settler colonial studies blog

The early education of settlers: Fikile Nxumalo, Decolonizing Place in Early Childhood Education, Routledge, 2019

01May19

Description: This book draws attention to the urgent need for early childhood education to critically encounter and pedagogically respond to the entanglements of environmentally damaged places, anti-blackness and settler colonial legacies. Drawing from the author’s multi-year participatory action research with educators and children in suburban settings, the book highlights Indigenous presences and land relations within ongoing settler colonialism as necessary, yet often ignored, aspects of environmental education. Chapters discuss topics such as: geotheorizing in a capitalist society, absences of Black place relations, and unsettling unquestioned Western assumptions about nature education. Rather than offer prescriptive solutions, this book works to broaden possibilities and bolster the conversation among teachers and scholars concerned with early years environmental education.

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A settler-colonial gift: Amber Dean, Angela Failler, ‘”An Amazing Gift”? Memory entrepreneurship, settler colonialism and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights’, Memory Studies, 2019

28Apr19

Abstract: Drawing on research undertaken at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, this article considers the role of memory entrepreneurship in the museum’s historic launch and in a sampling of its content, social media posts, points of sale and marketing campaigns. These examples are read in tension with Roger I. Simon’s conceptualization of ‘the terrible gift’ of what we come to know belatedly about events of mass violence, which calls into question the consolatory promises of learning from ‘those who came before us’ and the ‘lessons of their lives’. The museum’s involvement in the City of Winnipeg’s tourism initiatives and the revitalization of Winnipeg’s downtown are also considered, and we suggest that the museum’s participation in the creative economy might affect its tendency to situate human rights violations primarily in the past. Critiques of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights’ present occupation of Indigenous land and the museum (and City of Winnipeg)’s ongoing reliance on natural resources extracted at the expense of Indigenous communities remain as difficult or inassimilable knowledge. Juxtaposing Indigenous, cultural and economic critiques with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights’ advancement of memory entrepreneurship, our article explores the inter-implication of consumer culture, capitalism, settler colonialism and the museum’s ability to contribute to societal change. We conclude by turning to the activism of members of Shoal Lake 40 First Nation, arguing that their calls for access to safe water and an all-season road in and out of their community pose both an economic and a political challenge to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and its brand of memory entrepreneurship by insisting that gestures to include and proffer representational forms of recognition to Indigenous peoples must simultaneously attend to sovereigntist calls for redistribution of land and resources in order to meaningfully address the historical and ongoing injustices of settler colonialism.

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Leadership under domination: Angelique Tardivel, Navigating Indigenous Leadership in a Settler Colonial World: Ron and Patricia John ‘Come Home’ to Stó:lõ Politics, MA dissertation, University of Saskatchewan, 2019

28Apr19

Abstract: This thesis explores the evolution of Stó:lõ Leadership in the Fraser Valley from the seventies to the nineties, with a focus on Chawathil First Nation (located near Hope, BC). Through a combination of archival and oral history research, I attempt to close the gap in the literature about the post second world war generation of Stó:lõ leaders by analyzing the leadership styles and choices of two leaders from Chawathil First Nation, Patricia and Ron John. While the previous generation of Stó:lõ veterans is well studied, little has been written on Patricia and Ron’s generation, despite their experiencing significant historical events such as the civil rights movements, contemporary assimilation attempts, globalization, the rise of digital technologies, and the Constitution Express. To identify the leadership characteristics of their generation and understand their decision-making process, I analyze Patricia and Ron’s life stories through the lenses of post-colonial theory, ethnohistory, and community-engaged research. The results of this analysis suggest that this generation’s hybridity and continuation of earlier leadership practices, such as the role of task-master of early Stó:lõ leaders (si:yam), enabled them to successfully navigate both the western and the Stó:lõ worlds. From this study a model of Stó:lõ decision-making process emerges in the shape of a Stó:lõ loom, holding key Stó:lõ leadership principles and providing meaning and context to Pat and Ron’s decisions as band manager and Chief of Chawathil First Nation.

