settler colonial studies blog

Gentrifying settlers (in unexpected places): Anwar Ouassini, Nabil Ouassini, ‘Between a Rock and the Kasbah: Tourism Gentrification, Cultural Repackaging, and Identity in Tangier’, Journal of Asian and African Studies, 2020

22Jul20

Abstract: This article explores the impact of tourism gentrification on the residents of the Kasbah in the city of Tangier, Morocco. It utilizes qualitative methods to reveal how the Kasbah has become a site of contention between the Moroccan neoliberal state, the foreign investors and settlers, and the residents of Tangier as they negotiate place and identity. The paper will examine how the process of tourism gentrification is not only reinforcing a demographic shift in the Kasbah by displacing the locals but also how the foreign urban settlers are increasingly becoming the filter through which traditional Moroccan culture is conspicuously produced and legitimized. The article will end with a discussion on the mixed contentions surrounding the gentrifying presence of the foreign urban settlers on the residents of the Kasbah and the city of Tangier.

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Indigenous peoples are not settlers: Ibrahim L. Saïd, ‘Some are more equal than others: Palestinian citizens in the settler colonial Jewish State’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2020

22Jul20

Abstract: This article aims to examine whether the passing of the Basic Law: Israel – the Nation State of the Jewish People represents a transformative moment in the history of the State of Israel, as some critics claim, that undermines the State’s unique democratic features precisely the principle of equality. In this respect, this paper aims to revisit the principle of equality as it is enshrined in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel and as it applies in practice, law and court rulings. Specifically, the article will explore how the principle of equality come to manifest itself in the relationship between the State and the Palestinian citizens in three key moments; first, a pre-State stage, in the making of the Declaration; second, a post establishment stage, in the granting of suffrage and citizenship rights; and third, in the aftermath of the 1992 ‘constitutional revolution’ with the passage of the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. The article argues that the Nationality Bill does not represent a transformative moment, it rather reflects a continuous process that stems from the Zionist colonial ideology in historic Palestine. Therefore, rather than transforming Israel into an undemocratic apartheid State as some critics argue, the Nationality Bill rather makes sure that the State of Israel cannot be easily transformed into the State of all its citizens.

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Co ethnic settlers: Jana Sverdljuk, Terje Mikael Hasle Joranger, Erika K. Jackson, Peter Kivisto (eds), Nordic Whiteness and Migration to the USA: A Historical Exploration of Identity, Routledge, 2020

22Jul20

Description: This volume explores the complex and contradictory ways in which the cultural, scientific and political myth of whiteness has influenced identities, self-perceptions and the process of integration of Nordic immigrants into multicultural and racially segregated American society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In deploying central insights from whiteness studies, postcolonial feminist and intersectionality theories, it shows that Nordic immigrants – Danes, Swedes, Finns, Norwegians and Sámi – contributed to and challenged American racism and white identity. A diverse group of immigrants, they could proclaim themselves ‘hyper-white’ and ‘better citizens than anybody else’, including Anglo-Saxons, thus taking for granted the racial bias of American citizenship and ownership rights, yet there were also various, unexpected intersections of whiteness with ethnicity, regional belonging, gender, sexuality, and political views. ‘Nordic whiteness’, then, was not a monolithic notion in the USA and could be challenged by other identities, which could even turn white Nordic immigrants into marginalised figures. A fascinating study of whiteness and identity among white migrants in the USA, Nordic Whiteness will appeal to scholars of sociology, history and anthropology with interests in Scandinavian studies, migration and diaspora studies and American studies.

