settler colonial studies blog

Still settler colonial Hollywood: Yining Zhou, ‘The American Western and Native Americans: Revisiting Hollywood’s Representation of the “Indian Wars” in Geronimo: An American Legend (1993)’, The Journal of Popular Culture, 2026

13May26

Abstract: This article examines Geronimo: An American Legend (1993) as an understudied 1990s revisionist Western. It argues that the film marks a critical moment in Hollywood’s evolving portrayal of the “Indian Wars.” It demonstrates how the film reveals the structural violence of U.S. expansion through a historically grounded depiction of Apache resistance and how the film foregrounds the racialized logic of the settler-colonial system through its depiction of Apache scouts’ liminal political position. However, it also contends that the film’s reliance on a predominantly white perspective ultimately exposes the structural limits of Hollywood revisionism in representing Native agency and historical experience.

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Dynamite settlers! Takahiro Yamamoto, ‘Japanese Settlers’ Introduction of Dynamite to Truk in the 1890s’, Itinerario, 2026

13May26

Abstract: In the 1890s a small group of Japanese men settled in a Pacific Island group of Truk (today called Chuuk, located within the federated states of Micronesia). The settlers, who found home in several of the islets surrounded by one of the world’s largest coral reef lagoons, arrived a few decades before the islands became occupied by the Japanese navy and eventually went under Japanese colonial rule with the mandate from the League of Nations in 1920. These earliest migrants had lost their privilege and financial base in the recent regime change in Japan. They are often seen as a pioneer of Japan’s southward imperial expansion, but a closer look reveals that the core of their activity was the export of copra in exchange for contraband firearms. They managed to carry out this trade due to the access to firearms in Japan as well as the kinship network that they forged with Trukese Islanders and other settlers from Europe. By examining the economic and sociocultural background of this copra-dynamite trade in Truk, this paper tries to show how entrepreneurship by migrants could be conditioned by global flows of technological innovation and the conditions of the migrants’ home country.

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A history of Indigenous lawfare in Brazil: Alexandre Pelegrino, ‘Fighting Against Land Dispossession: Indigenous Power, Legal Activism, and Race in Brazil (Maranhão, c. 1750–1830)’, The Journal of the Civil War Era, 16, 2, 2026, pp. 267-293

13May26

Abstract: This article traces Indigenous land disputes in nineteenth-century Brazil, centering on a claim from a small village in northern Brazil in the 1820s and the 1830s. It analyzes how a local Indigenous community fought in court to annul an aforamento, a practice similar to land leasing, conceded to the settler Mateus Severino de Avelar. The proceedings reveal how Indigenous groups successfully drew on colonial practices and forged alliances with other Luso-Brazilian settlers to defend against the encroachment of their lands. Broadly, the article demonstrates that Indigenous land dispossession was neither a linear nor an inevitable process and that its study sheds insights onto local legal cultures and institutions.

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The good press of settlers: Shelisa Klassen, Imprinting Empire: Land and Settler Colonialism in Manitoba Newspapers, University of Manitoba Press, 2026

11May26

Description: The 1870s was a time of rapid transformation for the province of Manitoba. Though reeling from the aftermath of the Red River Resistance and ongoing oppression of the Métis community, at the onset of the decade the province was still an Indigenous space. However, by the decade’s close, settler hands firmly grasped power structures and territory following waves of immigration encouraged by newspapers that repeated colonial narratives about land and belonging until they seemed inevitable and true. Through a careful examination of nine Manitoba newspapers—including French-language Le Métis—and relevant local, national, and international immigration materials, Shelisa Klassen captures the tensions, political debates, and outright propaganda that helped the Canadian nation dispossess Indigenous peoples of their land and claim the prairies as its own. Imprinting Empire demonstrates the intentionality, violence, and integrality of immigration to the settler colonial process while clearly pointing to the printing press as a weapon of empire.

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A new take on settler colonialism: Charles Menzies, ‘Settler colonialism’, Dialectical Anthropology, 2026

11May26

Excerpt: Settler, it might seem, is easy to define. It is someone who takes up residence in someone else’s home. When settler is tied to an economic intention to exploit, occupy, or otherwise encroach upon other people’s land we find ourselves in the terrain of settler colonialism.

