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Disavowing human relationships can be done by emphasising other ones: Azeezah Kanji, ‘Colonial Animality: Constituting Canadian Settler Colonialism through the Human-Animal Relationship’, in Marc Woons, Sebastian Weier (eds), Critical Epistemologies of Global Politics, E-International Relations Publishing, 2017, pp. 63-78.

10Jun17

Abstract: Located at the juncture of critical animal studies and decolonial theory, this analysis contemplates the connections and entanglements between settler colonialism and animality in Canadian constitutional discourse. How are coloniality and anthropocentricism — and the borders they draw between humanity, infra-humanity, and non-humanity — (re)produced with and through one another in Canadian constitutional jurisprudence and discourse? The very concepts used to understand and dispute the legal status of non-human animals (property and personhood, humanity and citizenship, rights and sovereignty) are shot through with the coloniality of their genealogies (see, for example, Anghie 2007; Isin 2012). Canadian constitutional law and legal discourse — the juridical warp and woof of the settler colonial state — therefore serves as one productive site for investigating the underexplored relationship between settler colonialism and animality, and for thinking through the mutual salience of decolonial and animal liberation projects.


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A discussion forum on settler colonialism: How, Where, and When; Lateral, 6, 1, 2017

09Jun17

Beenash Jafri, “Ongoing Colonial Violence in Settler States,” Lateral 6.1 (2017).

Melissa Gniadek, “The Times of Settler Colonialism,” Lateral 6.1 (2017).

J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, “Thinking with Melissa Gniadek and Beenash Jafri,” Lateral 6.1 (2017).


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Alliances! Zoltán Grossman, Unlikely Alliances Native Nations and White Communities Join to Defend Rural Lands, University of Washington Press, 2017

09Jun17

Description: Often when Native nations assert their treaty rights and sovereignty, they are confronted with a backlash from their neighbors, who are fearful of losing control of the natural resources. Yet, when both groups are faced with an outside threat to their common environment-such as mines, dams, or an oil pipeline-these communities have unexpectedly joined together to protect the resources. Some regions of the United States with the most intense conflicts were transformed into areas with the deepest cooperation between tribes and local farmers, ranchers, and fishers to defend sacred land and water.

Unlikely Alliances explores this evolution from conflict to cooperation through place-based case studies in the Pacific Northwest, Great Basin, Northern Plains, and Great Lakes regions during the 1970s through the 2010s. These case studies suggest that a deep love of place can begin to overcome even the bitterest divides.


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Settler colonialism is a transnational phenomenon: Steven Salaita, ‘Zionism and Native American Studies’, Abolition Journal, 06/06/17

08Jun17

Excerpt: It was only a matter of time before Zionism and Native American Studies [NAS] came into conflict—or, to be more precise, before Zionists began targeting the field for acrimony and recrimination, as they have long done to various humanities and social science disciplines. 


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Drinking colonialism! Sami Lakomäki, Ritva Kylli, Timo Ylimaunu, ‘Drinking Colonialism: Alcohol, Indigenous Status, and Native Space on Shawnee and Sámi Homelands, 1600–1850’, Native American and Indigenous Studies, 4, 1, 2017, pp. 1-29

07Jun17

Access the article here.


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Civic inclusion as a settler weapon: David Myer Temin, ‘Custer’s Sins: Vine Deloria Jr. and the Settler-Colonial Politics of Civic Inclusion’, Political Theory, 2017

