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Settlers in the face of decolonisation: Emanuele Ertola, ‘Blowing Against the Winds of Change: Settlers Facing Decolonization in Eritrea, 1941–52’, Journal of Contemporary History, 2022

16Nov22

Abstract: The literature on decolonization in settler contexts is characterized by an almost exclusive focus on the Anglo-French world, and by a marked emphasis on violence as the predominant feature of the settlers’ reaction to change. This article aims to challenge this assumption. Eritrea – like the other former Italian colonies – is certainly a peculiar case of early, top-down decolonization; but the actors on the field were anything but passive spectators. In the 10 years in which the international community decided the fate of Eritrea, there were a lively political confrontation and an armed struggle with anti-colonial nuances, while the settlers organized themselves politically to defend their interests. The complex variety of strategies with which they reacted to the end of colonial power constitutes an example of the non-binary relationship between former colonizers and former colonized; it enriches our knowledge of how whites reacted to decolonization in Africa; and it helps to complicate the monolithic idea of settlers as an undifferentiated transnational category.


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Settler civilisationism: Alexandra McFadden, ‘Wardens of Civilisation: The Political Ecology of Australian Far-Right Civilisationism’, Antipode, 2022

16Nov22

Abstract: The notion of a superior “civilisation” has been a hallmark of the politics of Western institutions and fringe white supremacists alike. Known ideologically as “civilisationism”, it has occupied a prominent position in the ideology of the Australian farright. Paying tribute to their settler-colonial origins, the far-right has consistently promoted “white civilisation”, even inspiring terrorist attacks. Despite this propensity for violence, far-right civilisationism remains largely unexplored. Through investigating a dataset of Australian far-right content, this paper reveals civilisationism as a significant part of their ideology, an ideology which relies on the idealisation of European technologies and environments to render Indigenous land and people uncivilised. A critical narrative analysis of the data illustrates the ways that these ecological factors are drawn into narrative to articulate Australian far-right civilisationism, an ideology inseparable from the political ecology of European history and colonialism, that today represents a particularly virulent version of its legacy.


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Feral settler indigenising: Simon Farley, ‘Mateship with Brumbies: Horses, Defiance and Indigeneity in the Australian Alps’, Journal of Australian Studies, 2022

16Nov22

Abstract: The feral horses of the Australian Alps—“brumbies”, as they are usually called—have occupied considerable space in settler-Australian culture since the 1890 publication of “The Man from Snowy River”. From the 1980s onwards, brumbies have been culled periodically to preserve “native” alpine ecosystems, which have not evolved to support hoofed animals. Such culls, however, are often highly controversial. This article uses Sara Ahmed’s concept of affective economies to explain why the culling of brumbies generates such heated debate and intense public outpourings of emotion. I relate the hyperaffective public performances of brumby supporters to a crisis in settler identity in Australia: as Indigenous activism has undermined the legitimacy of settler claims to belonging, some settlers have begun to use brumbies to assert their own kind of indigeneity.


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Differently settlers? Amir Reicher, ‘Settler-colonialism in the West Bank from the standpoint of its Mizrahi settlers’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2022

16Nov22

Abstract: This article is about Israel’s West Bank settler-colonial project from the standpoint of settlers who are of Mizrahi origin (i.e. Jews of African or Middle Eastern descent). While historically predominantly Ashkenazi (i.e. Jews of European descent), with time many Mizrahim have moved to the West Bank and joined the settlement project. And yet, there is more or less scholarly silence regarding the existence of Mizrahi West Bank settlers, and when they are addressed, their motivations are reduced to simplified “economic” considerations; in a way that devoid them of political consciousness compared to their Ashkenazi counterparts. While there has been an immense body of work dealing with ethnic tension between settlers and the indigenous population, by centreing the experience of a particular group of Mizrahi settlers, this article examines how internal ethnic tensions within the society of settlers play into and are transformed in the settler-colonial process.