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Non co-ethnic settlers: Giulia Daniele, ‘Mizrahi Jews and the Zionist settler colonial context: between inclusion and struggle’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2020

22Jul20

Abstract: This article intends to analyse the ‘in-between’ category of Mizrahi Jews within Israeli society. The main objective is to draw attention to how Israel’s Mizrahi majority has been part of the Zionist settler colonial system itself while, at the same time, it has been greatly marginalised from the mainstream Zionist discourse led by white Ashkenazi Jews. Theoretically founded on the interconnection of three major approaches, namely settler colonialism, critical whiteness, and decolonial feminism, this contribution aims to question the current academic debate depicting asymmetric power relations founded on race, ethnic, gender and class discrimination inside Israeli society. Accordingly, Zionist settler colonialism needs to be critically analysed from a Mizrahi perspective, providing an additional element for understanding the relevance of connecting all the actors involved in the Zionist settler colonial project and reinforcing the discourse concerning settlers and indigenous people. Moreover, as the article discusses the wide cultural and political range of the Mizrahi Jews by questioning the viability of the Arab-Jew historical construct up to very recent times, it is also intended to further enhance the examination of an emerging field for studying Israel and Palestine within which several aspects and areas of inquiry remain unexplored.

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Representing terra nullius: Danièle Hromek, ‘Void. Avoid. Voidance. Devoid. Vacated. Unoccupied. Erasure. Terra Nullius. Country’, Void Exhibition, 2020

19Jul20

Excerpt: Australia is a Crime Scene.

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Care is sovereignty: Jenny Munro, ‘”Saving our people”: health workers, medical citizenship, and vernacular sovereignties in West Papua’, Journal of the Royal Anthropology Institute, 2020

19Jul20

Abstract: Much anthropology has considered the social embeddedness of medical systems, personnel, and practices and the political subjectivities that may arise among health workers. I explore what medical citizenship looks like under conditions of settler colonialism in West Papua based on an ethnographic study of Dani (Balim) and Lani HIV nurses and NGO volunteers who see themselves and their activities as part of a broader effort to save Papuans from extinction. In particular, HIV work emerges as a biosocial obligation, meaning that workers give their expertise, attention, compassion, and treatment networks to people with HIV in the name of ensuring the vitality of the wider population, but giving care is not altruistic. As HIV workers respond to erasure, constraints, and racism, they put themselves at the centre of HIV care webs. ‘Traditional’ technologies transform healthcare encounters and challenge strategic ignorance about the epidemic. A close navigation of global health and settler power allows for flexible, independent, even surreptitious HIV practices that are deceptively radical and disruptive. Papuan HIV workers’ medical citizenship is encompassed by and expresses vernacular sovereignties.

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The ‘good Arab’ is an indigenous person: Andreas Hackl, ‘The good Arab: conditional inclusion and settler colonial citizenship among Palestinian citizens of Israel in Jewish Tel Aviv’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2020

19Jul20

Abstract: Dominant majorities often use idealized categories to validate the ‘goodness’ and deservingness of minority citizens. For Palestinian citizens of Israel, this category is the ‘good Arab’. Since its origins in early Jewish settlement of Palestine, it has become a powerful and controversial metaphor in Israeli public discourse. As an experienced condition of limited inclusion, the ‘good Arab’ exemplifies the Palestinian dilemma of accessing socioeconomic opportunities in Jewish Israeli spaces that stigmatize and fend off their ethnonational identity. Combining a historical genealogy of the ‘good Arab’ with ethnographic research among Palestinians in Tel Aviv, this article shows how a historically evolved logic of settler colonial control and indigenous erasure continues to define liberal frameworks of conditional citizenship and inclusion. Theorized through the emerging concept of conditional inclusion , these insights open up new avenues for analysis and comparison in anthropological debates surrounding indigenous struggles, settler colonialism, urban inclusion, and citizenship.

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Crimea is a settler colony: Maksym Dmytrovych Sviezhentsev, ‘”Phantom Limb”: Russian Settler Colonialism in the Post-Soviet Crimea (1991-1997)’, PhD dissertation, The University of Western Ontario, 2020

19Jul20

Abstract: Where does the myth that ‘Crimea has always been Russia’ come from? How did the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union ‘make’ Crimea Russian? This dissertation shows how the they applied settler colonial practices to Crimea, displacing the indigenous population and repopulating the peninsula with loyal settlers and how Crimean settler colonial structures survived the fall of the Soviet Union. It argues that this process defines post-Soviet history of the peninsula.

