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The settlers CHANGE THE LAND: Zach Wallis, Metabolic Explosion, Settler Colonialism, and the Ambivalence of Ecology in Pākehā New Zealand, 1868-1899, PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 2025

10Sep25

Abstract: In the late nineteenth century, following the conclusion of the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s, settler society in Aotearoa undertook a political economic project aimed at intensifying and consolidating the local settler colonial project. In doing so, the 1870s were marked by metabolic explosion: the systematic, temporally compressed, and politically driven transformation of environment, ecology, energy, landscape, political economy, and society in the archipelago. In their attempt to consolidate settler colonialism, Pākehā society thus became inheritors of the British fossil economy, and the varying political economic and environmental practices they adopted combined to form a metabolic feedback loop of dizzying complexity and simultaneity. This thesis examines how Pākehā society understood ecology, defined broadly as a set of discourses concerning collective human relations to nature and ideas about the relationship between species. Adopting a cultural materialist approach centered upon the relationship between metabolic explosion, settler colonialism, and discourse, this thesis delivers a critical assessment of the structure and politics of Pākehā ecological discourse in late nineteenth-century New Zealand. Using actors’ categories provided by William Pember Reeves’ 1898 history, The Long White Cloud, it finds that these discourses assumed a dialectical structure. The “thesis” valourized colonization by understanding the archipelago as “void space,” meant to be filled by foreign flora, fauna, and people. The “antithesis” bemoaned the ruinous and ecocidal character of Pākehā settlement, with the effect of influencing early and often unsuccessful attempts at forest preservation. The “synthesis,” emerging out of Darwinian natural history, was an ambivalent utilitarianism, overdetermined by metabolic explosion and the cultural logic of settler colonialism and which precluded any truly radical critique of Pākehā environmental and ecological transformation. Despite the supersession of this thinking by the early twentieth century, a similar utilitarian ambivalence has marked popular discourse about the environment and ecology in the Occident and beyond throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.


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Weber the settler colonialist (who was trying to reconcile socialism and capitalism and thought settler colonialism was the answer): Victor Stazzeri, The Young Max Weber and German Social Democracy, Haymarket Books, 2023

10Sep25

Description: The Young Max Weber and German Social Democracy examines the formative years of a classic social thinker once called the ‘bourgeois Marx’ from the standpoint of his relationship to the foremost working-class organization of his time. It argues that Weber’s early engagement with the standpoint of the rural worker — not his later study of the ethics of ascetic Protestant entrepreneurs — first convinced him of the central role of culture in human agency. The crisis of liberalism in a rapidly modernising, conflict-ridden Imperial Germany embarking on colonial expansion emerges in the work as the decisive setting for the genesis of Weberian social thought; the rising labour movement, in turn, as the young Weber’s little-know yet crucial interlocutor.


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More on the sexual fantasies of settlers: María Laura Martinelli, Settler Colonial Fantasies: Scenes of Captivity and Desertion in the Southern Cone of Latin America, PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 2025

10Sep25

Abstract: This dissertation explores the entanglements of colonialism, discourses of sexuality, and eroticism in the Southern Cone of Latin America through an interdisciplinary lens that includes historical anthropology of the borderlands, settler colonial studies, political theory, gender and sexuality studies, and psychoanalysis. It centers on the persistent colonial fantasies surrounding white women allegedly captured during Indigenous raids in the regions that now comprise Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. I conceptualize these narratives—combining the figure of the captive woman (la cautiva), Indigenous raids (malones), and the borderland setting—as “scenes of captivity.” These scenes form a rich and evolving cultural and literary archive that spans from the seventeenth century to the present. The dissertation argues that placing the erotic language of these scenes within settler colonial contexts reveals how domination is imagined and reproduced through cultural forms in unexpected ways, often entangled with narratives of sexuality and desire. This approach traces the legacy of Spanish colonialism into the contemporary political imagination. Rather than interpreting la cautiva as a mere allegory of emerging nation-states, I situate scenes of captivity within a global settler colonial framework. Drawing on a constellation of texts—including colonial chronicles, Jesuit writings, 19th-century essays, serialized fiction (folletines), novels, and contemporary erotic literature—I examine how these narratives have sustained, and at times subverted, settler colonial imaginaries across centuries. The dissertation begins with an analysis of Ruy Díaz de Guzmán’s Historia of the conquest of the Río de la Plata and its resonances in Jesuit texts from the Araucanía and Tucumán borderlands, where Indigenous desire was portrayed as excessive and threatening, and sexuality served as a key tool in the racialization of Indigenous peoples. It then turns to 19thcentury texts by Chilean politician Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna and Argentine writer Eduarda Mansilla—Elisa Bravo (1884), Lucía Miranda (1860), and Pablo, ou la vie dans les Pampas (1868)—to examine the economies of desire that animated these scenes during contested military occupations of Mapuche and Rankulche territories. Finally, the dissertation explores contemporary imagination of the Pampas as heterotopic spaces in works such as Osvaldo Baigorria’s “Semen indio” and Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s Las aventuras de la China Iron. By tracing how these scenes reappear and shift across time and media, the dissertation argues that they not only use sexualized narratives to justify colonial domination, but also paradoxically inform visions of gender and sexual liberation. From their colonial origins to contemporary re-elaborations, scenes of captivity are accompanied by gestures of desertion that destabilize their logic. These gestures, I argue, open possibilities for gender liberation that exist in tension with, and sometimes in contradiction to, Indigenous sovereignty. By situating captivity and desertion at the intersection of gender and Indigenous liberation, this research reveals the enduring and unresolved tensions between these emancipatory projects—tensions that remain central to the most radical political struggles in Latin America today.