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Comparative transindigeneity (against settler colonialisms): Priyanka Shivadas, A TransIndigenous Study of Indigenous Australian and Adivasi/Tribal Literatures: Seeking Literary and Thematic Connections, PhD dissertation, UNSW, 2022

13Nov22

Abstract: This thesis juxtaposes Indigenous Australian literature and Adivasi/tribal literature—two self-governing bodies of Indigenous literature differently situated: one in an Anglophone, white settler-nation in the Pacific region and the other in a non-Anglophone, postcolonial nation-state in Asia. Studies exploring critical connections between Indigenous writing from Australia and Adivasi/tribal writing from India are rare. A considerable amount of scholarship brings together the literatures of Indigenous Australians, Māori, Native American and First Nations peoples of Canada, who share much in their responses to European settler-colonialism, but little ventures into comparative study of the literatures of the Indigenous peoples of Australia and India. This thesis is guided by Native American scholar Chadwick Allen’s trans-Indigenous methodologies, which open up possibilities for global Indigenous literary studies by building from specificities and across, through and beyond differences in diverse Indigenous contexts. Beginning from a place of accepted difference and distance, this thesis thus seeks connection and comparability, framing similarities through identifying a shared set of issues/themes and genres. This study finds the following literary and thematic concerns are shared between Indigenous Australian and Adivasi/tribal writing: (a) land and labour, (b) bilanguaging, (c) editorial negotiations in cross-cultural, collaborative life writing, (d) gender and sexuality as sites of decolonial critique, and (e) responses to over-policing and death in police custody. These shared concerns structure and organise the thesis. They also form the basis for trans-Indigenous analysis of a selection of illuminating case studies. In each case, analysis seeks to yield Indigenous-centred, productive readings of juxtaposed Indigenous Australian and Adivasi/tribal texts, resulting from the tension generated between their distinctiveness and shared (post)colonial concerns. Ultimately, this study disrupts familiar patterns of comparison and encourages new models of critical thought in global Indigenous literary studies.


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How can one not see it? Nader Hakim, Ghina Abi-Ghannam, Rim Saab, Mai Albzour, Yara Zebian, Glenn Adams, ‘Turning the lens in the study of precarity: On experimental social psychology’s acquiescence to the settler-colonial status quo in historic Palestine’, British Journal of Social Psychology, 2022

13Nov22

Abstract: This review examines the coloniality infused within the conduct and third reporting of experimental research in what
is commonly referred to as the ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’. Informed by a settler colonial framework and decolonial theory, our review measured the appearance of sociopolitical terms and critically analysed the reconciliation measures. We found that papers were three times more likely to describe the context through the framework of intractable conflict compared to occupation. Power asymmetry was often acknowledged and then flattened via, for instance, adjacent mentions of Israeli and Palestinian physical violence. Two-thirds of the dependent variables were not related to material claims (e.g. land, settlements, or Palestinian refugees) but rather to the feelings and attitudes of Jewish Israelis and Palestinians. Of the dependent measures that did consider material issues, theynearly universally privileged conditions of the two-state solution and compromises on refugees’ right of return that would violate international law. The majority of the studies sampled Jewish–Israeli participants exclusively, and the majority of authors were affiliated with Israeli institutions. We argue that for social psychology to offer insights that coincide with the decolonization of historic Palestine, the discipline will have to begin by contextualizing its research within the material conditions and history that socially stratify the groups.


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The horror of settler colonialism (again): Kali Simmons, ‘The Savage Screen: Vengeful Indigeneity in the Modern American Horror Film‘, Fear 2000: Horror Undying, 08/05/22

11Nov22

Abstract: To live under the conditions of settler-colonialism as an Indigenous person is to exist under a terrifying structure of dispossession and violence. And yet, American cinema has tended to imagine the opposite by rendering white settlers and the state as the victims of terrifying Indigenous others seeking violent revenge. This talk examines representations of Indigenous peoples in contemporary American horror cinema from the 1970s to the present, focusing on the trope of the vengeful Indigenous killer. I link these contemporary representations to early colonial texts which circulated during initial “contact” with Indigenous peoples and the colonization of the Americas in order to gesture towards a genealogy of the revenge trope. Although in recent years Hollywood has begun to render Indigenous peoples more sympathetically, these narratives nonetheless continue to perpetuate harmful stereotypes about Indigenous peoples that are premised upon western white supremacist and patriarchal worldviews. Indigenous filmmakers, writers, critics, and audiences have responded to this long history of harmful representation in their works and in doing so they expose these works’ foundational colonial ideologies and challenge longstanding national mythos.


