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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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Absence is presence: Rameesa Ishaq, Sanniya Batool, ‘Absence as Testimony: Settler Colonial Elimination and Narrative Resistance in Azem’s The Book of Disappearance’, International Premier Journal of Languages & Literatures, 3, 3, 2025, pp. 143-155

07Sep25

Abstract: Azem’s The Book of Disappearance envisions a sudden vanishing of Palestinians from contemporary Israel, leaving behind their homes, possessions, and memories. The silence that follows is not emptiness but a spectral reminder of historical and ongoing attempts to erase Palestinian presence. The novel’s speculative premise illuminates the structures of settler colonialism where disappearance, renaming, and cartographic control operate as mechanisms of domination, and where memory becomes a counterforce that resists elimination. Disappearance functions not merely as absence but as a haunting that unsettles the colonizer’s narrative of permanence. The text repeatedly demonstrates that the logic of elimination cannot fully succeed, for absence itself bears witness. Through the intertwined voices of Ariel, the Israeli journalist struggling to make sense of a world without Palestinians, and Alaa, the Palestinian photographer whose memories saturate the narrative, the novel stages a confrontation between colonial dependency and indigenous persistence. Spaces are deterritorialized through acts of erasure; maps redrawn, streets renamed, identities displaced, yet simultaneously reterritorialized through remembrance, testimony, and imagination. The analysis highlights how Azem transforms speculative fiction into a political mode, one that both reflects and contests the conditions of dispossession. Literature here becomes a space where silenced histories return, not as nostalgia, but as an active force that destabilizes power. The Book of Disappearance demonstrates that what is made invisible continues to shape the visible; what is denied still asserts its presence. The novel stands as a testament to the impossibility of complete erasure and the persistence of resistance embedded within memory and storytelling.


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Community life on the settler frontier: Laurence James Gordon, ‘Te Rua O Te Taniwha’: Pākehā settlement of the Ruataniwha Plains, MA dissertation, Massey University, 2025

07Sep25

Abstract: Historians have generally characterised the Pākehā settlement of Hawke’s Bay as a socially stratified frontier where men of capital controlled both the rural and fledgling urban spaces. A space where owners of extensive pastoral runs taken up in the late 1850s and early 1860s dominated, both politically and socially. Development of rural communities and settlements has also been characterised as being male dominated, due to both the nature of the rural labour force and to the paternalistic hand of wealthy runholders. Based on a database of 769 individuals and utilising archival research, including contemporary newspapers and genealogical sources, this thesis investigates the ‘settler world’ on the Ruataniwha Plains. After the initial sale of land, Māori continued to engage with settlers and government seeking to advance the interests of hapū, fighting alongside government forces during the New Zealand Wars. Pākehā settling on the plains arrived with their own cultural and economic agenda and lived largely separate lives from their Māori neighbours. Government regionally and nationally, prioritised immigration and distributed land to cement control of the lower North Island. Farmers, labourers, business-people, men and women then established themselves and their families in an isolated rural environment. Initially, social supports were fragile and some individuals fell through the cracks. In this context, families became the key social unit and are the research focus of this study. Family relationships could also be fragile. Relationship and health problems left women particularly vulnerable. Tracing the lives of women both within and outside the context of the family unit is a further focus of inquiry for this thesis. Community life on the plains was fluid, dynamic and complex. The ‘settler’ community allowed for an openness, particularly in relation to status, compared to the standard social pattern of the age, where relationships and conventions were more fixed. ‘Settler’ society was often profoundly unsettled, giving greater room for ‘ordinary’ immigrants to have an impact in community life that was larger than their status would imply. Community life was rich, varied and not always polite and comfortable. This study seeks to determine how ‘ordinary’ individuals and families found ways, within the dynamism of the local context, to build social links and develop community institutions.


