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Colonial continuities: Jane Lydon, ‘Racial Punishment from Slavery to Settler Colonialism: John Picton Beete in Demerara and Swan River’, Slavery and Abolition, 2022

29Sep22

Abstract: The career of Captain John Picton Beete (1799–1886, later John Picton Picton), an officer of the 21st Regiment of Foot (North British Fusiliers), maps some of the continuities between slavery and settler colonization. While military punishment was practiced across a wide imperial field, by focusing on the links between slavery and the new settler colonies we see how black bodies remained vulnerable to violent techniques well after they had been abolished elsewhere. Beete’s status was owed largely to his family’s extensive business interests in slavery, and he spent his career furthering the empire’s appropriation of Indigenous land and the exploitation of black labour. Beete and the 21st Regiment played a prominent role in quelling one of the largest slave uprisings in history, the landmark Demerara Rebellion of 1823. A decade later, shortly after arriving in Swan River, Western Australia, Beete and the 21st led the most intense phase of violence between colonists and Binjareb Nyungar, climaxing in the infamous 1834 Pinjarra Massacre. The common role of spectacular punishment represents the shared strategies of legal violence that maintained racial hierarchies across the empire, and points toward the continuities between British slave and settler colonies.


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The irony of settler colonialism: Alex Trimble Young, ‘”The Vigorous New Vernacular”: Settler Colonialism and the Politics of Irony in Roughing It‘, The Mark Twain Annual, 20, 2022, pp. 158-173

29Sep22

Abstract: This article argues, contrary to the contemporary critical consensus, that Twain’s notorious representation of the Goshutes in Roughing It is a complex satire directed at both the Indigenous people he encounters and those among his white audience who attribute the Goshute’s abjection to essential racial traits. This satire does not rescue the passage from an irredeemable racial logic, but it does mark Twain’s thinking on race as substantially different from the forms of “Indian hating” common among his contemporaries. Exploring Twain’s sources and considering the function of irony in Roughing It more broadly, this article argues that the leveling effect of his irony presages a shift in the United States’ settler colonial “logic of elimination” from frontier homicide to assimilationism, and the subsequent modes of liberal thought (most notably Richard Rorty’s) that imagine irony as a necessary mode of subjectivity for a citizen in a pluralist democracy.


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The present settler colonial imperative: Judy Rohrer, ‘Imperial Dis-ease: Trump’s Border Wall, Obama’s Sea Wall, and Settler Colonial Failure’, American Quarterly, 74, 3, 2022, pp. 737-763

29Sep22

Abstract: Developing a fuller understanding of US imperialism requires engagement with settler colonial and Indigenous studies. I expand Amy Kaplan’s analysis of US empire as “riddled with instability, ambiguity and disorder” to consider how settler colonialism is fortified via walls. Walls stake settler claims and scale from individual property (home) to national borders (homeland). Examining Donald Trump’s US-Mexico border wall and a sea wall in front of beachfront property Barack Obama has purchased in Hawai’i reveals the inherent instability and impermanence of settler colonialism, and thus this particular form of imperialism. That instability manifests in three ways: (1) settler colonial anxious, repetitive insistence on its dominion, its claims, especially via the law and physical intervention; (2) the multiple ways human and other-than-human actors resist the walls, refuse capture/containment, call out the fiction/myth of the border and sea wall’s power to divide; and (3) the way “once and future ghosts” haunt settler claims, unsettle territorial and temporal assertions of possession/domination/belonging. Based on this finding and analysis drawn from Indigenous and settler colonial studies, I argue that settler colonialism, and thus US imperialism, ultimately fails because of its inherent unsustainability and the myriad of ways it is resisted. What succeeds instead is Indigenous resilience and radical resurgence.


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Poetical settler colonialism: Tayseer Abu Odeh, ‘The Politics of Yehuda Amichai’s Aesthetic Camouflage: Jerusalem and the Settler-Colonial Gaze’, Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies, 2022

29Sep22

Abstract: Drawing on the notion of aesthetic camouflage the uses and abuses of memory and forgetfulness, this article seeks to examine and interrogate the ways in which Israel’s ‘national poet’ Yehuda Amichai (born ‘Ludwig Pfeuffer’, 1924–2000) relies heavily on the imperialist Zionist ideology to justify and legitimise the settler-colonial existence of Israel from a European and Zionist hegemonic perspective. The postcolonial image of Jerusalem, as mystified by Amichai’s poetry, signifies an apolitical and ahistorical Orientalist image of Jerusalem as being ‘a troubled sacred and mythical city’ claimed by clashing monolithic religions including Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. In other words, the systematic and historical absence of Palestinian people in Amichai’s poetry is ostensibly bound up with what Edward Said calls ‘the functional absence of ‘native people’ in Palestine’.