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Another look at someone else’s settler experiment: Jürgen Tampke (ed.), Wunderbar Country: Germans Look at Australia, 1850–1914, Routledge, 2022 [1982]

11Nov22

Description: Wunderbar Country (1982) examines the experiences of Australia’s second largest migrant community, the Germans. Many Germans saw Australia as a land of social equality and mobility, with unlimited resources and economic possibilities. This book analyses Australian social legislation and the labour movement, the subject of much debate in Germany. Articles present both sides to an argument, with some stating that Australia was indeed a workers’ paradise, the home of social progress; others point to miserable working conditions. It also deals with the experiences of immigrants from Germany to this new land: rural life in Bong Bong; a meeting with Ned Kelly; Adelaide in the 1850s; the wild gold town of Ballarat.


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Sporting Indigenous children under settler colonialism: Andrew Bennie, Jeremy Hapeta, Dan Henhawk, Audrey R. Giles, ‘Addressing the Needs of Indigenous Children?: Coach Education Programs in Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Australia’, in Martin Toms, Ruth Jeanes (eds), Routledge Handbook of Coaching Children in Sport, Routledge, 2022

11Nov22

Abstract: Canada, Australia, and Aotearoa New Zealand all share histories of devastating acts of colonialism against Indigenous peoples. As a result of this colonial history, and despite profound and enduring cultural strength and resilience, Indigenous children in these countries being produced as being “at risk.” Sport has long been used as a tool to connect with at-risk youth; unsurprisingly, Indigenous children are often the targets of sport-focused interventions that are meant to “improve” areas in which they are deemed as being deficient. Sport coaches, thus, can play key roles in the lives of Indigenous children. Without sufficient training, however, coaches who are meant to play positive roles in Indigenous children’s lives can (re)produce a sport environment that enables racism and reinforces neo-colonialism. This chapter examines coach education programs in Canada, Australia, and Aotearoa New Zealand, and the extent to which they provide opportunities for coaches to become familiar with Indigenous approaches to sport and sport pedagogy. This chapter argues that it is crucial for national coaching bodies to use culturally safe approaches to sport coaching to ensure that prospective coaches learn about the strengths and resilience of Indigenous peoples, the impacts and legacies of colonisation, and their role of influence in sport contexts over time and Indigenous children’s sport participation.


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There is no settler colonialism if there is Indigenous sovereignty (kin): Patty Krawec, Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future, 1517 Media, Broadleaf Books, 2022

09Nov22

Description: We find our way forward by going back. The invented history of the Western world is crumbling fast, Anishinaabe writer Patty Krawec says, but we can still honor the bonds between us. Settlers dominated and divided, but Indigenous peoples won’t just send them all “home.” Weaving her own story with the story of her ancestors and with the broader themes of creation, replacement, and disappearance, Krawec helps readers see settler colonialism through the eyes of an Indigenous writer. Settler colonialism tried to force us into one particular way of living, but the old ways of kinship can help us imagine a different future. Krawec asks, What would it look like to remember that we are all related? How might we become better relatives to the land, to one another, and to Indigenous movements for solidarity? Braiding together historical, scientific, and cultural analysis, Indigenous ways of knowing, and the vivid threads of communal memory, Krawec crafts a stunning, forceful call to “unforget” our history. This remarkable sojourn through Native and settler history, myth, identity, and spirituality helps us retrace our steps and pick up what was lost along the way: chances to honor rather than violate treaties, to see the land as a relative rather than a resource, and to unravel the history we have been taught.


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