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Settler colonialism is starvation: Ihab Maharmeh, ‘Starvation in a Time of Genocide: A Weapon of Israeli Settler Colonialism in Gaza’, Policy Analysis, 26/08/25

07Sep25

Excerpt: On 22 August, for the first time since 7 October 2023, the United Nations confirmed that a famine was underway in Gaza Governorate, classed under the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) as Phase 5: Famine/Humanitarian Catastrophe. The famine was projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of September. According to the mechanism’s report, “over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death.” A further 1.07 million people, 54 percent of the Gaza Strip’s population, faced Emergency (IPC Phase 4) levels of food insecurity, and another 396,000 people (20 percent) were experiencing a food security Crisis (IPC Phase 3).


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On settler colonial Uruguay: Katalina Lopez, ¿Quiénes Somos?: A Historical Study of Afro-Uruguayan and Charrúas in Uruguayan National Identity, MA dissertation,  The University of Texas at San Antonio, 2025

02Sep25

Abstract: My research project focuses on Afro-descendants and Charrúas (one of Uruguay’s Indigenous groups), inspecting their roles within Uruguay’s colonial and republican origins. Memory and identity are key concepts I analyzed throughout Uruguay’s various historical developments from the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. To do so, I investigated negritude (a Pan-African movement) parallels in Uruguay. Afro-descendants embraced their identity within Uruguay through positive cultural, political, literary, and artistic practices similar to the negritude movement from the United States. I also incorporated indigenismo (a movement that promoted fictionalized narratives rather than accurate or inclusive portrayals of Indigenous groups) to compare with the perceptions and writings from white Uruguayan elites and scholars towards Charrúas. The purpose of this study is to understand acceptance and rejection in Uruguayan social belonging. To accomplish the purpose, I will focus on othered groups. My thesis research uses postcolonial, poststructuralist, social, and cultural theories. I inspect Uruguayan nationality through geographic landscapes, language, and social practices. This thesis mainly incorporates state-given information through Uruguay’s Archivo General de La Nacion and the Biblioteca Nacional, which lacks other sources that embrace a subaltern perspective. Primarily, accounts, newspapers, anthropology books, and photographs of paintings made from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries were abundant sources for this research. I traveled to Uruguay and stayed for a month to collect primary resources while interviewing historians and professors regarding Afro-descendants and Charrúas in Uruguayan national identity. I also utilized digital archives for secondary sources, such as journal articles and manuscripts, and other primary sources, like the Archivo de la Memoria Charrúas. I conclude that Uruguay incorporated the cultural identities of Charrúas and Afro-descendants to maintain sovereignty and gave the illusion that its national identity was inclusive.


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Settler colonialism is delivering hunger: Matt Ormandy, Janat Ibrahimi, Mary Beckie, Alexa Ferdinands, ‘”We need them to keep putting food on our tables”: critiquing legislative discourses of food insecurity in Alberta, Canada’, Agriculture and Human Values, 2025

01Sep25

Abstract: Food insecurity is a pressing public health issue in Canada, with Alberta exhibiting higher rates than most other provinces. Financial constraints are widely recognized as the primary driver for households. Political discourses also shape how food security is addressed within the province. Using Hansard records, we conducted a critical discourse analysis of legislative debates on food insecurity in Alberta, Canada, from 2019 to 2023. We identified four hegemonic discourses: agricultural mythmaking and settler colonial origins, economic development as a solution to food insecurity, food insecurity as an individual’s responsibility, and food banks as an acute solution to food insecurity. We also examined the policy implications of these discourses, particularly as they relate to the deserving versus undeserving poor. We conclude by discussing discourses that were absent in the records, including a recognition of food justice frameworks. Our findings highlight the limitations of Alberta’s current legislative debate and suggest the need for structural, equity-focused solutions that address the root causes of food insecurity. This paper contributes to a growing literature analyzing policy and practice related to food insecurity alleviation across Canada.


