settler colonial studies blog

Settler education on indigenous land: Rosalie Z. Fanshel, ‘The Morrill Act as Racial Contract: Settler Colonialism and U.S. Higher Education’, Center for Research on Native American Issues, 2021

23Jun21

Abstract: The Morrill Act of 1862 established agricultural and mechanical arts colleges by granting public lands to states to promote the liberal and practical education of (white, male, Christian) U.S. citizens of average means. In this paper, I use Charles Mills’ (1997) Racial Contract framework and Patrick Wolfe’s (2007) concept of corpus nullius to situate the Morrill Act in a white supremacist political system that intimately entwined settler-colonial expansion, agricultural knowledge production, and the founding of U.S. public higher education through creation of the land-grant universities.

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Migrant western vs. settler western: Elisa Boldrin, ‘On Westerns and Settler Migration: A Reading of Meek’s Cutoff by Kelly Reichardt’, Iperstoria, 17, 2021, pp. 9-28

23Jun21

Abstract: This essay examines Kelly Reichardt’s Meek’s Cutoff (2010) as an example of ‘slow’ and feminist western film. In particular, it shows how, by applying an “austere” aesthetics (Gorfinkel 2015) and by giving prominence to the act of migrating rather than the act of settling, the movie rewrites pioneer history, offering an example of what Catherine Russel defines “migrant cinema” (2017). Because of the visual centrality given to the act of migration, with its feeling of geographical displacement and psychological apprehension, the movie situates itself alongside other contemporary films representing present-day migration, and questions the traditional western movement as a travel of self-confident expansion and colonization. In this sense, Meek’s Cutoff can be rather read as a “decolonizing” (Trimble Young and Veracini 2017) rendition of white migration in the West, mostly achieved by including two destabilizing characters within the group of white settlers, Emily Tetherow and a Cayuse Indian, who trigger reflections on matters of knowledge and alliances.

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Dispossessing Metis: David Parent, Governing Metis Indigeneity: The Settler-Colonial Dispossession and Regulation of the Metis in Mid-Twentieth Century Manitoba, PhD dissertation, University of Alberta, 2021

20Jun21

Abstract: Bringing together the fields of Critical Indigenous Studies, settler-colonial studies, and governmentality studies, this dissertation seeks to methodologically trace the dispossession of Metis from lands in Manitoba throughout the mid-twentieth century by placing these dispossessions into the multijurisdictional and socio-historical context. In the first half I engage dominant Canadian historiography in order to trace out a broader governing apparatus that possessed technologies of education, employment, immigration, and health aided in normalizing the dispossession of predominantly racialized populations by settler-colonial populations and their municipal apparatuses. The second half of the dissertation focusses on original archival research. I engage nineteenth century Metis historians to genealogize the formation of Manitoba’s provincial apparatus which formed the basis for the establishment and proliferation of municipal apparatuses in Manitoba throughout the former half of the twentieth century. I trace the maneuvering between federal, provincial, and municipal apparatuses in governing Metis in Manitoba through various agricultural programs meant to increase the overall health and security of the settler-colonial population, as well as through social welfare reports that sought to identify and recommend how to ‘improve’ Manitoba Metis. In the final chapter, using my own historic Metis community of Minnewaken as a case study I demonstrate how the Rural Municipality of Coldwell dispossessed Metis residents who went from owning 4000 acres of land in 1915, to 10 acres of land in 1970. I trace this land dispossession through an engagement with local histories and municipal tax-rolls, by-laws, and council minutes. Taxes and by-laws, I argue, were key technologies of municipal apparatuses that rationalized and realized the dispossession of Metis from Minnewaken. A key emphasis of this dissertation focusses on illustrating the ways in which municipal governments, in particular, came to represent significant vectors of Metis land dispossession during this era.

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Augmented reality as an antisettler act: Amanda Almond, We Are All Related: (Re)Storying With Augmented Reality to Build Indigenous-Settler Relations, MA dissertation, University of Alberta, 2021

20Jun21

Abstract: Engaging settlers in inviting yet unsettling ways to understand settler colonialism and introduce Indigenous epistemologies may help build and sustain Indigenous-settler relationships. Augmented reality (AR) offers an opportunity to co-create and share Indigenous digital stories connected to territory to create sites of (re)storying that challenge colonial narratives that treaties involved land surrender. This thesis describes and reflects on my experiences participating in a series of projects involving Treaty 6 marker sculptures and digital media, including developing and prototyping learn-by-design resources for students and teachers to respectfully co-create AR stories with Indigenous Knowledge Keepers, Elders, and storytellers. Building on that work, I share my experience co-creating and sharing a trail of AR stories situated at Treaty 6 marker sculptures located in or near amiskwaciy-wâskahikan (also known as Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) through a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach grounded in relationships and ongoing consent. Co-creating the story trail and selecting an AR storytelling platform was guided by the 4Rs of respect, relevance, reciprocity, and responsibility, OCAP®, data sovereignty, and a commitment to respect and adhere to Indigenous approaches to traditional cultural expression and protocol. Visitors to the Treaty 6 marker sculptures can experience AR stories from a respected Knowledge Keeper on what it means to be in relationship on Treaty 6 territory. Hearing these stories may prompt reflection on past, current, and future relationships and initiate further learning to build relationships and understanding.