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The spatiotemporality of settler colonialism and its alternative: C. M. Peacock, Indigenous feminist philosophy in Idle No More: theorizing the space-time of Canada’s settler colonial politics and alternative decolonial imaginaries, PhD dissertation, University of Calgary, 2022

29Sep22

Abstract: In this thesis, I explore Indigenous feminist philosophy from the ground up through a case study of Indigenous women’s political organizing through Idle No More (INM). Specifically, I examine the ways in which Indigenous feminist resistance in INM identifies a spatiotemporal configuration of both Canadian settler state politics and decolonial alternatives. To do so, I use state, media, and public responses, rhetoric, and actions that emerged in response to the Idle No More movement, as well as the actions, rhetoric, written works, and Indigenous political orders of the Idle No More protestors. These interventions illustrate that: (1) settler colonialism constitutes the spatiotemporal configuration of Canadian politics, functioning to contain and eliminate Indigenous political life; (2) Idle No More was configured by the spatiotemporal configuration of Indigenous political orders, which express temporal relations that span the past, present, and future, enabling them to create alternative, decolonial imaginaries with novel forms of politics and power. Drawing on Idle No More’s political interventions, I theorize new Treaty imaginaries.


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The settler colonial carceral archipelago: Krystal Lockwood, Bhiamie Williamson, ‘The shackles of masculinity: Indigenous men, settler colonialism, and the carceral archipelago’, in Tess Bartlett, Rosemary Ricciardelli (eds), Prison Masculinities: International Perspectives and Interpretations, Routledge, 2022

23Sep22

Abstract: Indigenous hyperincarceration continues in settler-colonial states, bearing a pressing and seemingly entrenched human rights issue. In Australia, nearly 80% of Indigenous men receive a court order by their 24th birthday; 18.5% are imprisoned (31.7% and 1.5% for non-Indigenous men). We demonstrate how invader masculinities and settler-colonial perceptions of Indigenous masculinities criminalise Indigenous peoples. However, we argue that supporting Indigenous masculinities grounded in Indigenous perspectives is one way to decolonise criminology and inform decarceration processes. We present the chapter in three parts; first we detail how – since first contact – Indigenous peoples have been subjected to a separate system of extensive and pervasive social control. Institutional control inside and outside of prison is inseparable, forming a carceral archipelago. In part two, we demonstrate how this carceral archipelago reinforces ideals of hegemonic masculinity. Hierarchal power dynamics are gendered and raced, where Indigenous men and women are considered lesser status. In part three, we detail the counter narrative of resistance to settler-colonial stereotypes of Indigenous masculinities. Here, the predominant view eradicates prisons from Indigenous identities and masculinities, and instead empower Indigenous men within themselves, their families, and their communities. Overall, reinforcing the positive roles of Indigenous men and masculinities can disrupt the criminalisation of Indigenous peoples.


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Settler violence and screen violence: Henrik Gustafsson, ‘Screen Violence from Settler Colonialism to Cognitive Capitalism: Westworld and the Player Piano’, Afterimage, 49, 3, 2022, pp. 23-45

20Sep22

Abstract: While the HBO show Westworld (2016–present, created by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan) has gained much critical attention for its byzantine plotting and philosophical conundrums, the present discussion focuses instead on the basic premise on which the titular park operates, namely that the algorithms that govern human behavior can be disclosed by studying how human beings behave toward image beings. Under the guise of a tactile experience of a make-believe past, the park attractions clandestinely function as a large behavioral sensor, extracting actionable data from the guests who reveal their inner drives when interacting with the host environment. Taking its cue from the opening titles of the first season, the argument pivots on the master trope of the series: the machine-readable scroll of perforated paper that commands the automated performance of the player piano. This motif is examined through a double-pronged approach that aligns the anthropology of images developed by Hans Belting, which understands the relation between humans and images as the interactions between “hosts” and “guests,” with the archaeology of media and its dominant concern to uncover the prehistory of the automated control systems of the computer age. While Westworld proffers a timely allegory of biopolitical capture along the digital frontier, the show ultimately testifies to the failure to constructively engage with the precarious relation between hosts and guests that to an equal extent defines our contemporary moment. The initial problem raised by Westworld, the ethics of killing virtual beings, thus gives rise to a broader historical inquiry that concerns the inability of human societies to face the past and deal with the images they inherit.


