming woman”: Instagram and settler colonialism in contemporary rural Australia’, Journal of Rural Studies, 94, 2022, pp. 83-90

20Jun22

Abstract: In nations where colonialism persists such as Australia, scholars have identified the hegemony of a morally infused white farming imaginary. While this construction has traditionally been invested in heteropatriarchal ideologies our aim in this paper is to demonstrate how, in recent years, white middle-class farming women have been woven into this narrative through settler colonial logics. We take up this contention in the Australian context examining 100 posts to two major institutional Instagram accounts that feature farming women: @invisfarmer and @agrifuturesau. Using the lens of settler colonialism, and a visual and textual analysis, we identify how the “white middle-class woman farmer” is framed by discourses of white feminism and invisibility/visibility. We reveal the emergence of a narrow farming woman aesthetic which is bolstered by narratives which celebrate the “successful female farmer” and the “successful female farm leader”. In concluding the paper, we discuss the implications of the gendering of the white farming imaginary, and make a call for gender and rural studies scholars to de-centre and disaggregate the “white middle-class settler farming woman” subject position, through attending to settler colonialism and Indigenous scholarship in understandings of Australian rurality.

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Wakefield the settler mobiliser: Matthew Birchall, ‘Mobilizing stadial theory: Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s colonial vision’, Global Intellectual History, 2022

20Jun22

Abstract: Edward Gibbon Wakefield articulated one of the most influential theories of settler colonialism in the nineteenth century. Although his writings have attracted considerable attention from scholars, the content of his ideas remains disputed. He has been claimed as both the prophetic voice of a reformed British Empire and the architect of indigenous dispossession, while others have called into question his self-professed originality. This paper explores the place of global mobility in Wakefield’s writings, and it does so by tracking his engagement with stadial theory. While Wakefield’s adaptation of the progressive view of history initially excluded Aboriginal Australians from its analysis, it paradoxically enlarged when put into colonial practice. The article contends that this shift in Wakefield’s theoretical perspective was linked to his role as a colonial agent.

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Vaccine settler colonialism: Mark Muhannad Ayyash, ‘Vaccine apartheid and settler colonial sovereign violence: from Palestine to the colonial global economy’, Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, 2022

20Jun22

Abstract: This article examines the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine both in Palestine and globally through a decolonial lens. In dominant Euro-American discourse, the invention, production, and distribution of the vaccine is largely judged as an indicator of sophisticated and advanced health care systems and economies. The underlying premise being that the advanced, wealthy, and capable nation-states have endogenously earned the position of power and prosperity. The world’s poor nation-states are posited as the recipients of charity from these rich states only after the latter have sufficiently inoculated themselves. The entire discourse turns the question of vaccines into a series of technical questions about capabilities, facilities, infrastructure, economic purchasing power, and so on. Concealed in this discourse is a settler colonial foundation – an aspiration towards omnipresent and absolute power – which not only creates the contrast between Palestinians and Israelis, rich and poor, colonizer and colonized, but also seals a forcefully imposed settler colonial contract in which colonizing populations ensure their ability to inoculate themselves by debilitating the colonized.

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The settler subject: Marcelo Svirsky, ‘The Israeli elephant in the settler-colonial room’, Postcolonial Studies, 2022

20Jun22

Abstract: This article presents a rationale to expand settler-colonial studies so as to conceptually fuse in the same proposition the question of settler-colonial permanence with that of the settler subject. Arguments are elaborated based on one particular case study, Palestine. This gap in the research in relation to Palestine not only has left unresolved the problem of how to explain the continuation of the Israeli settler regime beyond its unequivocal overt and superior mechanisms of legal and brute power but has also kept the concrete perpetrators in the shadows, away from public accountability. The article also lays out a number of potential dimensions to lead research into the conceptual nexus suggested here, for the specific case of Palestine. These dimensions, which I suggest form the emotional economy of Israeli settler-colonial subjectivity, comprise (1) the compensatory distributions of settler-colonial capture, (2) the historical formation of strata of subjectivation, (3) the avenues of socialization that cement the commitment to a militarized society, and (4) the ways by which settler learning and settler practice are conjoined in everyday training.

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The art of settler colonialism: Erin Morton (ed.), Unsettling Canadian Art History, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022

19Jun22

Description: Bringing together fifteen scholars of art and culture, Unsettling Canadian Art History addresses the visual and material culture of settler colonialism, enslavement, and racialized diasporas in the contested white settler state of Canada. This collection offers new avenues for scholarship on art, archives, and creative practice by rethinking histories of Canadian colonialisms from Black, Indigenous, racialized, feminist, queer, trans, and Two-Spirit perspectives. Writing across many positionalities, contributors offer chapters that disrupt colonial archives of art and culture, excavating and reconstructing radical Black, Indigenous, and racialized diasporic creation and experience. Exploring the racist frameworks that continue to erase histories of violence and resistance, this book imagines the expansive possibilities of a decolonial future. Unsettling Canadian Art History affirms the importance of collaborative conversations and work in the effort to unsettle scholarship in Canadian art and culture.

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What is a treaty? Peter Cook, Neil Vallance, John Sutton Lutz, Graham Brazier, Hamar Foster (eds), To Share, Not Surrender: Indigenous and Settler Visions of Treaty Making in the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, UBC Press, 2022

19Jun22

Description: Too often, history and knowledge of Indigenous-settler conflict over land take the form of confidential reports prepared for court challenges. To Share, Not Surrender offers an entirely new approach, opening scholarship to the public and augmenting it with First Nations community expertise. The collection appraises the historical and present-day relevance of treaty-making in the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia. The authors take us back to when James Douglas and his family relocated to Fort Victoria on Vancouver Island in 1849, critically tracing the transition from treaty-making in the colony of Vancouver Island to reserve formation in the colony of British Columbia. Informed by cel’aṉ’en – “our culture, the way of our people” – this multivocal work explicitly addresses the tensions between academic research, Indigenous knowledge, and local experience. The collection includes essays, translations/interpretations of the treaties into the SENĆOŦEN and Lekwungen languages, and contributions by participants of the Songhees, Huu-ay-aht, and WSANEC peoples. The chapters demonstrate that the continuing inability to arrive at equitable land-sharing arrangements stem from a fundamental absence of will with respect to accommodating First Nations world views. To Share, Not Surrender is an attempt to understand why, and thus to advance the urgent task of reconciliation in Canada. The multiple perspectives presented in this important work will find equally diverse audiences: Canadian historians, scholars and students of Indigenous studies, ethno-historians, legal historians, lawyers practising in the areas of Aboriginal law, and researchers preparing historical reports on First Nation land claims.

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Settler colonialism steals it: Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, ‘“But if I don’t steal it, someone else is gonna steal it” – Israeli Settler-Colonial Accumulation by Dispossession’, Merip, 302, 2002

19Jun22

Excerpt: in a video clip widely shared on social media platforms in late April 2021, Mona al-Kurd (a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood) is seen confronting Jacob Fauci (an Israeli Jewish settler from Long Island) in the yard of her family home …

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