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Acquiring Indigeneity before Rome: Rebecca Childs, Colonisation and the Feminine: Foundation Myths and Roman Identity in Vergil’s “Aeneid”‘, MA dissertation, University of Waterloo, 2025

10Sep25

Abstract: In this paper, I explore how Indigenous women have historically been utilised within settler colonial frameworks, both ancient and modern. Interpreted through post-colonial theory and the lens of settler colonialism in colonial Canada, I examine how two ancient Indigenous Italian women—Camilla and Lavinia—are depicted and treated in Vergil’s Aeneid. Through their suitability and readiness for marriage, their representation, and their indigeneity and relationships to the Italian land, the text reveals how each woman is positioned within the Trojan colonialist agenda. Camilla, though possessing Roman traits, is constructed as an ‘Other’—a liminal and nonconforming Volscian warrior whose deep connection to the land renders her as an impediment and unassimilable to the Trojan colonialist programme. Therefore, she is erased. Lavinia, by contrast, embodies both Indigenous Italian identity and proto-Roman ideals associated with Augustan femininity. Thus, Lavinia is assimilable into the Trojan colonialist programme. Ultimately, this analysis underscores how gender and indigeneity intersect in literary narratives to reflect broader colonial strategies of erasure and assimilation.


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Uneducating settlers: Samia Al-Botmeh, ‘Palestinian higher education: resistance to settler colonialism in the face of erasure’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 2025

08Sep25

Abstract: This paper strives to illuminate the logics of Israel’s attacks on Palestinian higher education and historicises the ways in which Palestinian universities are significant sites of resistance to settler colonialism in the face of erasure. Since October 2023, the Israeli genocide in Gaza has taken the colonial logics of erasure to their most extreme conclusion: the mass destruction of schools and colleges in addition to the relentless killing of students and staff. Historically, Palestinians have come to consider higher education as a sphere where power, agency and resistance can be understood and relations of solidarity can be built. Palestinians place huge value on higher education as they see it as a mechanism of resistance but also a means to build a free and flourishing Palestinian society. By analysing these experiences through an anti-colonial lens, this paper argues that Palestinian universities serve vital functions that are specific to the struggles of colonised populations. First, providing a vital intellectual and viable space for intense political debate and plurality of ideas that contribute towards social and political movements aimed at liberation. Second, providing a platform for imagining a more just life, free from subjugation and colonial oppression.


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The settler’s house: Marisa Da Silva Martins, ‘Writing Back to the Canon: The Birchbark House as Counter-Narrative to Little House on the Prairie’, Via Panoramica, 2025

08Sep25

Abstract: This article focuses on two children’s novels: Little House on the Prairie (1932) by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and The Birchbark House (1999) by Louise Erdrich. Both works are set in the nineteenth century, specifically during the westward expansion, and during the forced displacement of Indigenous communities. This article aims to read the two novels as opposing narratives, particularly regarding the ways in which settler-colonialism and Native Americans are represented. Through a postcolonial lens, this article aims to show Louise Erdrich’s novel as a counter-narrative, in which the culture and way of life of the Ojibwe community is put in the foreground, as well as its resistance toward white settlers.


