settler colonial studies blog

Recreational settler colonialism: John Reid-Hresko, Jeff R. Warren, ‘”A Lot of What We Ride Is Their Land”: White Settler Canadian Understandings of Mountain Biking, Indigeneity, and Recreational Colonialism’, Sociology of Sport Journal, 2021

21Sep21

Abstract: This article explores how White settler mountain bikers in British Columbia understand their relationship to recreational landscapes on unceded Indigenous territory. Using original qualitative research, the authors detail three rhetorical strategies settler Canadians employ to negotiate their place within geographies of belonging informed by Indigeneity and recreational colonialism: ignorance, ambivalence, and acknowledgement. In Canada’s post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission climate, the discourses settlers use to situate themselves vis-à-vis landscapes and Indigenous people contribute to the conditions of possibility for meaningful movement toward a more equitable existence for all. This work points to a growing need to problematize the seemingly apolitical landscapes of recreation as a prerequisite toward meaningful reconciliation.

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The sea as a settler! Traci Brynne Voyles, The Settler Sea: California’s Salton Sea and the Consequences of Colonialism, University of Nebraska Press, 2021

21Sep21

Description: Can a sea be a settler? What if it is a sea that exists only in the form of incongruous, head-scratching contradictions: a wetland in a desert, a wildlife refuge that poisons birds, a body of water in which fish suffocate? Traci Brynne Voyles’s history of the Salton Sea examines how settler colonialism restructures physical environments in ways that further Indigenous dispossession, racial capitalism, and degradation of the natural world. In other words, The Settler Sea asks how settler colonialism entraps nature to do settlers’ work for them. The Salton Sea, Southern California’s largest inland body of water, occupies the space between the lush agricultural farmland of the Imperial Valley and the austere desert called “America’s Sahara.” The sea sits near the boundary between the United States and Mexico and lies at the often-contested intersections of the sovereign lands of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla and the state of California. Created in 1905, when overflow from the Colorado River combined with a poorly constructed irrigation system to cause the whole river to flow into the desert, this human-maintained body of water has been considered a looming environmental disaster. The Salton Sea’s very precariousness—the way it sits uncomfortably between worlds, existing always in the interstices of human and natural influences, between desert and wetland, between the skyward pull of the sun and the constant inflow of polluted water—is both a symptom and symbol of the larger precariousness of settler relationships to the environment, in the West and beyond. Voyles provides an innovative exploration of the Salton Sea, looking to the ways the sea, its origins, and its role in human life have been vital to the people who call this region home.

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The settler’s wines: Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre, Imperial Wine: How the British Empire Made Wine’s New World, University of California Press, 2022

18Sep21

Description: A fascinating deep dive into the colonial roots of the global wine industry. Imperial Wine is a bold, rigorous history of Britain’s surprising role in creating the wine industries of Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. Here, historian Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre bridges the genres of global commodity history and imperial history, presenting provocative new research in an accessible narrative. This is the first book to argue that today’s global wine industry exists as a result of settler colonialism and that imperialism was central, not incidental, to viticulture in the British colonies. Wineries were established almost immediately after the colonization of South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand as part of a civilizing mission: tidy vines, heavy with fruit, were symbolic of Britain’s subordination of foreign lands. Economically and culturally, nineteenth-century settler winemakers saw the British market as paramount. However, British drinkers were apathetic towards what they pejoratively called “colonial wine.” The tables only began to turn after the First World War, when colonial wines were marketed as cheap and patriotic and started to find their niche among middle- and working-class British drinkers. This trend, combined with social and cultural shifts after the Second World War, laid the foundation for the New World revolution in the 1980s, making Britain into a confirmed country of wine-drinkers and a massive market for New World wines. These New World producers may have only received critical acclaim in the late twentieth century, but Imperial Wine shows that they had spent centuries wooing, and indeed manufacturing, a British market for inexpensive colonial wines. This book is sure to satisfy any curious reader who savors the complex stories behind this commodity chain.