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The settler army does not need Indigenous peoples: Daniel Stridh, Peter Johansson, ‘Conscription and Colonialism: Tracing the Origins of the Sámi Exemption in the 1885 Swedish Conscription Act’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 2026

11May26

Abstract: In 1885, Sweden introduced a new Conscription Act that explicitly exempted nomadic Sámi from compulsory military training. This article investigates the governmental rationalities and discursive constructions underpinning this exemption, situating it within broader processes of nation-state formation, racialization, and settler colonialism in nineteenth-century Sweden. Drawing on official documents and archival material from 1872–1901, the study demonstrates how conscription functioned not only as a military reform but also as a nation-building mechanism that redefined the relationship between state, territory, and population. While settler populations in the north were incorporated into the nation and bestowed with civic rights and obligations, nomadic Sámi were positioned as fundamentally incompatible with the imagined Swedish nation and modern citizenship. The exemption codified racialized distinctions in law and administration, narrowed the definition of Sámi identity, and contributed to the exclusion of nonnomadic Sámi from legal recognition. As such, conscription reinforced colonial hierarchies and materialized the symbolic boundaries of Swedish nationhood.

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The heritage of reconciliation? Andrea M. Cuéllar, Ross Kilgour, Perry Stein, ‘Reconciliation and heritage policy making in a Canadian settler-colonial city’, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 2026

11May26

Abstract: The emerging field of urban Indigenous heritage seeks to correct the omission of Indigenous cultural antecedents in urban historical narratives. This paper examines the 2023 City of Lethbridge/Sikóóhkotok Heritage Management Plan – the first in the city’s history to incorporate Indigenous heritage. While heritage management plans commonly focus on processes and protocols for designating and protecting heritage, this plan prioritized a heritage management framework centered on ongoing engagement with Indigenous Nations. Through examining the process and layers of institutional transformation that enabled the plan’s development, we reveal new openings for reconciliation and Indigenous heritage sovereignty in urban context alongside persistent constraints in settler-colonial heritage governance. This case illustrates progress in the Canadian heritage field since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action and since the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) received Royal Assent in Canada. It also presents policy recommendations for advancing urban Indigenous heritage frameworks.

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The settler police: C. Cheung, A. T. Murry, T. Latta et al, ‘Discourse on Indigenous-police interactions’, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2026

11May26

Abstract: A long tumultuous history between Indigenous Peoples and police continues to negatively impact Indigenous Peoples in the criminal justice system to this day. In collaboration with the Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing, the current research explored how Indigenous-police interactions are represented in news, social media and scholarly literature. A content analysis was conducted on news articles (n = 50), Tweets (n = 268) and scholarly articles (n = 58). The main findings revealed news often favored police in their depictions, while social media favored Indigenous Peoples. However, both sources lacked adequate representation of Indigenous perspectives and voices. On the other hand, the scholarly literature was more representative of both police and Indigenous perspectives while focusing on overall issues within the criminal justice system as opposed to a singular party being at fault. These findings highlight the differences in depictions across media outlets and the importance of well-rounded media consumption on Indigenous-police interactions to avoid skewed perceptions.

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The international law of settler colonialism: Mohsen al Attar, Claire Smith, ‘Settler Colonialism, Race, and International Law’, in Mohsen al Attar, Claire Smith (eds), Emancipating International Law: Confronting the Violence of Racialized Boundaries, Oxford University Press, 2026

11May26

Abstract: This chapter considers the relationship between international law (IL) and race from the perspective of settler colonialism. Drawing on Marxist theory, the discussion frames race as a process of abstraction. From this perspective, IL can be understood as a ‘raced discourse’ insofar as it elaborates juridical categories which are premised on a set of anthropological presuppositions. Combined with the critique of settler colonialism from the perspective of critical legal theory, this definition of IL is used to illuminate a politico-juridical dynamic with provenance in settler colonial conquest, but with ongoing and rapidly evolving consequences in the historical present. Drawing on critical literature on international humanitarian law in the context of the war on terror, the discussion concludes by considering the implications of this framework for reconsidering and transforming IL in the context of the ‘frontier’.

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Settler colonial ecocide: Marine Berthiot, ‘Representing Ecocides in Settler Colonial Arts and Literatures in a (Post-)Terra Nullius Era: An Introduction’, Textures, 30, 2026

11May26

Excerpt: Settler colonialism is a structure that is expanding in a (post-)Terra Nullius era, at a time of ecological recession and geopolitical instability. The Terra Nullius doctrine (meaning “empty land” in Latin and literally translated as “land belonging to no human”) regarded unoccupied territories as land that could be appropriated. The notion of property and the concept of utilitarianism were later added by British colonists, while the Terra Nullius doctrine adhered to a racialized discourse during the colonial era, empowering western imperial nations with the right to claim any land inhabited by a people deemed “savage,” “irrational,” and “without history” in a Eurocentric understanding of culture and civilization.

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