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Settler schooling: Sean Carleton, Lessons in Legitimacy: Colonialism, Capitalism, and the Rise of State Schooling in British Columbia, UBC Press, 2022

20Sep22

Description: Between 1849 and 1930, colonial, provincial, and federal governments assumed greater responsibility for education in what is now British Columbia, using schooling as a strategy to catalyze and legitimize the development of a capitalist settler society. Lessons in Legitimacy brings the histories of different kinds of state schooling for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples – public schools, Indian Day Schools, and Indian Residential Schools – into one analytical frame. Schooling for Indigenous and non-Indigenous children and youth had distinct yet complementary functions in building British Columbia. Students were given lessons in legitimacy that normalized settler capitalism and the making of British Columbia, first as a British colony and then as Canada’s westernmost province. Sean Carleton combines insights from history, Indigenous studies, historical materialism, and political economy to present different histories of education for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples together. In the process, this important study reveals how an understanding of the historical uses of schooling can inform contemporary discussions about the role of education in reconciliation and improving Indigenous–settler relations. Historians, Indigenous studies scholars, and those in the field of education history will find this work illuminating, as will educators and general readers with an interest in schooling’s role in truth and reconciliation.


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Indigenous sovereignty is sustainable (settler colonialism is not): Melissa Catherine Helen Gorrie, Transformation beyond the settler legal paradigm: grounding ecologically-focused legal theories in relational accountability to address settler colonialism and support Indigenous sovereignty, MA dissertation, University of Calgary, 2022

18Sep22

Abstract: In this thesis, I explore what is required to address settler colonialism and support Indigenous sovereignty in the environmental law context, and assess the extent to which ecologically-focused legal theories or ELTs align with what is required. I conclude that a rebalancing of power and authority is required towards nation-to-nation, legally pluralistic spaces that centre Indigenous sovereignty and the revitalization of Indigenous legal paradigms. In these spaces, settler-Indigenous legal paradigms co-exist as equals in mutually respectful and reciprocal relationships. To create such spaces requires several inter-related efforts on behalf of settlers, including: i) efforts to dismantle settler colonialism in settler legal paradigms and support the revitalization of Indigenous legal paradigms, ii) restitution and reparations for past and ongoing harms, and iii) efforts to engage and interact with Indigenous peoples and their legal paradigms in a manner that reflects the legally pluralistic vision set out herein. I conclude that ELTs mostly advocate for transformation within the settler legal paradigm, failing to challenge the state’s source of law-generating authority over Indigenous peoples and their lands. They also generally fail to centre and support Indigenous sovereignty and the revitalization of Indigenous legal paradigms. There is also virtually no mention of the need for restitution or reparations, or consideration of the need for relationship building and dialogue with Indigenous peoples and their legal paradigms. As a result, ELTs mostly maintain the settler colonial status quo. Nonetheless, there are some leading examples that demonstrate the possibility of ELTs being developed in a decolonized and pluralistic manner that addresses settler colonialism and supports the revitalization of Indigenous legal paradigms. These examples also demonstrate efforts towards creating respectful and reciprocal relationships and dialogue where settler and Indigenous scholars and their legal paradigms co-exist as equals. Moving forward, ELTs should be grounded in problematizing and challenging settler colonialism and supporting Indigenous sovereignty and legal revitalization. Settler ELT scholars should also engage in concerted efforts to build relationships of mutual respect and reciprocity with Indigenous colleagues, where their needs are centred. Such relationship building can enable meaningful cross-legal dialogue and the co-creation of collaborative, decolonized and pluralistic spaces.


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Settler colonial ableism: Alec Moore, Tracing the Colonial Dimensions of ‘Special Education’: History, Disability, and Settler Colonialism, MA dissertation, Brock University, 2022

18Sep22

Abstract: This thesis proposes that there are intersections between settler colonialism, disability, and education, that can help to clarify how and why national recognition of violence against Indigenous communities is a central project of the nation-state. For this reason, the exacerbating impacts of ableism and (settler) colonialism are studied for their impact on schooling and education in Canada. Using Critical Discourse Analysis as a method of inquiry, the Ontario First Nations Special Education Review Report is analyzed for its relation to history, pedagogy, and colonialism. The report is useful to investigation of the connection between current and historical conceptualizations of disability and the history/present of settler colonialism within the Canadian nation-state. The thesis is framed through the understanding that ableism and colonialism, as they appear in “special education”, are intertwined forces which are often founded upon white supremacy and framed through Eurocentric discourse. As such, this thesis engages the fields of Critical Disability Studies, Settler Colonialism, Indigenous Studies, and Education, to describe how special education is informed by colonial constructs of schooling. Conclusions drawn through applying these theories to a reading of the Ontario First Nations Special Education Review Report suggested that there is an apprehension to adopt disability discourse because of the history of colonialism and the ongoing presence of Debility. As well, there is an immediate need to address the systemic issues regarding funding, resource access, and self-determination because of the historical and continued injustices that occur within First Nations education.


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