05Jun17

Abstract: While “inclusion” has been seen as a central mode of redressing ongoing injustices against communities of color in the US, Indigenous political experiences feature more complex legacies of contesting US citizenship. Turning to an important episode of contestation, this essay examines the relation between inclusion and the politics of eliminating Indigenous nations that was part of a shared policy shift toward “Termination” in the Anglo-settler world of the 1950s and 1960s. Through a reading of Indigenous activist-intellectual Vine Deloria Jr.’s Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (1969), it demonstrates how the construction of what I call the “civic inclusion narrative” in post–World War II American political discourse disavowed practices of empire-formation. Widely considered a foundational text of the Indigenous Sovereignty Movement, the work repositioned Indigenous peoples not as passive recipients of civil rights and incorporation into the nation-state but as colonized peoples actively demanding decolonization. Deloria’s work provides an exemplary counterpoint to the enduring thread of civic inclusion in American political thought and an alternative tradition of decolonization—an imperative that continues to resonate in today’s North American and global Indigenous struggles over land, jurisdiction, and sovereignty.


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Genocidal and sympathetic (like most settlers): Hunter Liguore, ‘Sympathy or Racism’? L. Frank Baum on Native Americans’, Great Plains Quarterly, 37, 2, 2017, pp. 77-82

05Jun17

Excerpt: Some might say there is nothing more American than the children’s classic The Wizard of Oz or its author, L. Frank Baum. More than a hundred years after the book’s first printing in 1900, it’s still popular and beloved, with new additions to the franchise appearing in movies, books, an upcoming biopic, and even a casino.

Recently, the Oneida Nation in Chittenango, New York, announced plans to build a twenty-million-dollar casino that will honor the late author’s birthplace, an endeavor that will provide jobs and economic growth in the area. Yet the decision has warranted public criticism due to Baum’s 1890 editorials in the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, calling for the “annihilation of the few remaining Indians.” While many historians and readers see the editorials as resounding evidence of Baum’s racist views toward Native Americans, others believe his fiction demonstrates that he was sympathetic to their plight, especially their loss of land, religion, and culture.

L. Frank Baum’s nonfiction writing and editorial work serve as a resource for understanding his position on politics and race. Baum moved his family from Chittenango to the Great Plains, hoping to find open space and a newfound freedom, one that the “city life” couldn’t offer. Hardly settled, he opened Baum’s Bazaar and quickly made a name for himself selling fancy goods, like Chinese lanterns and music boxes, to Aberdeen’s wealthy decision makers.

With business doing well, Baum bought the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer and filled it with news and entertainment for his readers, including the “Editor’s Musings” and “Our Landlady” columns. A staunch supporter of women’s rights, Baum devoted a considerable amount of space voicing his opinions on the subject, advocating for a women’s right to vote. His mother-in-law, Matilda Gage, was a cofounder of the National Woman Suffrage Association with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and she not only encouraged him to write but is said to be the influence behind the feminist themes found in the Oz books. Gage was also “adopted” into the Mohawk Nation in 1893.

Around this time, relations between Native Americans and European settlers had been one of conflict. The General Allotment Act of 1887 sought to relocate the Sioux onto reservations. Within two years, North and South Dakota were formed. While settlers feared a Sioux uprising, they would’ve also witnessed suppression of Native culture and religion, and even loss of hunting lands, leading some to starvation. Meanwhile, settlers were dealing with their own struggles, including economic hardships and food scarcities, as the area faced continued drought—another topic Baum covered fiercely.

Eventually, Baum was forced to close the store. He then focused solely on the newspaper, reporting on the issues of his day, including the relationships between the Sioux and settlers. One story he’s credited with publishing was written by Aberdeen resident Hamlin Garland, who attempted to reach common ground between the two sides. In The Real Wizard of Oz, Rebecca Loncraine explains, the settler in Garland’s story, burdened by labor and loneliness, gets emotional when “for the first time in his life he got a glimpse of the infinite despair of the Indian.” The settler approaches “Drifting Crane,” a reference to the Sioux chief Drifting Goose, and tells him that the war is “all wrong . . . there’s land enough for us all, or ought to be.” The settler doesn’t understand why it can’t be shared.


