settler colonial studies blog

Indigenous knowledge against settler colonial wildlife management: Andrew N. Kadykalo, Steven J. Cooke, Nathan Young, ‘The role of western‐based scientific, Indigenous and local knowledge in wildlife management and conservation’, People and Nature, 2021

18Mar21

Abstract: Managers of wildlife are faced with decisions and issues that are increasingly complex, spanning natural and human dimensions (i.e. values, preferences, attitudes). A strong evidence base that includes multiple forms and sources of knowledge is needed to support these complex decisions. However, a growing body of literature demonstrates that environmental managers are far more likely to draw on intuition, past experience or opinion to inform important decisions rather than empirical evidence. We set out to assess how decision‐makers and other potential knowledge users (a) perceive, evaluate and use western‐based scientific, Indigenous and local knowledge and (b) the extent to which social, political and economic considerations challenge the integration of different forms of evidence into decision‐making. In 2018, we interviewed members from natural resource management branches of Indigenous governments (n = 4) and parliamentary governments (n = 33), as well as representatives from nongovernmental stakeholder groups (n = 28) involved in wildlife management and conservation in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Contrary to studies that suggest evidence‐based conservation and management are rare, respondents described relying heavily on multiple forms of knowledge. Results revealed that western science is used near‐unanimously, procured from internal (i.e. institutional) sources slightly more than external ones (i.e. peer‐reviewed journals, management agencies in other jurisdictions). However, we found Indigenous and local knowledge use to be much less than western scientific knowledge (approximately half as much) despite being highly valued. Perceived challenges to applying Indigenous and local knowledge include a lack of trust, hesitancy to share knowledge (particularly from Indigenous communities), difficulties in assessing reliability and difficulties discerning knowledge from advocacy. Despite high (and relatively diverse) evidence use, more than 40% of respondents perceived a diminishing role for evidence in final decisions concerning wildlife management and conservation. They associated this with decreases in institutional resources and capacity and increases in socio‐economic and political interference. We encourage transformative change in wildlife management enabling decision‐makers to draw upon multiple forms of knowledge. This transformative change should include direct involvement of knowledge holders, co‐assessment of knowledge and transparency in how (multiple forms of) evidence contribute to decision‐making.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

Renewable energy against settler colonial extraction: Chad J.R. Walker, Mary Beth Doucette, Sarah Rotz, Diana Lewis, Hannah Tait Neufeld, Heather Castleden, ‘Non-Indigenous partner perspectives on Indigenous peoples’ involvement in renewable energy: exploring reconciliation as relationships of accountability or status quo innocence?’ Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, 2021

18Mar21

Abstract: This research considers the potential for renewable energy partnerships to contribute to Canada’s efforts to overcome its colonial past and present by developing an understanding of how non-Indigenous peoples working in the sector relate to their Indigenous partners. This study is part of a larger research program focused on decolonization and reconciliation in the renewable energy sector. This exploratory research is framed by energy justice and decolonial reconciliation literatures relevant to the topic of Indigenous-led renewable energy. The authors used content and discourse analysis to identify themes arising from 10 semi-structured interviews with non-Indigenous corporate and governmental partners. Interviewees’ lack of prior exposure to Indigenous histories, cultures and acknowledgement of settler colonialism had a profound impact on their engagement with reconciliation frameworks. Partners’ perspectives on what it means to partner with Indigenous peoples varied; most dismissed the need to further develop understandings of reconciliation and instead focused on increasing community capacity to allow Indigenous groups to participate in the renewable energy transition.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

The settler story as a classical tale: M. Lambert, ‘Herodotus and the 1820 Settlers in South Africa: Historiographies of Colonization and the “Cacophony” of Voices’, Akroterion, 65, 2020, pp. 143-167

16Mar21

Abstract: The renewal of interest in Herodotus as an effective and creative historian within a predominantly oral tradition has been a feature of prolific research during the last twenty years. In the very year in which the arrival of the 1820 settlers in the east of the former Cape Colony in South Africa is being remembered, and even
commemorated, I attempt a reading of Herodotus’ celebrated account of the Greek colonization of Cyrene in Libya (North Africa) through the historiographical lens of accounts of the arrival of these British settlers, focussing on the narratives of colonization common to these exempla more than two millennia apart. My intention is
to continue the conversation, especially amongst South African classicists, about how to tackle the thorny question of decolonizing the content and teaching of the Classics in our universities.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