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Bentham’s anticolonial settler colonialism: Barbara Arneil, ‘Jeremy Bentham: Pauperism, Colonialism, and Imperialism ‘, American Political Science Review, 2021

17Jun21

Abstract: Using two recently published folios by Jeremy Bentham, I draw out a fundamental but little-analyzed connection between pauperism and both domestic and settler colonialism in opposition to imperialism in his thought. The core theoretical contribution of this article is to draw a distinction between a colonial, internal, and productive form of power that claims to improve people and land from within, which Bentham defends, and an imperial, external, and repressive form of power that dominates or rules over people from above and afar, that he rejects. Inherent in colonialism and the power unleashed by it are specific and profoundly negative implications in practice for the poor and disabled of Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries subject to domestic colonialism and indigenous peoples subject to settler colonialism from first contact until today. I conclude Bentham is best understood as a pro-colonialist and anti-imperialist thinker.

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Settler colonialism in Nicaragua: J. L. Mayer, ‘Conceptualizing Settler Colonialism in Nicaragua’, Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development, 49, 3-4, 2021, pp. 195-245

17Jun21

Abstract: A growing body of literature has argued for the reconceptualization of Latin America as a settler colony. Contrary to the self-proclaimed decolonization of Latin American states upon their independence two centuries ago, the settlers who came to Latin America stayed and preserved the structure of settler colonialism to the present day. This article analyzes the case of Nicaragua through the conceptual frame of settler colonialism and examines an apt case study: the Indigenous and Afrodescendant communities of the Rama-Kriol Territory in southeastern Nicaragua, where I have conducted activist ethnographic research since 2014. The ongoing colonization of the Rama-Kriol Territory exhibits not only failures of the state to enforce legal protections of multicultural rights, but also the extension of a colonial logic of dispossession and elimination. The case of the Rama-Kriol Territory demonstrates the entanglements of Nicaraguan settler colonialism with international institutions, development banks, multinational corporations, and settler colonial projects around the world. I conclude that social science researchers should attend to continuing and emergent forms of Indigenous sovereignty in Nicaragua. Amid the fading backdrop of liberal multiculturalism in Latin America, these assertions of sovereignty pose a political horizon of decolonization and an end to settler violence, dispossession, and domination.

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Nonsettler gangs: with a chapter on ‘The War on Gangs and Gangsters: The Latino/a Experience with Settler Colonialism’, David C. Brotherton, Rafael Jose Gude (eds), Routledge International Handbook of Critical Gang Studies, Routledge, 2021

17Jun21

Access the volume here.

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Unsettling art: Injeong Yoon-Ramirez, Benjamin W. Ramirez, ‘Unsettling Settler Colonial Feelings Through Contemporary Indigenous Art Practice’, Studies in Art Education, 62, 2, 2021, pp. 114-129

17Jun21

Abstract: In this article, we discuss contemporary art practices as avenues for disrupting settler colonial narratives; we explore how the practices developed and adopted by contemporary Native American and First Nations artists can challenge settler colonial feelings. Employing the concept of settler common sense, we attend to the affective experience of encountering these artists’ works and consider how their works can enable the viewers to feel, sense, and think outside of/in opposition to/against settler colonial logics. We first explain the concept of settler colonialism and illustrate how settler colonial narratives operate; we illuminate the affective dimension of settler colonialism and how settler colonial narratives and feelings are bound up in art. To demonstrate possible pathways through this process, we discuss the work of Indigenous artists Rebecca Belmore and Tanya Lukin Linklater, considering how their practices can disrupt. We argue for a move away from settler futurity.

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Imperial emigrants are settlers: Stephen Constantine (ed.), Emigrants and empire: British settlement in the dominions between the wars, Manchester University Press, 2017

17Jun21

Description: Professor Drummond’s two pioneering studies, British Economic Policy and the Empire 1919-1939, 1972, and Imperial Economic Policy 1917-1939, 1974, helped to revive interest in Empire migration and other aspects of inter-war imperial economic history. This book concentrates upon the attempts to promote state-assisted migration in the post-First World War period particularly associated with the Empire Settlement Act of 1922. It examines the background to these new emigration experiments, the development of plans for both individual and family migration, as well as the specific schemes for the settlement of ex-servicemen and of women. Varying degrees of encouragement, acquiescence and resistance with which they were received in the dominions, are discussed. After the First World War there was a striking reorientation of state policy on emigration from the United Kingdom. A state-assisted emigration scheme for ex-servicemen and ex-servicewomen, operating from 1919 to 1922, was followed by an Empire Settlement Act, passed in 1922. This made significant British state funding available for assisted emigration and overseas land settlement in British Empire countries. Foremost amongst the achievements of the high-minded imperial projects was the free-passage scheme for ex-servicemen and women which operated between 1919 and 1922 under the auspices of the Oversea Settlement Committee. Cheap passages were considered as one of the prime factors in stimulating the flow of migration, particularly in the case of single women. The research represented here makes a significant contribution to the social histories of these states as well as of the United Kingdom.

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Democratisation, not decolonisation: Augustine S.J. Park, ‘Settler Colonialism and the South African TRC: Ambivalent Denial and Democratisation Without Decolonisation’, Social & Legal Studies

13Jun21

Abstract: In the quarter-century since it began its work, the South African TRC has been endlessly debated. At the same time, a field of study emerged centred on settler colonialism, and settler colonial analyses have become established in transitional justice. South Africa’s TRC, however, has escaped examination through the lens of settler colonialism. Typically, settler colonialism in South Africa is treated as an historical phase; however, recent scholarship emphasises South Africa’s colonial present. Following these insights, this article: (1) establishes the relevance of a settler colonial lens for interpreting the South African TRC by demonstrating the settler colonialism of apartheid; (2) provides an empirical examination of the TRC’s Report. The Report acknowledges settler colonialism while advancing a series of denials, producing ‘ambivalent denial’; (3) explores the implications of ambivalent denial. Specifically, ambivalent denial contributes to democratisation without decolonisation by enabling settler denial and failing to address settler colonial structures.

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