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Can reconciliation lead to reverse racism? Of course not: Danielle Lorenz, ‘Reversing Racism in the Time of Reconciliation? Settler Colonialism, Race, and Alberta Teachers’, Canadian Journal for New Scholars in Education, 8, 1, 2017

05Jun17

Abstract: With Alberta Education planning new policies and curricula that focus on Indigenous content, it is important to see how educators recognize and explain racism. This quanti-qualitative study examines the ways in which Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) members understand and articulate racism through their responses to an anonymous online survey. This is investigated through an interrogation of the idea of “reverse racism.” Utilizing settler colonialism as a theoretical framework, this article uses the history of race as a concept and an exploration of terms related to racism to refute the possibility of white people experiencing racism in Canada. The article concludes that settler colonialism and racism are coexisting and oppressive systems that prohibit reconciliatory thinking for settlers. 


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‘Fourth’ (indigenous) cinema is not ‘first’ (settler) cinema: Joanna Hearne, ‘Native to the Device: Thoughts on Digital Indigenous Studies’, Studies in American Indian Literatures, 29, 1, 2017, pp. 3-26

30May17

Excerpt: In studies of Indigenous film and video, the camera has been a powerful metaphor for Indigenous struggles over control of the image. This is articulated most vividly in Māori filmmaker Barry Barclay’s invocation of the camera’s contrapuntal position, embedded in the mechanics of shot / reverse shot, to characterize Indigenous and settler filmmaking in his seminal essay “Celebrating Fourth Cinema.” He imagines the settler perspective—“First Cinema”—represented by “the camera of the ship’s deck,” while an Indigenous perspective—“Fourth Cinema”—arises from the “camera ashore” (8–9). Barclay visualizes this staged encounter, from ship to shore, in terms of lines of sight—the eyeline match edit—and the politics of conquest. It is a metaphor with geographic specificity (in Aotearoa) that is also global, connecting lands, peoples, and representation through the articulated positionalities of encounter. Barclay applies it broadly, asserting that Fourth Cinema exists “outside the national orthodoxy” altogether while tracing the transnational heritage of dominant film storytelling to the originary scene of settler colonialism (9). He illustrates the camera of the ship’s deck with examples from the film Mutiny on the Bounty. To show the global relevance of his vision of the camera ashore, we might take up the example of Abenaki director Alanis Obomsawin’s 2002 documentary Is the Crown at War with Us?, in which we see home videos of Mi’gmaq tribal members’ confrontation with the Canadian federal fishery office over fishing rights in Miramichi Bay. From the shore, Mi’gmaq cameras capture evidence of Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ boats violently running over the much smaller boats of the Mi’gmaq fishers of Burnt Church, New Brunswick.


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Indefinite detention is settler colonialism: Harry Blagg, Tamara Tulich, Zoe Bush, ‘Indefinite Detention Meets Colonial Dispossession Indigenous Youths With Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders in a White Settler Justice System’, Social & Legal Studies, 2017

30May17

Abstract: Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is a non-diagnostic umbrella term encompassing a spectrum of disorders caused by prenatal alcohol exposure. This article reports on a qualitative research project undertaken in three Indigenous communities in the West Kimberley region of Western Australia, intended to develop diversionary pathways for Indigenous young people with FASD at risk of enmeshment in the justice system. Rates of FASD in some parts of the West Kimberley are comparable to the highest identified internationally. A diagnosis of FASD amplifies the chances of Indigenous youth being caught up in the justice system in Western Australia, including indefinite detention in prison if found unfit to stand trial. A fresh diversionary paradigm is required. Employing a postcolonial perspective, we explore issues surrounding law and justice intervention – and non-intervention – in the lives of Indigenous children and their families. The FASD problem cannot be uncoupled from the history of colonial settlement and the multiple traumas resulting from dispossession, nor can solving the problem be isolated from the broader task of decolonizing relationships between Indigenous people and the settler mainstream. The decolonizing process involves expanding the role of Indigenous owned and place-based processes and services embedded in Indigenous knowledge.


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