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The settler’s stereotypes: Laurel R. Davis-Delano, Jennifer J. Folsom, Virginia McLaurin, Arianne E. Eason, Stephanie A. Fryberg, ‘Representations of Native Americans in U.S. culture? A case of omissions and commissions’, The Social Science Journal, 2021

18Sep21

Abstract: In settler colonial societies, colonizers often omit contemporary Indigenous Peoples from representations, while controlling signifiers of indigeneity to legitimate their interests (e.g., stereotypes). Both omissions and commissions, including stereotyping, are central to oppression experienced by contemporary Native Americans. We employ a sample of over 5,500 non-Native survey participants to examine the extent of omissions and commissions in recalled representations of films and television shows with Native American characters and famous living and deceased Native Americans. Then, we analyze the content of the most commonly recalled representations. We find that many participants are unable to recall representations of Native Americans, especially contemporary representations. The most commonly experienced representations involve stereotyping, as well as little content that is not stereotypical. We discuss the implications of our findings, and situate them in the context of settler colonialism in the United States.

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The settler’s imaginary: Andrew Kacey Thomas, Dumpster Diving and the Ideal in the Settler-Colonial Imaginary: Heritage Images and their Potential Futures,MA dissertation, University of Calgary, 2021

18Sep21

Abstract: Access and contextualization were problems when archives could only be accessed by scholars, or open to the public in a physical location, but they are now compounded by the affordances of digital access in a unique way. While making archival legacy images available online seems to enable greater understanding of our settler-colonial history, it also allows for popular perceptions and settler-preferences to shape our interaction with these photographs in image searches. This thesis explores the concept of the settler-colonial imaginary, or a perception of the future and narratives of society, in order to understand the way internet search algorithms reproduce and shape settler perceptions of Indigenous futurity through photographs. This is done by conducting three case study analyses of representative moments captured in settler-media photography and examining the continuing effect the framing of these symbols has on settler perceptions of history. By contextualizing the use of symbols of Indigenous difference in the perpetuation of the settler-imaginary, this thesis argues that the default organization of images created by search algorithms reifies racist perceptions of indigeneity which has continuing effects on the production of settler potential futures. In conclusion, I offer reparative interventions in the form of utopian projections to suggest actions that could be done to address this issue at this time.

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The settler’s accountability: Miranda Leibel, ‘The Indigenous Public Child and Neoliberal Settler-Colonialism: Theorizing the Intersections between the White Possessive and Neoliberal Accountability Regimes’, Journal of Canadian Studies, 2021

18Sep21

Abstract: This article examines accountability discourses in Alberta’s legislative debates on child intervention during the years 2016–19. I demonstrate that the supposedly apolitical discourse of accountability functions as a form of neoliberal and settler-colonial governmentality that reaffirms the legitimacy of settler state intervention into the pathologized Indigenous family. Using the death of Serenity in Alberta’s child intervention system in 2014, and the subsequent legislative debates surrounding her death and the lack of accountability in the child intervention system as a case study, I demonstrate that accountability as both a discourse and a mechanism moves between positioning Albertans-as-Victims, Albertans-as-Stakeholders, and, finally, Albertans-as-Responsible-Agents. Ultimately, I argue that shifting discourses of accountability, which move from governmental to societal to individual accountability, re-centre a relationship of settler possession in relation to the Indigenous Public Child, whose life and death become available for consumption by settler publics in exchange for governmental credibility and accountability.

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The sociology of settler colonialism: Erich W. Steinman, ‘Settler colonialism and sociological knowledge: insights and directions forward’, Theory and Society, 2021

17Sep21

Abstract: What can the analytical framework of settler colonialism contribute to sociological theorizing, research, and overall understanding of the social world? This essay argues that settler colonialism, a distinct social formation with common statuses and predictable dynamics, has much to offer towards new sociological insight regarding the United States. In expanding the scholarly models of colonialism applied to the United States, settler colonial analysis suggests that an underlying logic of Indigenous elimination and settler replacement informs a diverse set of contemporary outcomes and structures. It provides a coherent and overarching framework for explaining such political phenomena as the vigorous presence of “extraconstitutional” tribal governments within the United States, recurrent Native-white conflicts, and the distinctive nature of contemporary Indigenous social and political agency. The essay also analyzes how settler supersession and the desire for Indigenous lands shapes the intensive state management of Indigenous identity, the differing racialization of African Americans and American Indians, and the contrasts between Indigenous and black sociopolitical agendas. Insights from a reconceptualization of the US as a settler colonial society are not limited to a focus on politics, American Indians, race, or the past. The article suggests additional directions for new research that have the potential to reveal contemporary social forces operating at multiple levels and in numerous fields of social action. Finally, the essay offers simple suggestions to sociologists who wish to incorporate settler colonialism in their research and teaching within the discipline or to contribute to interdisciplinary scholarship about American settler colonialism.

