settler colonial studies blog

Parking settlers: Miho Trudeau, ‘Problematizing the sociocultural production of nature: Considering settler colonialism in Confederation Park’, Canadian Geographies, 2025

01Oct25

Abstract: This manuscript provides a viewpoint on issues of settler colonialism in relation to natural playground contexts. Reflections emerged while conducting a multi‐site study on natural playground development and usage in Calgary, Canada. One site was situated in a large urban green space, Confederation Park, and illustrated the materialization of green spaces as a settler‐colonial project.

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Epistemic reparations anyone? Yann Allard-Tremblay ‘A great ox stands in your mind: decolonial caution about epistemic reparations and the right to be known’, Philosophical Studies, 2025

29Sep25

Abstract: Jennifer Lackey has recently argued that victims of gross injustices and epistemic harms not only have a right to know, but also a right to be known, i.e., to share and have their experiences heard. This right is associated with a duty to provide epistemic reparations, notably in bearing witness to victims. The epistemic harms with which Lackey is concerned are features of settler colonialism that call for such epistemic reparations. I seek to raise caution about the pursuit of epistemic reparations, however, especially through bearing witness and testimony, in settler colonial contexts. I argue that settler colonial epistemic environments constitute morasses of unknowing, where settlers are subjectified in ways that severely burden their capacity to properly understand and know victims of epistemic harms. In settler colonial contexts, I argue, epistemic reparations through bearing witness and testimonies risk being both unproductive and pernicious. They risk being unproductive precisely because victims are at risk of not being properly understood without transforming the material and subjective features of the settler colonial epistemic environment. They further risk being pernicious given settler colonial dynamics that tend to defuse the critical potential of testimonies. To ensure a more thorough pursuit of the right to be known, we must therefore also consider the required decolonial transformation of the structures and subjectivities that make epistemic harm possible.

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Food for anticolonial thought: Salena Fay Tramel, Annelien Groten, ‘Resisting forced starvation and territory grabs through food sovereignty efforts in Gaza’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2025

29Sep25

Abstract: Undermining the ability of Palestinians to feed themselves is central to the genocide underway in the Gaza Strip, resulting in mass famine and forced starvation. Israel is achieving this aim through territory grabbing across Gaza’s farmlands and fisheries on one side, and through control and weaponization of humanitarian aid on the other. Food sovereignty could not be more relevant here – to save lives, and as a political project to resist land and water grabs. This article highlights food sovereignty efforts in Gaza from the perspectives of Palestinian grassroots organizers working in unfathomable conditions to resist the erasure of their people.

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Settler no-go zones: Felicity Collins, ‘Seven Versions of an Australian Badland and two films: Jindabyne and The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson’, Continuum, 2025

29Sep25

Abstract: As a debt of remembrance, I begin by extracting seven versions of Ross Gibson (1956–2023) from my heavily annotated copy of Seven Versions of an Australian Badland. I then draw on Seven Versions to illuminate a no-go zone film, Jindabyne and a badland film, The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson. Both films were shot on Ngarigo, Ngambri and Walgalu Country, transformed in recent decades by the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme (1945–74), a nation-building project that I viewed from the back seat of the family car in the 1960s. In my discussion of settler-colonial blind spots in Ray Lawrence’s Jindabyne, I draw on Gibson’s concept of no-go zones and Deborah Bird Rose’s concept of ethical violence. Turning to the rabid sexual and racial violence unleashed on the body of Molly Johnson in Purcell’s badland film (2022), I deploy Gibson’s concept of ethical murk with reference to Jonathan Lear’s concept of radical hope.

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Settlers riding off into the sunset: Melissa Beattie, ‘”This is where the cowboy rides away?” The Magnificent Seven and settler colonialism’, CST Online, 25/10/24

29Sep25

Excerpt: For those unfamiliar with the series (or the film it is loosely adapted from), it features seven gunslingers from various backgrounds who are, in the pilot episode, hired by an Indigenous village to protect them against former Confederate soldiers who are threatening them. They eventually settle in a local town, employed as law enforcement officials with extremely limited judicial oversight. The Seven consist of the taciturn ‘man in black,’ Chris Larabee (Michael Biehn), quiet bounty hunter wrongfully accused of murder Vin Tanner (Eric Close), ladies’ man Buck Wilmington (Dale Midkiff), defrocked priest and (intermittently) recovering alcoholic Josiah Sanchez (Ron Perlman), young, adventure-seeking JD Dunne (Andrew Kavovit), escaped slave turned doctor Nathan Jackson (Rick Worthy) and Southern gambler, grifter and money-addict Ezra Standish (Anthony Starke). Rounding out the cast is journalist, niece of the local circuit judge and love interest for Chris, Mary Travis (Laurie Holden). The series does a number of things differently to the usual portrayals of gunslingers due to its regular setting, most notably through leveraging the homosociality of the seven leads to allow their characters to develop and discuss their feelings, relationships and traumas with each other. But the setting also allows for discourses related to settler colonialism which is what this blog will focus upon.

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The gendered makers of settlers: Sarah Stegeman, Becoming Americo-Liberian: African American Women, Culture, and the Creation of Liberia, 1840-1912, PhD dissertation, Syracuse University, 2025

29Sep25

Abstract: This dissertation highlights the role of early Black American women settlers in creating a distinct Americo-Liberian identity that served as the centerpiece of Liberian independence. Most histories of colonization focus on male settlers and consider settlement a transplanting of American culture in Liberia. The women of the Waring, Lewis, and Roberts family established new homes in Liberia, and their homemaking efforts sustained the colony and the nation. This examination of elite Americo -Liberian women’s efforts to present their domestic skills, educational attainment, and proper behavior to a global audience was essential to nation-building in Liberia. Women’s cultivation of kinship and familial structures was also central to this unique Americo-Liberian identity, which was dedicated to maintaining the respectability of their elite social status in Liberia and establishing their difference from indigenous Liberians. Rather than looking inward to indigenous Liberians to help build the nation, these women looked outward to the U.S. and Great Britain for support. This project brings women and domesticity into the history of Americo-Liberians through print, material culture, and manuscript sources from the United States, Britain, and West Africa, and offers a new focus on the women settlers who created and represented Liberia in the nineteenth century.