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Indigenous place-agency decolonises: Adam J Barker, Jenny Pickerill, ‘Doings with the land and sea: Decolonising geographies, Indigeneity, and enacting place-agency’, Progress in Human Geography, 2019

24Apr19

Abstract: Indigenous and decolonising geographies should be unsettling and challenging to the ontological foundations of the geographical discipline. Yet despite many scholars recognising and arguing for the need for these perspectives, Indigeneity remains marginal and Indigenous knowledge has been denied academic legitimacy within geography. Using ‘doings’ as an active, emergent, and evolving praxis, this paper examines how we can do Indigenous and settler geographies better. It illustrates how knowledge, emotions, feelings and intuition only come into being through the doings of the body with other bodies, places, and objects, including non-humans. Action and thought are indistinguishable, feeling is knowing, and the world becomes known through doing and movement. In these doings, place – particularly the land and sea – is an active agent in the making of beings and knowledge. By focusing on active doings in place, and acknowledging the temporalities of Indigenous ontologies, geographers are better able to support political and everyday struggles, situate our work in relation to colonialism, recognise and value everyday practices of resurgence, and spend time building relationships. ‘Doing’ geography differently would decentre academics as the source of knowledge production, employ more diverse voices in our teaching and provide embodied and material resistance to colonialism and neoliberal capitalism.

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Colonial America: J. M. Bacon, Matthew Norton, ‘Colonial America Today: U.S. Empire and the Political Status of Native American Nations’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 61, 2, 2019, pp. 301-331

24Apr19

Abstract: The article systematically assesses U.S.-Native relations today and their historical foundations in light of a narrow, empirical definition of colonial empire. Examining three core elements of colonial empire—the formal impairment of sovereignty, the intensive practical impairment of sovereignty through practices of governance and administration, and the continuing otherness of the dominated and dominant groups—we compare contemporary U.S.-Native political relations to canonical instances of formal colonial indirect rule empires. Based on this analysis, we argue that the United States today is a paradigmatic case of formal colonial empire in the narrow, traditional sense, one that should be better integrated into the comparative, historical, and sociological study of such formal empires. Furthermore, this prominent contemporary case stands against the idea that the era of formal colonial empire is over.

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The re-education of settlers: Jeannie Kerr, ‘Indigenous Education in Higher Education in Canada: Settler Re-Education Through New Materialist Theory’, in C. Taylor, A. Bayley (eds), Posthumanism and Higher Education, Palgrave, 2019, pp 313-328

24Apr19

Abstract: In this viewpoint, I consider the contributions of new materialist theorizing to the field of Indigenous educational initiatives in Canadian universities in the context of Settler colonialism. Acknowledging the important work of the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I explore the decolonial pedagogical priorities in higher education that have emerged in the context of national truth-telling over longstanding violences to Indigenous peoples in Canada. Framing part of this work as ‘Settler Re-Education’, I provide detail to the material and discursive context of Settler colonialism in Canadian society, and follow with a discussion of the ways that new materialisms and Barad’s agential realism provide theoretical grounding and pedagogical possibilities in Setter re-education. I conclude by sharing my related pedagogical practices in higher education that draw on a methodology of Barad’s re-turning to explore with students the diffracted patterns that emerge through material-discursive entanglements in Settler colonial society constituted by ethical indebtedness.

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Nonsettler-colonial settlements: Vanessa Sloan Morgan, Heather Castleden, Huu‐ay‐aht First Nations, ‘”Our Journey, Our Choice, Our Future”: Huu‐ay‐aht First Nations’ Self‐Government enacted through the Maa‐nulth Treaty with British Columbia and Canada’, Antipode, 2019