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The purchase of settler colonialism: Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, ‘Colonialism by Purchase: Coercion and Replacement in Rural Palestine’, Politics & Society, 2025

07Sep25

Abstract: This article conducts a microhistorical sociological analysis of land grab in the Jezreel Valley/Marj Ibn ‘Amer of northern Palestine during the British Mandate, examining purchase and coercion that functioned as mechanisms of settler colonization. Drawing on original archival research in local colony and national movement archives, it reconstructs how socialist Zionist settlers from the Hashomer Hatzair movement, in coordination with land-purchasing institutions and the British imperial government, displaced indigenous peasants who held long-standing usufruct rights. Assessing the dialectical processes between settlers and the indigenous population, the article traces how the protracted colonization of fertile lands and villages unfolded in rural Palestine, culminating in the gradual transfer of territorial sovereignty to the Zionist movement. Challenging dominant Zionist narratives centered on the 1948 war, it foregrounds an extended settler colonial process, showing how village destruction and land seizure took place both before, during, and after the Nakba. It highlights how indigenous removal and elimination are central to the settler colonial logic, operated through violent, legal, and administrative means, while also attending to indigenous local resistance as a key feature of the evolving settler colonial landscape.


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The immigration policy of settler colonialism: Karun Kishor Karki, ‘Legacy of Colonialism in Canada’s Immigration Policies’, in Karun Kishor Karki, Employment and Deskilling, Springer 2025, pp. 65-82

07Sep25

Abstract: This chapter critically interrogates the colonial underpinnings of Canada’s immigration policies and their ongoing impacts on both Indigenous Peoples and racialized immigrants. It argues that immigration has not merely served as a demographic tool but has been central to the settler-colonial project—facilitating Indigenous dispossession, reinforcing white supremacy, and constructing a national identity grounded in racial exclusion. From the 1869 Immigration Act through the mid-twentieth century, Canadian immigration laws systematically favoured white European settlers while excluding racialized groups, particularly from the Global South. These exclusionary practices institutionalized racial hierarchies and aligned immigration with the economic and territorial goals of settler colonialism. While the introduction of the Point System in 1967 marked a formal shift towards race-neutral criteria, the policy continued to reflect colonial logic by valuing immigrants primarily for their economic utility. This system, particularly in its targeting of skilled workers from the Global South, perpetuates global inequalities through mechanisms such as brain drain and deskilling, often resulting in the economic marginalization and social exclusion of migrants within Canada. Rather than a “triple win,” the system creates a “triple-loss” for Canada, immigrants, and their countries of origin, reflecting a modern form of colonialism that exploits human capital from the Global South. The narrative of multiculturalism and inclusivity thus conceals the enduring presence of systemic racism and the commodification of immigrant labour. This chapter examines how racialized immigrants navigate persistent barriers to employment and social inclusion, exposing the gap between Canada’s inclusive rhetoric and its colonial realities. Grounded in the lived experiences of racialized immigrants, this chapter calls for a transformative shift in immigration policy—one that places equity, justice, and Indigenous sovereignty above economic imperatives. This reorientation must confront and dismantle the enduring colonial structures that shape Canada’s migration system and national identity.


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Exiling Indigenous peoples and back: Amy Fung, ‘Redressing the redress of the High Arctic exiles: The limits of recognition in a white settler state’, Memory Studies, 2025

07Sep25

Abstract: At the height of redress politics in Canada following the 1988 historic agreement with Japanese Canadians, a lesser known grievance came from a small group of Inuit who had been relocated to the High Arctic from Northern Quebec in the 1950s. The reasoning for their relocation, and the relocation of many Inuit between the 1930s to 1960s, has been largely disputed among researchers as a question of asserting state sovereignty, but this study approaches the state’s justification for relocation as inextricable from ongoing colonial realities that exacerbate socio-economic inequalities which induced Inuit into cycles of poverty before reducing Inuit reliance on relief support through experimental relocations. The aim of this research is to explore how official memories including state apologies are not delivered equitably, especially in the case of High Arctic relocatees, who repeatedly compared their campaign to Japanese Canadian redress, but only ever received negotiated settlements over reparative gestures of atonement. I argue the devaluation of relocatee memories are due to a number of intertwined factors that begin in colonialism’s overt dehumanization process and persist through ongoing socio-economic inequalities and a lack of political power in a settler colonial society. By centering the efforts of aggrieved communities, this research challenges the dominant narrative where gestures of material and symbolic benevolence by the liberal settler state often become the end of the story. In such instances, the root causes of systemic discrimination and colonial attitudes are transformed into ahistorical anomalies within a unified, inclusive narrative promoting the strengths of the nation. To challenge the moral benevolence of the apologetic settler state, this research aims to illuminate the sequence of events prior to political recognition by valuing the role of community memories and the socio-historical context of how recognition for some grievances was withheld before it was given.


