settler colonial studies blog

Measuring settler colonial discrimination: Jun Xu, Fang Gong, Donghui Wang, ‘The Subtle Burden: Everyday Discrimination and Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Self-Rated Health and Happiness in the United States’, Race and Social Problems, 18, 2026, #54

15Sep26

Abstract: Racial/ethnic health disparities remain a persistent problem in the United States, and everyday discrimination is a key psychosocial pathway contributing to these disparities. Prior research has mostly relied on older, nonrepresentative, or single-group data and has rarely tested theory-driven explanations for why associations between discrimination and health vary across racial/ethnic groups. Guided by the minority stress model and settler colonialism framework, we hypothesized that (1) everyday discrimination is associated with poor self-rated health (SRH) and unhappiness, net of sociodemographic controls, and (2) these associations vary by race/ethnicity, with the strongest associations among Hispanic and Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) respondents. This quantitative study used pooled cross-sectional data from four waves (2018–2024) of the General Social Survey (n = 7924), based on nationally representative samples of U.S. adults. We applied logistic regression and causal inference methods, including propensity score matching and double machine learning, to estimate associations between discrimination and SRH/happiness. Findings supported both hypotheses. Everyday discrimination was reported by 74% of respondents and was associated with 62% higher odds of poor SRH and 58% higher odds of unhappiness. Hispanic and AAPI respondents showed the strongest associations between discrimination and SRH. The Black–White unhappiness difference was explained by sociodemographic factors rather than everyday discrimination, whereas American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) respondents showed an SRH disadvantage unexplained by either factor. Everyday discrimination is pervasive and structurally patterned, and its associations with health vary across racial and ethnic groups. Institutional efforts should address exclusive treatment and perpetual foreigner stereotyping affecting both Hispanic and AAPI populations while addressing structural determinants such as socioeconomic inequality among Black Americans. Larger AI/AN samples are needed to identify the mechanisms underlying their SRH disadvantage.

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Violence and settlers: Daniel Gargya, Alexandre Marhic, ‘Settler Violence in the West-Bank: Domestic and International Accountability Mechanisms’, MENA Consortium, 24, 2026

15Sep26

Excerpt: Despite being convicted with a minor sentence, the perpetrators of many such acts still go unpunished by the inaction of a system facilitating permeation of settler violence. This paper aims at understanding the evolution of such isolated acts, assess the role of the state, and finally evaluate accountability mechanisms both domestically and internationally through an outlook on the impact on the foreign relations of Israel and its repercussions in international politics.

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Proximity is a problem for settlers: Antti Tarvainen, ‘Settler Colonial City Makes Innovation Urbanism: Toward a Global Critique of “Proximity” in Startup Jerusalem’, Antipode, 2026

13Sep26

Abstract: This article explores the relationship between innovation urbanism and settler colonial city-making through the case of Jerusalem/al-Quds. It argues that the theory and practice of “proximity,” often assumed to be a key prerequisite of innovative economy, is deeply entangled with settler colonial genealogies, terrains, and social relations. By analyzing “proximity” through the lens of settler colonial city-making, the article makes two contributions to critical studies of innovation and techno-capitalism. First, it advances a global critical methodology that situates the key economic concepts of innovation urbanism within the longue durée of colonial progressivism and the ongoing struggles and frictions of settler urbanity. Second, it extends critiques of the capitalism-colonialism nexus by revealing not only the brutal violence but also the fragility and heterogeneity of innovation urbanism by tracing how its expansive proximities are slowed down, sabotaged, and reimagined. The article concludes by positioning the settler colonial city as a key site for a global theory of innovation urbanism.

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The settlers’ plan (it is by design): Margaret Ellis-Young, ‘Foundational But Also “Beyond the Scope”? Planners’ Reflections on Land Use Planning as a Space for Indigenous-Settler Reconciliation in Two Canadian Cities’, Planning Theory & Practice, 2026

13Sep26

Abstract: While planning practice in settler-colonial contexts has long reproduced the settler-colonial relationship, growing municipal attention to colonial inequities provides a potential space for transformation. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, this paper interrogates how municipal planners involved in comprehensive land use planning processes in Montréal and Vancouver represent “reconciliatory” practice. The analysis reveals a tension in how planners represent their reconciliation responsibilities toward the transformation of settler planning practices versus in ways that justify their continuity. In doing so, it positions planners’ motivations to proactively disrupt colonial land use planning dynamics as a central component of a more expansive space for reconciliation.

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German settlers, far far away: María Teresa Douzet-Carafi, Javier Hernández, Félix Rojo-Mendoza, Javiera Castro-Pacheco, ‘State, Colonization, and Elites: The Case of Germans in Araucanía, Chile (1880–1925)’, Sociology Lens, 2026

13Sep26

Abstract: This article examines the emergence of a colonizing elite in the Global South. Despite the relevance of colonization processes, state formation, and the development of economically privileged groups, these phenomena have not been sufficiently connected from a historical perspective. Drawing on a database of life trajectories, genealogical ties, and commercial networks of 123 German settlers in the Araucanía Region in southern Chile between 1880 and 1925, the article shows how they rapidly transitioned from an immigrant colony into a local economic elite. This process is explained through the articulation between elite formation and the State: on the one hand, the settlers’ capacity for organization and adaptation; on the other, the Chilean state’s limited ability to establish effective control over recently annexed territories. The article concludes that German settlers were able to navigate this context in a cohesive and strategic manner, and that their relationship with the State was central to processes of accumulation, opportunity capture, and territorial influence.

