settler colonial studies blog

COVID and settler colonialism: C. E. Flew, ‘”Indians were not born vulnerable; they were made vulnerable”: Examining why American Indians and Alaska Natives have been disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 pandemic’, MA dissertation, Utrecht University, 2021

07Aug21

Abstract: The primary aim of this thesis is to examine why American Indians and Alaska Natives have been disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 pandemic; both in terms of disease incidence and mortality. The main contention of this study is that structures of settler colonialism have both historically and contemporaneously affected the health security of indigenous American peoples, which has made them more vulnerable to epidemics and pandemics. Although a great deal of research has been undertaken into how the structures of European settler colonialism affected indigenous health security from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, far less scholarly attention has been paid to investigating the impact of federal policies implemented by the American settler state on American Indians and Alaska Natives, and how these policies continue to affect present-day indigenous health security. This thesis therefore examines how, in the United States, disruptions in land, place, sovereignty and culture have tangibly affected indigenous health security. This thesis uses the concept of contrapuntal reading – pioneered by Edward Said in 1993 – as its main conceptual framework. To achieve this, primary sources created by American Indians and Alaska Natives have been utilised to the greatest extent possible. Such sources amplify indigenous perspectives – viewpoints that have been marginalised for far too long – whilst simultaneously challenging the dominant narrative surrounding indigenous health security. By closely analysing the way federal policies have intersected with epidemics and pandemics – including Covid-19 – and how the concursions of key events have negatively affected indigenous health security, this thesis presents a novel way of understanding why American Indians and Alaska Natives have been unduly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in comparison with the white American population.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

The language settles: Masud Khawaja, ‘Consequences and Remedies of Indigenous Language Loss in Canada’, Societies, 11, 2021

07Aug21

Abstract: Many Indigenous languages in Canada are facing the threat of extinction. While some languages remain in good health, others have already been lost completely. Immediate action must be taken to prevent further language loss. Throughout Canada’s unacceptable history of expunging First Nations’ ways of life, systemic methods such as residential schools attempted to eradicate Indigenous cultures and languages. These efforts were not entirely successful but Indigenous language and culture suffered greatly. For Indigenous communities, language loss impaired intergenerational knowledge transfer and compromised their personal identity. Additionally, the cumulative effects of assimilation have contributed to poor mental and physical health outcomes amongst Indigenous people. However, language reclamation has been found to improve well-being and sense of community. To this objective, this paper explores the historical context of this dilemma, the lasting effects of assimilation, and how this damage can be remediated. Additionally, we examine existing Indigenous language programs in Canada and the barriers that inhibit the programs’ widespread success. Through careful analysis, such barriers may be overcome to improve the efficacy of the programs. Institutions must quickly implement positive changes to preserve Indigenous languages as fluent populations are rapidly disappearing.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

Lobbying on behalf of the settler project: Walter L. Hixson, Architects of Repression: How Israel and Its Lobby Put Racism, Violence and Injustice at the Center of US Middle East Policy, Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, 2021

07Aug21

Description: This book offers a compelling history of the most powerful lobby acting on behalf of a foreign government in all of American history. The book puts to rest any doubt as to whether the Israel lobby has played and continues to play the crucial role in enabling aggression, the suppression of Palestinian rights, and the failure to achieve a comprehensive Middle East peace accord.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

Turning a settler state into a state for all: Leila H. Farsakh (ed.), Rethinking Statehood in Palestine: Self-Determination and Decolonization Beyond Partition, University of California Press, 2021

07Aug21

Description: The quest for an inclusive and independent state has been at the center of the Palestinian national struggle for a very long time. This book critically explores the meaning of Palestinian statehood and the challenges that face alternative models to it. Giving prominence to a young set of diverse Palestinian scholars, this groundbreaking book shows how notions of citizenship, sovereignty, and nationhood are being rethought within the broader context of decolonization. Bringing forth critical and multifaceted engagements with what modern Palestinian self-determination entails, Rethinking Statehood sets the terms of debate for the future of Palestine beyond partition.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

High settlers: Kaitlin Reed, ‘Cannabis, Settler Colonialism, and Tribal Sovereignty in California’, in Dominic Corva, Joshua S. Meisel (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Post-Prohibition Cannabis Research, Routledge, 2021

05Aug21

Abstract: The plant genus Cannabis— encompassing both the textile fiber known as hemp and the medicinal flower— was instrumental in the colonization of North America. Columbus’s so-called discovery of the New World would have been impossible without sails and ropes made of hemp. Native American Studies (NAS) is an academic discipline born of political activism and drawn from Indigenous intellectual traditions developed over millennia. Settler colonialism is a form of colonialism wherein settlers create a new home for themselves. Tribal sovereignty is a key concept of Native American Studies. Tribal sovereignty— much like how settler colonialism is continually reproduced— is continually asserted, contested, and reconfigured. In northwestern California, the Yurok Tribe has lived along the Klamath River since time immemorial. Water diversions for cannabis cultivation have dewatered entire streams on the Yurok Indian Reservation and impacted tribal drinking water; evidence of water diversion is evident at numerous abandoned cultivation sites.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

Settler sports: Murray G. Phillips, ‘Settler Colonialism and Sport History’, in Murray G. Phillips, Douglas Booth, Carly Adams (eds), Routledge Handbook of Sport History, Routledge, 2021