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Rationality vs relationality and the question of settler colonialism: Christina Yui Iwase, A Clash of modes of thought: Settler-colonial rationality and Indigenous relationality in Canada’s settler colonialism, MA dissertation, University of Victoria, 2025

07Sep25

Abstract: In a decolonizing context, coming to terms with the past requires a long journey of courage and tolerance. The operation of the Canadian Indian Residential Schools (IRS) policy and the subsequent striving by Canada to reconcile with Indigenous peoples is one such long journey. In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) officially recognized that IRS injustice constituted cultural genocide and further acknowledged that it was one manifestation of settler colonialism. Accordingly, the TRC contextualized the IRS injustice as having both human (i.e. the denial of Indigenous human rights) and structural (i.e. an attempt to dispossess Indigenous lands through colonialism) dimensions. Since then, the colonial rationales of the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius which legitimated the very operation of colonialism have been subject to calls that they be renounced. The significance of such recognition is great as not only did the TRC attempt to frame the IRS injustice under the category of genocide, but also the Commission linked the IRS injustice and the broader structure of colonialism. In the post-TRC era, the implementation of the TRC’s recommendations is now left to Canadians as a whole. This thesis is one attempt to find a possible way to keep the TRC’s aspirations alive and to foster IRS reconciliation. As a preface to my arguments contained in the three chapters in this thesis, my fundamental contention that flows throughout this thesis is that at the conceptual level, IRS reconciliation politics involve the clash of modes of thought between settler-colonial rationality and Indigenous relationality. Settler-colonial rationality provides the settler with reasons or a logical framework to legitimize the settler’s dispossession of Indigenous lands, resources, and identities. In the context of IRS reconciliation, such a mode of thought is akin to “the colonial way of thinking” acknowledged by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in his 2017 apology statement offered to the former Indigenous students in the IRS system. On the other hand, Indigenous modes of thought are centered around the concept of relationality which sits at the core of Indigenous legal traditions and governance systems. Indigenous conceptions of reconciliation, restitution, and apology are also derived from their relational modes of thought. Within the Canadian government structure, settler-colonial rationality is still governing the contemporary Canadian value structure by ceaselessly providing justifications for their occupation of the country backed up by Eurocentric logic. On conceptual grounds, it is this settler-colonial rationality that is one of the driving forces behind both the operation of settler colonialism and the IRS injustice; hence, this rationality is one that impedes IRS reconciliation processes. While the settler-colonial rationality that was being applied to the human dimension of the IRS injustice took the shape of the dichotomization of settler superiority and Indigenous inferiority, the same rationality being applied to the structural dimension of the injustice took the form of the colonial rationales of the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius which have justified the colonial settlement of North America through the construction of the Canada-Indigenous hierarchical relationship. In this paper, based on my contention that IRS reconciliation politics involve the clash of modes of thought between settler-colonial rationality and Indigenous relationality, I argue that for Canada to realize meaningful reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, searching for possible ways to reconcile the above modes of thought is crucial. In both Chapter 1 and 2, I will deal with the human dimension of the IRS injustice and introduce possible ways to incorporate Indigenous relationality into IRS reconciliation politics in order to raise the moral consciousness of Canada, something which would allow the country to voluntarily and sincerely apologize to Indigenous peoples. In Chapter 3, I will focus on the structural dimension of the IRS injustice by clarifying the nature of the clash of modes of thought between settler-colonial rationality and Indigenous relationality. Chapter 1 argues that political apologies, in the form of relational apologies, can generate a necessary dialogical space wherein both parties can continue to search for the way to foster their reconciliation. Chapter 2 contends that relational shaming, conceptualized and modeled after the theory of reintegrative shaming and the Gitxsan Feast Hall system, has the potential to make the perpetrator state undergo introspection and learning necessary to fundamentally confront their wrongdoing. Chapter 3 discusses that settler-colonial rationality, which continues to sustain the structural aspect of the IRS injustice, has deeply permeated the mindset of the settler and has produced a certain mentality called the settler mentality of superiority, resulting in the unilateral construction of the Canada-Indigenous hierarchical relationship. I argue that reconciling the modes of thought, settler-colonial rationality and relationality, in both the human and structural dimensions is an important component of IRS reconciliation.


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