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Settler colonialism originates ‘replacement’: Sarah Bracke, ‘The subject of population “replacement” anxieties and the spectre of coloniality’, Patterns of Prejudice, 2026

12Sep26

Abstract: Bracke’s article revisits population ‘replacement’ ideologies from an analytical vantage point of coloniality and takes this as a point of departure for a psychosocial exploration of ‘replacement’ anxieties. The article first attends to three prominent instances in the modern genealogy of population ‘replacement’ thinking: Le Grand Remplacement by Renaud Camus in the 2010s; the notion of Umvolkung in Nazi ideology in the late 1920s; and the concept of ‘race suicide’ in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. For each of these distinct articulations of ‘replacement’ ideology, the question of European (settler) colonialism is further investigated and its significance for population ‘replacement’ anxieties demonstrated. This significance is subsequently brought to bear on the subject of ‘replacement’ anxieties, that is, subjects who fear they are being replaced. These subjects can be approached as ‘dethroned’ (Wendy Brown), that is, shaped by a sense of losing power to which they feel entitled. Studies of the far right, moreover, have consistently noted the ‘victim-perpetrator reversal’ (Ruth Wodak) in which these subjects engage. By considering the significance of coloniality, this reversal can be understood, with Frantz Fanon, as a projection of violence on to the Other inflicted by the Self, a projection fuelled by imperial paranoia (Anne McClintock) that pertains to an inaugural scene of colonial conquest.

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Blackberries as agents of settler coloniality: Carl-Jan Dihlmann, ‘Ontological security under invasive life conditions: Thinking With a blackberry on Canada’s Sunshine Coast’, EPE: Nature and Space, 2026

12Sep26

Abstract: The Sunshine Coast of southern British Columbia, Canada, is extensively populated by Himalayan blackberries (Rubus armeniacus), a species introduced to North America in the late nineteenth century. In their coexistence with other species, humans often categorize nonhuman life forms as either beneficial or detrimental. Yet the Himalayan blackberry challenges this binary classification: while widely recognized as an invasive species that threatens local biodiversity, it also serves as a valuable source of food for birds, mammals, and humans. Moreover, the city of Powell River celebrates this plant as a local emblem through its annual Blackberry Festival. At the same time, the city is engaged in a public debate about renaming itself, due to the controversial legacy of IsraelWood Powell, British Columbia’s first Superintendent of Indian Affairs, who the city is named after. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews, this paper examines three human–blackberry entanglements, representing contrasting approaches to handling multispecies relations that are embedded within the legacies of settler colonialism and its extractive infrastructures. Conceptualizing present-day Powell River as the “Powell River Patch”, i.e., the outcome of imperial and industrial infrastructures, the analysis brings the concept of invasive life into conversation with the theory of ontological security. In doing so, the paper argues for understanding multispecies cohabitation not only as an ecological condition but also as a critical lens for examining contemporary political and societal challenges in the Anthropocene.

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Trout as agents of settler coloniality: Rune Flikke, Cecilia Salinas, Javier Ciancio, Juana Aigo, ‘Remodeling nature: Trout, borders, and the ongoing colonization of Argentine Patagonia’, EPE: Nature and Space, 2026

12Sep26

Abstract: This article examines the introduction of trout from the northern hemisphere as part of the colonial ordering of Argentine Patagonia. Since 1904, trout have been mobilized not simply as ecological interventions but as tools of state-building that have reshaped rivers and lakes and contributed to the displacement of indigenous peoples. Stocking programs initially provided strategic food during border conflicts with Chile and later anchored projects that aimed to modernize and ‘whiten’ the Argentine nation, through elite tourism and conservation initiatives such as the establishment of Nahuel Huapi National Park in 1934. We argue that these practices reinforced a mode of life that cast Mapuche-Chewelche indigenous communities as outsiders to the nation. Through episodes spanning the so-called “Conquest of the Desert” (1878–1885) to recent disputes over Lago del Desierto, we show how human–trout relations give material form to ongoing asymmetries of power, belonging, and dispossession. By treating trout as agents of coloniality the article demonstrates how ecological change has been inseparable from strengthening national borders, practices of exclusion and the enduring erasure of indigenous sovereignty in Patagonia since the region’s military conquest.

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Expropriation, inequality, settler colonialism (in the long run): Jeremy Bowles, Gabriel Koehler-Derrick, Michael Olson, ‘”To Hell or to Connacht”: Expropriation, Inequality, and Local Legacies of Settler Colonialism’, International Organization, 2026

10Sep26

Abstract: Violent upheavals in landownership following conquest often change not only the concentration of land across individuals, but also the inequality of its distribution between groups. We argue that variation in landowners’ group identity has important implications for the provision of local public goods. We test this claim by studying the aftermath of the Cromwellian Settlement in seventeenth-century Ireland. Leveraging the lottery-based allocation of expropriated Catholic land to distinct groups of English Protestants, we find significant local variation in the extent of Protestant landownership. Drawing on rich original data, we find fewer local public goods in the long run in areas with more Protestant elites, with the largest reductions in goods that were either directly elite-funded or disproportionately benefited the Catholic majority. The results illustrate how conquest reshapes not just institutions but also long-run local inequalities, and highlight the distinct consequences of between-group inequality for the provision of public goods.

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Data centres settle the land: Megan A. Carney, ‘”No One Drop for Data”: Restoring Metabolic Relations amidst Parasitic Settler Colonialism’, Antipode, 2026

09Sep26

Excerpt: Data centers are at the heart of metabolic injustices proliferating across much of the periurban and rural United States. Amidst this data center boom and its concomitant AI revolution, it is no surprise that the people and places most vulnerable to their myriad harms are the same people and places that have resisted centuries of colonization, extractive capitalism, land and livelihood dispossession, and environmental injustice. Tech billionaires and their allies at various scales of government argue that the expanding data-industrial complex is necessary to support the insatiable appetites of AI into the future. But at what and whose cost?

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