Governing settlers and nonsettlers on the move: Christopher Szaba, Governing Global Migration: Internationalism, Colonialism, and Mass Mobility, 1850-1980, PhD dissertation, Cornell University, 2020

16Mar21

Abstract: This dissertation traces the history of the governance of global migration at the level of international law and institutions. Situated at the intersection of international and global history, it argues that national immigration and emigration histories, as well as histories of subsets of migratory populations, such as refugees, can only be understood in the context of a broader international migration governance – showing how international plans, treaties, and institutions concerning migration emerged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the significance of their changing treatments of European and non-European migrants. In doing so, it makes interventions into the history of sovereignty by demonstrating how the role of states within migration governance changed over time, the role of expertise in international law and global governance, the agency of non-European states in the history of international legal and institutional development as opposed to the role of European empires, and the evolution and development of the conceptions of freedom and rights, among others, ultimately demonstrating that the relative lack of an international migration governance in the present day is not a consequence of its having never existed or having been effective, but a consequence of earlier schemes’ character. In the nineteenth century, the dissertation shows, international migration governance arose to address concerns over disease control and the similar risks taken by European and Asian emigrants. Yet after Europe’s devastation in the world wars, migration structures which were proposed and arose primarily benefited European states that sought population “outlets” as a means to participate in demographic expansion beyond the continent: an internationalized form of settler colonialism. Many non-European migrants, meanwhile, lacked similar assistance or only enjoyed lesser protections. Settler schemes were welcomed by Latin American states and, to a lesser extent, British Dominions, which viewed them as bringing security and developmental benefits. Disagreement among states and experts limited the extent and implementation of the schemes, yet were not fatal to them. Still, their focus on European emigration, the dissertation concludes, ultimately prevented these schemes and institutions from overseeing and planning most migration that originated outside of Europe, a legacy continuing to undermine migration governance today.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

Settler colonialism on display (not): Kelly Black, ‘Explaining settlers to ourselves’, British Columbia Historical Federation, 04/03/21

16Mar21

Excerpt: I bring visitors to this sign because it’s significant — not for what it tells us about Peter O’Reilly or his home but for what it leaves out. Every job O’Reilly ever had with the colonial and provincial governments is listed on the plaque — except for his 18 years as Indian Reserve Commissioner. From 1880 to 1898, O’Reilly acted on behalf of the Federal and Provincial governments to set out, eliminate, reduce, or, in some cases, expand Indian Reserves across the province. Of the more than 600 reserves in BC, O’Reilly had a role in nearly all of them. The omission of O’Reilly’s time as Indian Reserve Commissioner at a provincial heritage site and on a Stop of Interest sign was not simply an oversight or mistake; it was by design. Interpretive and programming documents from the last few decades regularly omitted O’Reilly’s influence on the colonial geography of the province. Instead, past managers and curators focused on the domestic space, on privileging romantic narratives of Victorian-era courtship, afternoon tea, and roses. The idea that colonization was inevitable, is complete, and is disconnected from the everyday life of settlers remains a pervasive and troubling narrative in BC and Canada.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

Settler colonialism against the ‘more than human’: Irus Braverman, ‘Environmental justice, settler colonialism, and more-than-humans in the occupied West Bank: An introduction’, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2021

16Mar21

Abstract: Our special issue provides a first-of-its kind attempt to examine environmental injustices in the occupied West Bank through interdisciplinary perspectives, pointing to the broader settler colonial and neoliberal contexts within which they occur and to their more-than-human implications. Specifically, we seek to understand what environmental justice—a movement originating from, and rooted in, the United States—means in the context of Palestine/Israel. Moving beyond the settler-native dialectic, we draw attention to the more-than-human flows that occur in the region—which include water, air, waste, cement, trees, donkeys, watermelons, and insects—to consider the dynamic, and often gradational, meanings of frontier, enclosure, and Indigeneity in the West Bank, challenging the all-too-binary assumptions at the core of settler colonialism. Against the backdrop of the settler colonial project of territorial dispossession and elimination, we illuminate the infrastructural connections and disruptions among lives and matter in the West Bank, interpreting these through the lens of environmental justice. We finally ask what forms of ecological decolonization might emerge from this landscape of accumulating waste, concrete, and ruin. Such alternative visions that move beyond the single axis of settler-native enable the emergence of more nuanced, and even hopeful, ecological imaginaries that focus on sumud, dignity, and recognition.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

