settler colonial studies blog

The settler’s security blanket: Vanessa Nicholas, ‘The naturalisation of settler colonialism by a flowered Irish quilt in Upper Canada’, International Review of Environmental History, 7, 1, 2021, pp. 21-36

11Jul21

Abstract: Studying an embroidered quilt that Mary Morris (1811–97) made as a young girl in Ireland four years before she transported it to Upper Canada in 1829, this article argues that the floral decorative traditions imported by British women to British North America had a political dimension. The quilt, which is a patchwork of printed cottons surrounding panels of white cotton embroidered with representations of flowers, birds, insects and hunting scenes, combines embroidered motifs inspired by Indian chintz textiles with printed cotton fabrics of English manufacture featuring floral designs. As such, Morris’ flowered quilt represents the imperial economy that enabled settler colonialism in Canada. This is significant because it suggests that the seemingly mild-mannered domestic objects prized or made by British women in Upper Canada contributed to a visual and material culture that was invested in destabilising the environmental and cultural sustainability of Indigenous life.

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Gendered settler orders: Margaret Cook, ‘Emotional challenges to masculinity in the 1930s Callide Valley closer settlement, Australia’, International Review of Environmental History, 7, 1, 2021, pp. 63-82

11Jul21

Abstract: When the Callide Valley closer settlement scheme was opened in central Queensland in 1927 its design was based on a gendered rural ideal. A farming man was to be hard-working, stoic and tough, able to withstand the unpredictable climate and environmental conditions to tame the land, build the new nation and provide for his family; acts by which he could construct and demonstrate his settler masculinity, while cultivating the land. Through an analysis of settler correspondence to a Queensland government enquiry in 1934, this article problematises the myths of masculinity in this rural community to explore the emotional and mental strain on male settlers when the environment posed limits to settler economic and agricultural success.

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Settler reproductive control: Sandhya Ganapathy, ‘Unfolding Birth Justice in Settler States’, Feminist Anthropology, 2021

11Jul21

Abstract: There is growing scholarly and public attention toward the stark racial disparities in birth outcomes in the US. To lower disparate rates of Indigenous and Black infant mortality rates and maternal mortality rates, public and elected officials have proposed extending comprehensive prenatal care and medical resources and addressing racial biases in healthcare delivery. These efforts aim to bring minoritized and marginalized peoples and communities “into the fold.” In this essay, I consider the potential dangers of such contemporary efforts by critically analyzing historical initiatives to address birth outcomes and reproductive health in Indigenous communities. By foregrounding settler colonial social orders and their links to settler capitalism, I show how historical efforts to bring Indigenous peoples “into the fold” jeopardized Indigenous birth and reproductive capacities, while also upholding heteropatriarchal notions of sexuality, family, and racial difference.

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A spectre is haunting the settler colony: Jonathan Dunkon, ‘Spectres of Settlement’, Sydney Review of Books, 29/06/21

11Jul21

Excerpt: This fantasy of belonging is a motif in a number of archetypic explorer narratives. The explorer’s heroic death in conflict, either with Indigenous people or the hostile landscape, transforms him into a sacrificial Aeneas whose death atones for colonial transgression and contributes to an authentic sense of settler dwelling.

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Settler colonialism explains overpolicing (go figure): Jean-Denis David, Megan Mitchell, ‘Contacts with The Police and The Over-Representation of Indigenous Peoples in The Canadian Criminal Justice System’, Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 2021

08Jul21

Abstract: There is abundant evidence on the over-representation of Indigenous peoples in Canadian correctional facilities but, there is, however, limited research on the over-representation of Indigenous peoples at other stages of the criminal justice system. This article examines self-reported contacts with the police by Indigenous peoples in Canada as a way of to broaden our understanding of their over-representation in the criminal justice system. Settler colonialism is used as a theoretical framework to better assess the various processes by which Indigenous peoples and police may come into contact. Using data from the 2014 General Social Survey, we quantitatively examine the prevalence of various types of police contacts for Indigenous and non-Indigenous respondents. Results suggest that Indigenous peoples are more likely to encounter the police for a variety of reasons including, law enforcement or for non-enforcement reasons, including being a victim or a witness to a crime, and for behavioural health-related issues. Results are discussed within the context of historical and ongoing settler colonial practices and the over-representation of Indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system.