21Apr19

Abstract: In 2011, Huu‐ay‐aht First Nations became one of five Nuu‐chah‐nulth Nations on the west coast of Vancouver Island in Canada to implement the Maa‐nulth Treaty with the Province of British Columbia and Canada. Modern treaties are dense and lengthy legal documents that exhaustively set out the obligations of each signatory party. They are heavily criticised for being unjust extensions of colonialism that limit Indigenous self‐determination and transform homelands under settler colonial property regimes. Yet, some First Nations accept these agreements as their chosen path for self‐government in state structures. We document Huu‐ay‐aht First Nations’ decision‐making that resulted when the Maa‐nulth Treaty was implemented and replaced the Indian Act by analysing the Maa‐nulth Treaty and interviews conducted with Huu‐ay‐aht First Nations leadership. We demonstrate how ʔiisaak (respect) and ʔuuʔałuk (taking care of) guided Huu‐ay‐aht First Nations’ self‐government, while nesting this discussion in the complexities and critiques of modern treaties.

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Settler-colonial settlements: Andrew Curley, ‘Unsettling Indian Water Settlements: The Little Colorado River, the San Juan River, and Colonial Enclosures’, Antipode, 2019

21Apr19

Abstract: In the United States, indigenous nations are settling water claims for access to the continent’s surface waters. This legal‐political process transforms the nature of indigenous water use to conform with logics of quantification that are foundational to western water laws. This article critiques Indian water settlements by highlighting the inherent limitations and marginalisation of indigenous water rights in two recent examples of water settlements, the Little Colorado River Water Settlement in 2012 and the San Juan River Water Settlement in 2005. This article argues that Indian water settlements are forms of colonial enclosures, built on a lineages of law that replicates and perpetuates settler‐colonial dispossession. These settlements enclose upon unquantified Indigenous rights in the interest of colonial‐capitalist expansion in the western states.

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‘If you eat, you are involved in settler colonialism’: “Is eating a settler-colonial act?” – History, justice, and the future of food: Institute for Postcolonial Studies, May 9 @ 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

20Apr19

“If you eat, you are involved in agriculture” is a popular saying among agrarian and alternative food advocates. It is often attributed to the American poet and farmer Wendell Berry who wanted to draw attention to the way eaters are intimately connected with growers. By thinking of eating as an agricultural act, Berry believes eaters will join with growers to help co-create a more just food system that respects the environment, farm workers, animals and planetary health.

Understanding the connection between eating and growing food is a pressing issue today. But what about the past? Both eaters and growers are often ignorant of the entanglement of agriculture and settler-colonial violence. As Patrick Wolfe observed, agriculture “progressively eats into Indigenous territory” for the reproduction of the settler population, while simultaneously curtailing “the reproduction of Indigenous modes of production” and justifying violent dispossession.

If eating implicates one in agriculture, and agriculture is implicated in colonial violence, then eaters, not just farmers and graziers, are implicated in this history.

“If you eat, you are involved in settler-colonialism”.

How should we respond to this claim? What does food justice look like that recognises past injustices associated with agriculture? How would such food justice be enacted in urban farms and gardens of inner-city Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane or Perth? What would it look like in our kitchens, restaurants and supermarket aisles? Or to borrow a question from Indigenous food sovereignty scholar, Michelle Daigle, “what do everyday practices of responsibility and accountability look like for settler food actors as they live and work on contested and occupied Indigenous lands?”

This forum will explore some of these questions, raised in Christopher Mayes’s new book Unsettling Food Politics: Agriculture, dispossession and sovereignty in Australia, which will be launched at the event.

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Settler-refugees: Susanne Lachenicht, ‘Refugee “nations” and Empire-Building in the Early Modern Period’, Journal of Early Modern Christianity, 2019

18Apr19

Abstract: This article investigates to what extent the early modern period as the Confessional, Imperial and Economic Age was also an age of tolerance, how much early modern empires depended on religious minorities willing to migrate and settle overseas, how much in the words of Jonathan Israel religious migrants were “agents and victims of empire”. ¹ I will take the example of Sephardi Jews and Huguenots to analyse the agencies of persecuted religious minorities in negotiating terms and conditions for their (re-)settlement – more often than not as separate nations or at least separate communities within the ever-growing European empires.

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