Description: In Colonial Lives of Property Brenna Bhandar examines how modern property law contributes to the formation of racial subjects in settler colonies and to the development of racial capitalism. Examining both historical cases and ongoing processes of settler colonialism in Canada, Australia, and Israel and Palestine, Bhandar shows how the colonial appropriation of indigenous lands depends upon ideologies of European racial superiority as well as upon legal narratives that equate civilized life with English concepts of property. In this way, property law legitimates and rationalizes settler colonial practices while it racializes those deemed unfit to own property. The solution to these enduring racial and economic inequities, Bhandar demonstrates, requires developing a new political imaginary of property in which freedom is connected to shared practices of use and community rather than individual possession.

Excerpt: It is no secret that the Indigenous community in Winnipeg has faced many challenges. The Indigenous peoples and Settler Canadians alike are aware of the stereotypes and prejudice that surrounds and plagues this community. As Settler Canadians have attempted to grapple with this social issue, they have labelled it the Indian Problem, all the while neglecting to acknowledge the more concerning Settler Problem.

Abstract: Settler colonialism, a process by which settlers take control of and transform both the land and people who live in a region into the settlers’ image, was a defining force in Oklahoma’s formation and remains pervasive in Oklahoman memory. To contextualize the idea’s impact in Oklahoma history, this thesis explores settler colonialism’s expressions on the Southern Great Plains, such as the Boomer movement – a fanatical settler colony based in Wichita, Kansas. The Boomers were at heart a settler colonial organization, but they were not unique. Hundreds of smaller colonies attempted to seize land in Indian Territory (modern day Oklahoma) between 1879 and 1901; in examining these organizations through the lens of settler colonialism, it is clear that the impact of the Boomers must be balanced within the broader context of settler colonialism on the Southern Plains; that Indigenous people in Indian Territory shaped the forces of settler colonialism; that the Boomers and their compatriots largely failed to make their dreams into a legal reality; that the subsequent state of Oklahoma Territory was fundamentally a far more aggressive settler colonial institution than the Boomers; and that settler colonialism remains an extremely pervasive force in Oklahoman identity and thought. To undo the historiographical and memorial damage created by settler colonialism in Oklahoma, a complete autopsy of the Boomers, Oklahoma history, and Southern Plains settler colonialism is necessary.

Abstract: In Latin America, ethnicity is equated with indigenity. It is an objective of this article to review the legacy of Anthony Smith regarding the vitality of the ethnic past and the myth of origin, as the core of his theory of nationalism based on the weight of ethnocentrism. To this end, we address two routes, the use of the ethnic past and ethnicity by nationalists and founders of the state and, how indigenous intellectuals, on the other, have found a reinvention of their identities through various myths of Amerindian origin. Ethnic myths and the use of the ethnic past have been accepted, denied or rejected by nationalists, while indigenous peoples adhere to their own myths or seek to reinvent them. Mythical information is a component of identity but also requires institutions to disseminate such information among the group.

Description: This book analyses the development of the coffee sector in colonial Zimbabwe within the broader context of agrarian capitalism in settler economies. It unpacks the central philosophy of statecraft based on the desire to develop Southern Rhodesia as a permanent white settler colony. The development of the coffee sector was designed to fulfil the objective of expanding economic opportunities for white settlers and to increase their incomes in order to inspire immigration and discourage emigration. Expanded incomes were similarly vital in sponsoring the highly eulogised civilised standards of living. The book casts the development of the coffee sector as an alternative prism through which the nature of the anatomy of colonial Zimbabwean political economy can be unpacked. The book departs from the dominant macro-approach in detailing the development of colonial Zimbabwean agrarian capitalism to the micro-twist which analyses sector specificities important in enhancing our understanding of the Southern Rhodesian economy. It will appeal to economic historians, historians and political economists, and explores various themes including labour, marketing and the role of the state in allocating productive forces.

Description: Towards a New Ethnohistory engages respectfully in cross-cultural dialogue and interdisciplinary methods to co-create with Indigenous people a new, decolonized ethnohistory. This new ethnohistory reflects Indigenous ways of knowing and is a direct response to critiques of scholars who have for too long foisted their own research agendas onto Indigenous communities. Community-engaged scholarship invites members of the Indigenous community themselves to identify the research questions, host the researchers while they conduct the research, and participate meaningfully in the analysis of the researchers’ findings.