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The theatre of settler colonialism: Waylon Lenk, Durable Whiteness: Structural Settler Colonialism in California and Southern Oregon Theatre, 1849-1860 and 2018-2019, PhD dissertation, University of Oregon, 2021

17Sep21

Abstract: Theatre and Performance Studies have studied the ways in which theatre and performance act as auxiliaries of hegemonic state power at least since Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed explored the ways in which classical Greek dramaturgy coerced its audiences into pro-state behavior. Meanwhile, the theatre industry often makes interventions into the White racial hegemony that dominates the United States while in some ways reinstating the very dramaturgies that serve to oppress Indigenous Peoples, Black People, and other People of Color (Holledge & Tompkins, McDonnell). Professional theatre would be well served by looking to the critiques of scholars like Boal as well as Diana Taylor, Jisha Menon, and Rustom Bharucha. These scholars critique theatre outside the United States and since, as Laura Pulido observes, race is experienced locally, a regional analysis of theatre as an auxiliary of White hegemonic state power in the United States is needed. My dissertation focuses on the region directly affected by the California Gold Rush, which includes all of California as well as southwestern Oregon, to demonstrate how theatre participated and continues to participate in the establishment of power that oppresses Blacks, Indigenous Peoples and People of Color. I do so by using eventful historical-sociology (Sewell) to describe the Gold Rush as an event that restructured race in the Gold Rush region, and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to compare indicators of white hegemony in Gold Rush plays with plays produced in the same region in 2019. I conclude by offering policy recommendations which range from the industry-specific like emphasizing dramaturgies that highlight non-white histories and increasing access for non-white labor in professional theatre to broader reaching interventions concerning minority language rights for local tribal languages and Spanish.

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Animal settler colonialism: Barrie Ryne Blatchford, ‘”Make the desert blossom like the rose”: Animal Acclimatization, Settler Colonialism, and the Construction of Oregon’s Nature’, Oregon Historical Quarterly, 122, 3, 2021, pp. 214-249

14Sep21

Abstract: In 1881, Owen Denny introduced the ring-necked pheasant to Oregon as a game bird for sport hunters. The bird, originally from China, was soon adopted into American culture in Oregon and later established presence in nineteen other states. In this research article, Barrie Ryne Blatchford explores the species’ introduction as well as how “the pheasant’s importation to Oregon was a product of, and later a touchstone within, American settler-colonialism — the multi-faceted ideology that alleged Euro-American superiority, marginalized Indigenous peoples, and glorified the renovation of landscapes in accordance with Euro-American norms and imperatives.”

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Hydraulic settler colonialism: Theo Claire, Kevin Surprise, ‘Moving the Rain: Settler Colonialism, the Capitalist State, and the Hydrologic Rift in California’s Central Valley’, Antipode, 2021

14Sep21

Abstract: Agricultural development and water infrastructure constitute the central features of California’s Central Valley. Marxist ecological theory has examined the development of capitalist agriculture in the Central Valley, while decolonial scholarship has critiqued the disproportionate impact of California’s water resource management on Indigenous communities. We bring together Marxist ecology and critiques of settler colonialism through an examination of land reclamation in California, culminating in the development of the Central Valley Project (CVP) in the 1930s. Reclamation combined the twin logics of capitalism (accumulation) and settler colonialism (elimination) to produce landscapes conducive to capitalist agriculture. Faced with ecological limits to accumulation, colonial-capitalist expansion required state intervention in the form of infrastructure projects to secure water for agricultural production. The CVP generated a rift in California’s hydrologic cycle, causing significant declines in water quality and fisheries and giving rise to forms of resistance and restoration that challenge colonial-capitalist water development in the Central Valley. The reciprocal restoration of salmon fisheries offers a method to begin mending this hydrologic rift while disrupting ongoing settler colonial violence in California.

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