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Immobile: Anne Irfan, ‘Settler Colonialism and the Displacement/ Immobility Nexus: Israeli Policy in Gaza Since 1948’, Journal of Genocide Research, 2025

30Aug25

Excerpt: In July 2025, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced a new plan to forcibly displace, contain, immobilize, and ultimately expel Gaza’s Palestinians. The plan, which followed numerous ethnic cleansing schemes for Gaza from both Israel and the US, proposed that the Israeli army would establish a so-called “humanitarian city” on the ruins of Rafah, a city largely obliterated by 21 months of genocidal warfare (ongoing at the time of writing). According to Katz, the army would then “move” 600,000 Palestinians into the encampment, with the eventual aim of enclosing the Strip’s entire population therein. Once inside, the Palestinians would not be allowed to leave the camp, which would be surrounded and guarded by the military, except to emigrate from Palestine permanently.


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Settler colonialism is about unchilding: Mazhar Ahmad Al Zo’by, Imed Ben Labidi, ‘”Unchilding’ Palestine: media representation and the limits of civilizational discourse’, Cultural Studies, 2025

30Aug25

Abstract: Within the global neo-orientalist colonial imagination, contemporary Arab and Muslim societies provide crucial ideological representations for the constitutive otherness of western civilizational politics. So profoundly imbued are negative views of the oriental Arab societies that even their children are inadequate to meet basic standards for innate civilizational virtues to warrant human rights consideration. This article explores how besieged Palestinian children living under settler-colonialism have been portrayed and excluded from the Western Enlightenment discourse on children’s rights. Using discourse analysis to examine a variety of visual and textual media configurations and to identify their ideological sources, the article explains how Palestinian children have been constituted as an extension of their forefathers presumed pre-modern, backward oriental savage societies. Hence, to ‘unchild’ Palestinians by subjecting them to incarceration, starvation or death, even though undesirable, the article further argues, becomes necessary measures to contain the child’s contamination by the same cultural irrationality of his/her oriental parents.


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Parallel Indigenous thinking: Habib Badawi, ‘Parallel Experiences of Displacement and Resistance: Native Americans and Palestinians’, Contemporary Arab Affairs, 2025

30Aug25

Abstract: This research undertakes a comparative analysis of the historical experiences of displacement and resistance encountered by Native American communities in the USA and Palestinian populations in Israel and the occupied territories. Utilizing a qualitative approach, the study explores parallels in displacement, cultural stereotyping, diversity, resistance efforts, historical rhetoric, and the impact on identity. By employing settler colonialism theory and engaging critical Indigenous and Palestinian perspectives, the analysis elucidates shared patterns of oppression and resilience. The study aims to highlight the complexities of cultural survival against colonial forces, contribute to discourses in American Indian Studies and Palestinian Studies, and foster broader understandings of decoloniality, social justice, and human rights.


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Parallel settler thinking: Justin Holmes, Brian F. O’Neill, ‘Constructing Comparability: Climate Change Adaptation and the Transnational Settler Modularity of Desalination’, Science, Technology, & Human Values, 2025

30Aug25

Abstract: Regarding technology, “modularity” typically refers to an apparatus’ interchangeability, reproducibility, or transposability, i.e., “plug and play” applications. However, critical scholars contend that modularity is laborious and aspirational, not to be taken for granted. Where promoters of modularity often focus on material dimensions of technology, this article intervenes in these debates by revealing the necessary practical and discursive work required. We problematize desalination’s transnational modularity through an analysis of archival and ethnographic research of comparative connections between California and Israel. We argue desalination emerged from Israel’s project to restructure environmental, political, and economic risks with(in) Palestine. Through naturalizing colonization and extraction, desalination’s applicability to places such as California is made to appear self-evident. We demonstrate this process by interrogating three common arguments used to craft comparability between California and Israel: (1) desalination overcomes “natural” scarcity; (2) desalination produces geopolitical cooperation through “abundance”; and (3) desalination displays superior techno-managerial expertise. In so doing, we contribute to science and technology studies and critical environmental justice studies by illustrating how “adaptations” can emerge from settler-colonial projects. Founded on socionatural exploitation and domination, settler-colonial projects prove productive of modular capitalist endeavors and ongoing practices of constructing comparisons.


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