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The erosion of settler colonialism: Philip Steer, ‘The culture of erosion: Settler colonialism, geological agency, and New Zealand literature, 1930s–1950s’, The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 2021

08Jul21

Abstract: The Pākehā (settler) writing that flourished in New Zealand in the middle decades of the twentieth century is often seen as an attempt to ground settler culture in the precolonial earth. Produced at a time when erosion was seen as a pressing national and global environmental crisis, however, this essay argues New Zealand literary culture in fact was suffused with awareness of settlement’s profoundly damaged landscape. Returning to prominent critical statements, prose, and poetry from this period — notably by Allen Curnow, Charles Brasch, Monte Holcroft, and Frank Sargeson — reveals that imagery of erosion was central to imagining the nature and impact of settlement in geological terms. In contrast to the antagonistic relationship with nature plotted in these texts, writers such as Ursula Bethell and Herbert Guthrie-Smith offered alternative possibilities for environmental thought through models of geological understanding that drew on religious vocabularies and Māori thought. At the broadest level, focusing on settler literature produced in a moment of environmental crisis framed in geological terms has the potential to illuminate critical responses to the challenges posed by the Anthropocene.

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Administrative detention as settler colonial elimination: AmyNethery, ‘Incarceration, classification and control: Administrative detention in settler colonial Australia’, Political Geography, 89, 2021, # 102457

05Jul21

Abstract: Administrative detention, a form of non-judicial incarceration, was a powerful tool of settler colonialism. Administrative detention enables governments to incarcerate whole categories of people, often indefinitely and under unregulated conditions, to manage perceived threats to national identity, integrity, or security. In Australia, various forms of administrative detention have been implemented almost continuously since British settlement. By treating different forms of administrative detention as variations of the same category of governmental power, this article depicts this form of incarceration as fundamental to the creation and character of settler colonial societies. The article develops a history of Australian administrative detention by identifying the striking similarities between three historical forms – Aboriginal reserves, quarantine stations, and enemy alien internment camps – and immigration detention in the present day. Administrative detention has been used to establish order and hierarchy in the settler colonial state by classifying populations into subgroups, and has contributed to the character of its culture: in particular, the precarious sense of belonging afforded to some categories of non-citizen, and the primacy of executive power in controlling these categories. The article offers an endogenous explanation for the entrenchment of immigration detention policy, despite its flaws and harms.

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A settler May Day: Robert Hudson Vincent, ‘Proteus and the Moles: Settler Colonial Relations in Thomas Morton’s May Day Poem’, Early American Literature, 56, 2, 2021, pp. 373-394

05Jul21

Abstract: This article contributes to the history of settler colonial relations in early New England by revealing previously missed allusions in Thomas Morton’s May Day poem. I uncover references to Captain Robert Gorges and the Council for New England that provide new information about the colonial history of Massachusetts from 1624 to 1627. I also demonstrate how Morton wrote his poem not only as a critique of Puritan colonial ambitions, but also as a defense of his own cavalier form of settler colonialism. In contrast to the typological and isolationist practices of the “moles” at New Plymouth, Morton encourages social and sexual relations with the Wampanoags in his May Day poem to promote an aristocratic and cavalier future for America. Morton poetically fashions himself a colonial Proteus, uniquely capable of adapting to the American landscape and husbanding the First Peoples in a way the Pilgrims never could.

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Imbricated settler colonialisms today: Funie Hsu, ‘Taiwan’s Bilingual Policy: Signaling In/dependence and Settler Coloniality’, American Quarterly, 73, 2, 2021, pp. 355-361

05Jul21

Excerpt: The government of Taiwan (the ROC) recently unveiled an ambitious campaign to establish Mandarin–English bilingualism by 2030. The impetus for the rapid advancement of English has been articulated within the discursive framework of neoliberal competition. The National Development Council (NDC), which heads the campaign, explains that the primary objectives of the “Bilingual Nation” policy are “‘elevating national competitiveness’ and ‘cultivating people’s English proficiency.'”¹ English is thus positioned as a mechanism by which to strengthen Taiwan’s competitive edge in the global marketplace. Since Taiwan has never been a formal colonial territory of an English-speaking empire, its attempt to establish Mandarin– English bilingualism might be read as a purely pragmatic economic maneuver to achieve the “national competitiveness” expressed by the NDC.

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Imbricated settler colonialisms: Sidney Xu Lu, ‘A great convergence: The American frontier and the origins of Japanese migration to Brazil’, Journal of Global History, 2021

05Jul21

Abstract: This article explains how the US westward expansion influenced and stimulated Japanese migration to Brazil. Emerging in the nineteenth century as expanding powers in East Asia and Latin America, respectively, both Meiji Japan and post-independence Brazil looked to the US westward expansion as a central reference for their own processes of settler colonialism. The convergence of Japan and Brazil in their imitation of US settler colonialism eventually brought the two sides together at the turn of the twentieth century to negotiate for the start of Japanese migration to Brazil. This article challenges the current understanding of Japanese migration to Brazil, conventionally regarded as a topic of Latin American ethnic studies, by placing it in the context of settler colonialism in both Japanese and Brazilian histories. The study also explores the shared experiences of East Asia and Latin America as they felt the global impact of the American westward expansion.

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