The metaphors we settle by: April Anson, ‘”Master Metaphor”: Environmental Apocalypse and the Settler States of Emergency’, Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities, 8, 1, 2020, pp. 60-81

15Mar21

Excerpt: On October 27, 2016, Ammon Bundy and other members of the Citizens for Constitutional Freedom (CCF) were acquitted of all charges stemming from their armed takeover of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. While at Malheur, CCF’s occupiers declared the rule of law unconstitutional, a state-of-emergency summons supported by right-wing militia groups invoking apocalyptic fears of white genocide. In contrast, on the same day of the acquittal verdict and with the visual drama of an apocalyptic dystopian film, a militarized police force arrested 141 water protectors in Standing Rock, North Dakota—an area secured by the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty and by the state of emergency that the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council declared in August 2016. Though many decried the unequal consequences of each occupation, the disparity was not an isolated occurrence, nor is it limited to rural or reservation boundaries. Rather, its incongruence continues a racialized distinction fundamental to the state of emergency itself. The state of emergency’s implicit inequality is entrenched in apocalyptic appeals that rely on its logic, reinforcing the ongoing emergency of settler colonial capitalism even when they aim to disturb it.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

Environmental justice against settler colonialism: Sakshi, ‘Denying Indigenous Environmental Justice: Experiences from Australia, Brazil, and Canada’, Fourth World Journal, 20, 2, 2021, pp. 115-130

15Mar21

Abstract: This paper deliberates on the nature of justice in Indigenous engagement with settler-colonial legality. I use the case law-based evidence from the three jurisdictions, Australia, Brazil, and Canada, to reflect on the abstract and material representations of Indigenous environmental justice in contemporary settler-colonial societies. There are two elements at play here. While some of the constituent elements of ‘Indigenous environmental justice’ may remain undefined in the legal system, they function as an invitation to the courts for interpreting them widely. How far has this been used, and in what manner speaks to the nature of juridical engagement with indigeneity? Second, the need for certainty and procedural integrity within the legal interpretation often belies the assumption of neutrality. This is pronounced when political and historical questions are antecedents to the legal questions to be determined by a court. Settler colonial nations illustrate this contradiction by laying bare the past and present historical injustices that accompany Indigenous rights and sovereignty. To think about ‘justice’ in these cases requires principle-led juridical innovations. I argue that courts are yet to recognize their key role in identifying and remedying the violence scripted by the law on Indigenous people. While it may be a difficult and complex task to develop a radical jurisprudence without violating the separation of power, courts continue to be the final altars of justice with a wide range of creative and untapped powers. The responsibility to articulate Indigenous environmental justice as a legal principle in the Anthropocene1 calls for deploying those powers.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

A settler colonial vessel: Bruce Erickson, Sarah Wylie Krotz (eds), The Politics of the Canoe, University of Manitoba Press, 2021

15Mar21

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

Settler colonial pandemics: Cathy Purvis Lively, ‘COVID-19 in the Navajo Nation Without Access to Running WaterThe lasting effects of Settler Colonialism’, Voices in Bioethics, 2021

15Mar21

Excerpt: Although COVID-19 affects everyone, its impact on the Navajo Nation, which calls COVID-19 Dikos Nitsaaigii Ndhast’eits’aadah, or “Big Cough 19,” is more profound. Efforts to contain and stop the virus include the three W’s: wear (masks), wait (social distancing), and wash (handwashing). These three actions become onerous for people without the financial resources to purchase masks or hand sanitizer or living in overcrowded conditions. The lack of adequate water for personal hygiene exacerbates water-washed infections like COVID-19. For indigenous communities within the Navajo Nation in Arizona, preventing infectious disease by handwashing is difficult as there is not adequate access to reliable running water. As a community with over 309,000 members, half of whom reside in multi-generational households, addressing the systemic challenges limiting the Navajo Nation’s access to water would reduce the disparate impacts of COVID-19.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

what’s new

contribute