For centuries Crimean existed within the discourse of Russian imperial control. This dissertation challenges the dominant view by applying settler colonial theory to Crimea’s past and present for the first time. This produces two major scholarly contributions. Firstly, it broadens the geography of settler colonialism, demonstrating that it existed not only in Western European imperialism but also in Russia’s imperial project. Secondly, it challenges the ‘uniqueness’ of Russian imperialism.

The focus is on Crimea as a settler colony during the first years after the USSR’s collapse. The main argument is that the 1990s conflict in Crimea was mainly around decolonization attempts and resistance by the settler colonial system. Contrary to the analysis of ‘conflicts that did not happen’ it argues that Crimea is a case of a conflict that never stoppedsince the late 18^th century. It analyses how settler colonial structures fought for their own preservation in opposition to the forces of decolonization represented by the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar national movements, maneuvering between the Russian and Ukrainian capitals, which in turn triggered perceptions of Crimean separatism.

A main theme is control over the narrative. Crimean settler colonial institutions maintained their monopoly over ‘the truth’ about the peninsula’s past and present. This dissertation demonstrates how this continued in the 1990s, how Crimean newspapers forged the meaning of ‘Crimean,’ redesigned boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in order to marginalize Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar activists. Another important issue is the role of hybrid institutions including government structures in Crimea and the Black Sea Fleet, both which conducted subversive operations (informational and military) to counter and reduce the growing presence of the Ukrainian state on the peninsula.

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Undoing settler colonial cartographies is necessary: Tony Syme, ‘Localizing landscapes: a call for respectful design in Indigenous counter mapping’, Information, Communication & Society, 23, 8, 2020, pp. 1106-1122

19Jul20

Abstract: The increasing use of digital platforms (for example geo referencing, Indigenous counter mapping) to capture Australian Indigenous culture risks adopting tools ontologically based in settler colonial cartographies and thus, unwittingly, can recreate a universal view of empire. Platforms are never neutral spaces and globalized narratives continue to diminish local ontologies. Respectful design of future counter mapping could be based inside local ontologies and epistemologies of differing cultural groups. Respect is shown in engaging with local communities and privileging Indigenous mapping processes. Such engagement would aim to develop counter mapping practices incorporating the principles guarded by the Elders and the protocols by which knowledge itself may be communicated. This paper seeks to demonstrate the different methods by which such respect may be practiced and an approach which emphasizes collaboration and deep listening. Such methods and approach allow for emerging digital landscapes (counter maps) that respect, value, and protect the local epistemological and ontological sources of Indigenous Knowledge.

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The material archives of settler colonialism: Christine Delucia, ‘Recovering Material Archives in the Native Northeast: Converging Approaches to Traces, Indigeneity, and Settler Colonialism’, Early American Literature, 55, 2, 2020, pp. 355-394

15Jul20

Abstract: Material culture offers an important and challenging critical tool kit for Native American and early American studies. This essay focuses on a series of case studies from the Northeast, particularly Native and colonial contexts in central and eastern Massachusetts, to demonstrate how tangible objects can provide powerful complements to archival/documentary records and even help redress seeming silences or absences that arise from textually focused methodologies. Using a “convergence” approach, it argues for the necessity of working across library, archive, and museum collections to more holistically access the lives and experiences of past individuals and communities. Analyzing items such as stone projectile points, furniture, and carved gravestones associated with locations including the Kwinitekw (Connecticut) River Valley and Natick, and using a deliberately multivocal interpretive strategy, it develops a contextual and at times carefully speculative mode of analysis that helps bring to the fore complexities of Native encounters with New England settler colonialism. At the same time, it considers methodological constraints attendant to materiality and offers cautions about the nature and extent of interpretive work centered on objects and their afterlives.

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