05Aug21

Abstract: The development of settler colonialism as an autonomous scholarly field has, in the main, bypassed most sport historians. Colonialism and settler colonialism share the feature of exogenous domination over their destinations, but the differences are stark in relation to population structure, claims of sovereignty, colonial and settler mindsets, and narrative making. The characteristics of settler colonialism help draw attention to the ambiguity about what constitutes Indigenous identity. In reviews of the field of sport history and in monographs about sport and race, racialization is often conflated with colonialism and settler colonialism. The theoretical and political project for sport historians shifts from an antiracist framework, which has dominated the discipline, to decolonialism that privileges Indigenous ontologies, epistemologies, and voices. Indigenous people are categorized as non-white colonized people, which effaces their indigeneity by failing to recognize the unique processes intrinsic to settler colonialism.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

Indigenous sport against settler colonialism: Murray G. Phillips, Douglas Booth, Carly Adams, ‘Indigenous Sport History’, in Murray G. Phillips, Douglas Booth, Carly Adams,(eds), Routledge Handbook of Sport History, Routledge, 2021

05Aug21

Abstract: Sport has been, and continues to be, a very significant component of Indigenous lives. Sport was central to life on missions, reserves, and settlements in Australia, and at residential, boarding, and industrial schools and on reserves in Canada and the United States of America. The denial of basic human rights, including very limited educational opportunities that focused on non-academic education with a low ceiling for employment, followed by chronic underinvestment in secondary and higher education, resulted in delayed entry of Indigenous scholars to universities. The challenges continue with reframing the concept of sport history. The vast majority of sport historians work through the lens of post-contact sport without acknowledging physical activities that were inseparable from life prior to settler colonial states and continue to have cultural influence into the present. Indigenous methodologies demonstrate how many sport historians have pigeon-holed their work into one dimension of the grand narrative of settler colonialism.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

International relations naturalises settler colonialism: Maryam Khalid, Mark McMillan, Jonathan Symons, ‘Is a Pedagogy of Indigenous Solidarity Possible in the International Relations Theory Classroom?’ International Studies Perspectives, 2021

05Aug21

Abstract: How should teachers of international relations in settler-colonial states engage with First Nations’ sovereignty claims? While a growing body of recent scholarship explores how teaching might acknowledge and move beyond the discipline’s racist and colonial origins, less research investigates how pedagogy might rectify inattention to Indigenous sovereignty. This paper reports on a class activity that sought to highlight how the discipline’s foundational assumptions can naturalize Indigenous dispossession. In the class, students were asked to conduct discourse analysis of debates surrounding the “Uluru Statement from the Heart,” and to consider practices of Indigenous transnationalism. Although students generally succeeded in identifying how discursive practices consolidate the authority of the settler-colonial state, class discussion tended to reproduce the state’s justificatory narratives and to classify First Nations’ claims as akin to those of any other ethnic minority. At a time when many universities are seeking to embed more Indigenous content within curriculum, we reflect on how the activity revealed epistemic colonialism’s operation within educational settings. We argue that in addition to introducing Indigenous perspectives and knowledges, it is valuable for teaching in settler-colonial states to focus critical attention onto non-Indigenous practices that reproduce systemic injustice.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

Indigenization is about undoing trauma: E. Steinman, G. Kovats Sánchez, ‘Magnifying and healing colonial trauma in higher education: Persistent settler colonial dynamics at the Indigenizing university’, Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 2021

03Aug21

Abstract: Processes of Indigenization under way in Canada aim to bring more Indigenous students and faculty to mainstream colleges and universities. These Indigenization initiatives are critical components that work toward reconciling systemic and societal inequalities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous within higher education. Despite these important efforts, institutions of higher education were founded on and continue to reflect the goals and norms of a settler colonial society, and such contexts constitute a complicated and evolving environment for Indigenous people. Based on interviews with 23 Indigenous faculty, students, staff, and community members, this paper explores their experiences at an Indigenizing university. We outline how encounters with ongoing colonialism and contradictions at an Indigenizing university both generated new pain and echoed existing historical trauma. In many ways, explicit and publicized institutional efforts to incorporate Indigenous people and perspectives, while needed and valued, simultaneously magnified the cultural dissonance, biases, and power structures within the institution. Consequently, participants identified needs for healing that were insufficiently supported and also constrained by institutional logics. This study calls attention to the settler colonial dynamics that often persist within North American colleges and universities in their efforts to target and recruit Indigenous students and how such institutions should support robust and culturally appropriate healing practices and resources that depart from default institutional understandings and operative processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

Transversal lives against settler colonialism? Roshon Singh Nandhra, ‘Transversing Settler Colonial Capital: Indigenous Dispossession and Non-White Labour Exploitation’, BC Studies, 210, 2021

03Aug21

Abstract: Through a concept I develop and refer to as ‘transversal modes of life’, I read through ways in which relationships of solidarity between Indigenous peoples, Black peoples, and people of colour have been adversely affected by capitalist development in Canada. Through case studies of the salmon canning and forestry industries in the early-to-mid-twentieth century in British Columbia, I contend that settler colonial relations of capital are characterized by the following three features: first, although people of colour may not choose their social positioning with Indigenous peoples in the development of the settler colonial state, this does not remove our complicity in formations that continue to dispossess Indigenous peoples from their lands and waters, but in fact complicates that relationship. Second, building on Glen Sean Coulthard’s use of Marxist theory, capitalist development within the Canadian settler colonial context produces transversal modes of life that have developed by structurally positioning Black peoples and people of colour within processes of dispossession. Third, a lens of transversality draws attention to the dynamics between Indigenous dispossession and exploitation of non-white labour, which are always and already relational. Positing relationships of co-resistance requires understanding the relational depth through which our interconnections can yield powerful resistance measures that are consistent with grounded normativity.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

what’s new

contribute