The historical research topics chosen by the Stó:lō community leaders and knowledge keepers for the contributors to this collection range from the intimate and personal, to the broad and collective. But what principally distinguishes the analyses is the way settler colonialism is positioned as something that unfolds in sometimes unexpected ways within Stó:lō history, as opposed to the other way around.

Description: “I am here. You will never be alone. We are dancing for you.” So begins Cutcha Risling Baldy’s deeply personal account of the revitalization of the women’s coming-of-age ceremony for the Hoopa Valley Tribe. At the end of the twentieth century, the tribe’s Flower Dance had not been fully practiced for decades. The women of the tribe, recognizing the critical importance of the tradition, undertook its revitalization using the memories of elders and medicine women and details found in museum archives, anthropological records, and oral histories.

Deeply rooted in Indigenous knowledge, Risling Baldy brings us the voices of people transformed by cultural revitalization, including the accounts of young women who have participated in the Flower Dance. Using a framework of Native feminisms, she locates this revival within a broad context of decolonizing praxis and considers how this renaissance of women’s coming-of-age ceremonies confounds ethnographic depictions of Native women; challenges anthropological theories about menstruation, gender, and coming-of-age; and addresses gender inequality and gender violence within Native communities.

Description: When the US Army Corps of Engineers began planning construction of The Dalles Dam at Celilo Village in the mid-twentieth century, it was clear that this traditional fishing, commerce, and social site of immense importance to Native tribes would be changed forever. Controversy surrounded the project, with local Native communities anticipating the devastation of their way of life and white settler-descended advocates of the dam envisioning a future of thriving infrastructure and industry.

In In Defense of Wyam, having secured access to hundreds of previously unknown and unexamined letters, Katrine Barber revisits the subject of Death of Celilo Falls, her first book. She presents a remarkable alliance across the opposed Native and settler-descended groups, chronicling how the lives of two women leaders converged in a shared struggle to protect the Indian homes of Celilo Village. Flora Thompson, member of the Warm Springs Tribe and wife of the Wyam chief, and Martha McKeown, daughter of an affluent white farming family, became lifelong allies as they worked together to protect Oregon’s oldest continuously inhabited site. As a Native woman, Flora wielded significant power within her community yet outside of it was dismissed for her race and her gender. Martha, although privileged due to her settler origins, turned to women’s clubs to expand her political authority beyond the conventional domestic sphere. Flora’s and Martha’s coordinated efforts offer readers meaningful insight into a time and place where the rhetoric of Native sovereignty, the aims of environmental movements in the American West, and women’s political strategies intersected.

Excerpt: From the dawn of history Al-Quds (Jerusalem) has been shaped by withstanding various conquests and regimes, all of whom exerted their influence on the city and society of Jerusalem. Yet, throughout its tumultuous lifespan, Jerusalem has maintained its ability to captivate — and perhaps even hold captive — those who have tried to harness its spiritual appeal under their power. In contrast, the Palestinian deep and, indeed spiritual, connection with Jerusalem has been cultivated through a continuous and rich historical experience. The collective identity of the Palestinians has been shaped through living in and cultivating their land, building their cities and towns, constructing their educational system.

Since the 1967 War until today, Israel has occupied East Jerusalem, whereas West Jerusalem has been occupied since 1948. From that time on, Palestinians have been struggling to break free from this occupation, considered by many scholars as an advanced form of settler colonialism. The Palestinian willingness to defend the city of Jerusalem and to preserve its Palestinian identity was manifested in many forms and on many occasions, the most significant being the first two intifadas (uprisings) in 1987 and 2000, respectively, where thousands of Palestinians sacrificed their lives and many more were wounded, imprisoned, and detained. It should be mentioned in this respect that the second intifada was triggered by the provocative visit of Ariel Sharon — a former general who served as Defense Minister as well as Prime Minister of the Israeli government – to the holy Muslim site of the Haram al-Sharif, sparking clashes and violence between Palestinians and Israeli armed forces.

Abstract: The primacy accorded individual civil and political rights is often touted as one of the United States’ greatest achievements. However, mass incarcerations of indefinite duration have occurred consistently throughout US history and have primarily targeted people of color. The dominant narrative insists that the United States is a political democracy and portrays each instance of indefinite detention in exceptionalist terms. This essay argues that the historical patterns of indefinite detention are better explained by recognizing the United States as a settler colonial state whose claimed prerogative to expand its territorial reach and contain/control populations over which it exercises jurisdiction has inevitably resulted in the involuntary inclusion and concomitant exclusion of peoples of color.