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The hauntology of settler domesticity: Lize van Robbroeck, ‘A Hauntology of Colonial and Settler Domesticity: The Material Semiotics of Leora Farber’s Still Life Installation, Disquieting Domesticities/Vestiges of Violence’, in Dawn Woolley, Paula Chambers (eds), Going Feral: Speculative Approaches to Animism in the Arts, Vernon Press, 2025

27Sep25

Access the chapter here.

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Settlers on Mars (as in ‘Fascisti su Marte’ [2006])! Andrew Targowski, ‘Beyond Earth: Strategic Pathways to a Multiplanet Civilization and the Case for Mars Settlement’, Comparative Civilizations Review, 93, 1, 2025, #12

27Sep25

Abstract: This research provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary exploration of the transition toward a multiplanet civilization, with a special focus on Mars as humanity’s first major step beyond Earth. By addressing technological, political, economic, and ethical dimensions, it aims to inform policymakers, scientists, and the public about the feasibility, challenges, and philosophical implications of interplanetary expansion. As humanity approaches the threshold of becoming a multiplanet civilization, it faces unprecedented scientific, technological, economic, and ethical challenges. This paper explores the rationale, methodologies, and critical considerations for establishing sustainable human settlements beyond Earth, with a particular focus on Mars. By analyzing advances in propulsion, habitat design, planetary terraforming, governance structures, and economic viability, this research outlines a roadmap for interplanetary expansion. The discussion integrates multidisciplinary perspectives from astrophysics, bioengineering, space law, and environmental ethics, providing an actionable framework for the transition toward a multiplanet species. Keywords: astrobiology, Blue Origin, CNSA, Earth, ESA, interplanetary age, Mars colonization, Mars City, Moon, Musk Elon, Musk City, multiplanet civilization, multiplanet species, NASA, space economics, space governance, space philosophy, space technology, SpaceX.

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It’s only a (settler colonial) question of time: Batool Mashaqi, Zahraa Zawawi, Huthaifa I. Ashqar, ‘Ecology of erasure: spatiotemporal colonial practices and the loss of Palestinian space, time, and lives’, GeoJournal, 90, #250, 2025

27Sep25

Abstract: This study critically examines transportation planning in the West Bank, revealing how it serves as a colonial mechanism of control and segregation, rather than a facilitator of urban growth and connectivity. Unlike cities that thrive as “living organisms” through integrated networks of roads and services, Palestinian territories are subjected to a meticulously crafted spatiotemporal colonialism through fragmentation, where movement is restricted, resources are unevenly distributed, and communities are deliberately isolated. Through an analysis of historical context, policies, zoning, and infrastructure prioritization, this study exposes the use of transportation planning as a tool to entrench colonial power, limit Palestinian self-determination, and erode the socioeconomic foundations of urban life. The findings underscore that transportation planning in the West Bank is not merely a logistical concern but a deliberate colonial strategy to reconfigure urban landscapes, control populations, and restrict Palestinian access to their own land. The study shows that the Israeli colonial power systematically strips away the quality of Palestinian life through relentless control over time and movement, turning checkpoints into sites where not only freedom but lives themselves are taken. Palestinian identity, however, extends beyond the human realm, woven into the land, water, and ecology—an enduring presence that resists erasure through its deep connection to place.

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Resisting forced displacement: Ibrahim M. Alsemeiri, Ciarán O. Carroll, Muhammad Nadir Al-Nuri Kamaruzaman, ‘Israeli Forced Displacement Engineering and Palestinian Sumūd in Gaza’, Open Journal of Social Sciences, 13, 9, 2025

27Sep25

Abstract: The ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza has resulted in the widespread killing of innocent civilians, along with the destruction of homes, universities, and critical infrastructure—deepening a humanitarian catastrophe that reflects a broader settler colonial agenda. This study investigates the deliberate strategies of forced displacement engineered by Israel in Gaza, and the corresponding practices of Palestinian sumūd (steadfastness) as forms of resistance. Situated within Settler Colonial Theory by (Patrick Wolfe, 1999), the research critically examines how Israeli military, legal, political, and media tactics function as mechanisms of population transfer and ethnic cleansing aimed at permanent demographic transformation. Drawing on thematic analysis of official Israeli government and military statements, reports from international organizations and media related to Forced Displacement, alongside thirty semi-structured interviews with Palestinians from diverse backgrounds, the study reveals the systematic nature of displacement and the resilience it engenders. Findings demonstrate that forced displacement in Gaza is not merely a wartime consequence but a central strategy of settler-colonial domination, with repeated displacements fracturing Palestinian social fabric and exhausting resistance. Palestinians’ refusal to comply with Israeli evacuation orders and their persistent rebuilding efforts embody sumūd, a powerful grassroots counter-strategy that transforms survival into political resistance. This steadfastness challenges settler-colonial attempts at erasure and asserts an enduring claim to land, identity, and futurity. The study underscores that while sumūd represents essential resilience, it must be supported by international legal accountability and global solidarity to effectively counter the machinery of ethnic cleansing. This research contributes critical insights to settler colonial studies, human rights discourse, and Palestinian resistance narratives, illuminating the urgent need for integrated approaches to halt ongoing displacement and uphold Palestinian rights.

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