settler colonial studies blog

Unresponsive academics (i.e., unresponsive to genocide, scholasticide and settler colonialism): Nicola Pratt, ‘Scholasticide in Gaza: Settler Colonial Elimination, Genocide, and the Crisis of Academic Responsibility’, e-International Relations, 24/11/25

05Dec25

Abstract: In early October 2025, a fragile ceasefire allowed some semblance of education to resume in the Gaza Strip. At Al-Aqsa University, students celebrated becoming the first cohort to graduate since October 2023, a moment of joy amidst devastation. Across Gaza, children returned to learning in buildings with shattered walls, missing desks and chairs, and classrooms still crowded with families displaced by Israel’s two-year-long assault. Amid these scenes of improvisation and resilience, the enormity of what has been lost for Palestinian education is impossible to ignore. The widescale destruction of Gaza’s educational system during Israel’s recent war is not an unfortunate by-product of conflict. It is the latest and most extreme manifestation of what Palestinian scholar Karma Nabulsi termed scholasticide in 2009: the systematic, multi-faceted destruction of Palestinian education. Scholasticide is a central mechanism of settler-colonial elimination and meets the definitional criteria of genocide by targeting the social, cultural, and intellectual reproduction of a people. Understanding this destruction as structural rather than incidental is essential for recognising not only Israel’s longstanding policies toward Palestinian education and knowledge, but also the responsibilities and complicities of universities far beyond Palestine.

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Settler colonialism in Plateau State: Anthony Ime Umoh, ‘Implications of Indigene–Settler Conflicts on Socio-Economic Activities in Plateau State, 2000–2010’, Global Journal of Modern Research Emerging Trends, 1, 5, 2025

05Dec25

Abstract: The issue of indigene-settler rivalry was a major source of intractable violent conflict in Plateau State. The conflict pitched the indigenous ethnic groups against the Hausa/Fulani settlers, resulting in wanton destruction of lives and properties and the displacement of residents. While the crisis took on an ethno-religious pattern centred around identity, it resulted in the distortion of educational, religious, and social arrangements in Jos and other parts of the state, leading to a bifurcation along religious lines. This paper examines the implication of indigene/settler conflicts on the socio-economic activities in Plateau State. The paper argues that the effect of the sudden arrangements was as a result of the crisis which led to the forced relocation of residents to safe environments, the loss of properties in the affected areas, the distortion of the original master plan of Jos, and the development of slums in parts of the state. The paper blames this development on the indigene-settler dichotomy in Plateau State, which heightened the tempo of conflict rather than mitigating it.

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Cosettlering in settler America: Ruth Hemstad, Terje Rasmussen (eds), Nordic Transatlantic Crossings Emigration, Interaction and Democracy 1825-1945, Routledge, 2026

05Dec25

Description: Adopting a broad and transnational Nordic approach, this book highlights the interconnected, transatlantic and reciprocal processes of migration and democracy with Nordic crossings. It illuminates the connections, challenges and the broader democratic context, of transatlantic crossings of various kinds and explores the intertwined practises and experiences of Nordic mass migration and American democracy. By examining episodes, reflections and trends related to inter-Atlantic encounters that challenged established norms and policies, the book brings fresh insight into the significance of transatlantic connections at certain moments in time and helps describe the development of a transatlantic public sphere and a transcultural space. This book is of key interest to scholars and students of Nordic and Scandinavian studies, American-Scandinavian studies, North American history, political theory, history of political ideas, migration studies, and more broadly to history, political science, political sociology, and literature.

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Wakefield, Mill, Marx, settler colonialism: Philippe Gillig, ‘The Validity of Marx’s Critique of J. S. Mill’s Views on Systematic Colonization’, The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2025

05Dec25

Abstract: In the final chapter of Capital I, Marx interprets the economists’ support for “systematic colonization” as an implicit admission that capitalism cannot be regarded as natural, because it needs violent state intervention. The system of colonisation devised by E. G. Wakefield consisted, indeed, in preventing new settlers arriving in the colonies from freely acquiring virgin lands, which forced them to become dependent on some capitalist. On this issue, one of Marx’s main targets is J. S. Mill. Although historians generally accept Marx’s critique, we defend the opposite view: Mill did not advocate the establishment of capitalism when supporting Wakefield.

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Tourism settler colonialism: Casey Moran, Joelle Soulard, William Stewart, ‘Settler Colonialism in Authorized Heritage Discourses’, Journal of Travel Research, 2025

04Dec25

Abstract: For tourism to be a force of social good, we must first contend with how tourism can contribute to dominating structures. This research explores settler colonial themes found in authorized heritage discourses in Berea, KY using multivocality as an analytical framework. Critical Discourse Analysis was used to better understand how authorized heritage discourses reinforce or resist settler colonial discourses. Three key themes of settler colonialism in Appalachia were reinforced, often through the absence of opposing discourse: the erasure of Black and Indigenous people, the heteropatriarchy, and the valorization of settler heroes. Researchers should connect absences with structures of domination and develop heritage management strategies emphasizing marginalized discourses. Multivocal heritage discourses resisted settler colonialism, indicating that multivocal heritage management may resist structures of domination. Heritage tourism can be a site where settler colonial themes are resisted, but practitioners and researchers must work intentionally to ensure marginalized communities are not harmed.

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Decolonial mapping represents Indigenous narratives: Karina Craig, Kaela Stewart, ‘Re-Centring First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Narratives’, Technology, 2025, pp. 331-345

04Dec25

Excerpt: Mapping, often perceived as a technical or neutral act, is fundamentally political. It is an act of selection: emphasizing some realities while excluding others, embedding subjective worldviews into seemingly objective forms. Every line drawn, every label inscribed, asserts biases, assumptions, and partialities of its maker. In this sense, mapping is never neutral—it is a site of power, negotiation, and imagination.

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When settler Libya was the model: Patrick Bernhard, ‘Libya, Mussolini, and the “White Race” : Fascist Colonialism and its Imprint on the British Empire’, in Cyrus Schayegh, David Motzafi-Haller (eds), Knowledge in Modern Transimperial History: Actors, Formations, Causes,Leiden University Press, 2025, pp. 203-233

04Dec25

Abstract: This chapter studies how journalists from Britain and key white dominions, especially Australia, collected knowledge on the fascist Italian empire’s settler-colonial efforts in the 1930s and in which complex ways they interpreted those efforts; and shows how such information helped shape contemporary political and administrative debates about Britain’s own settler-colonial efforts. In so doing, the chapter shows how people at the time saw differences and commonalities between their own colonial practices and the fascist vision of empire, what they deemed worthy of imitation and what they rejected, and how competing notions of empire were negotiated in sometimes fierce debates.

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Beating the system: Ranjan Datta, ‘You Will Never Be Enough in a Settler Colonial System: Reclaiming Land-Based Identity as Decolonial Healing and Responsibility’, 5, 2, 2025, pp. 91-98

04Dec25

Abstract: This decolonial, reflective story-sharing paper centers on reclaiming land-based identities as a ceremonial process of healing and resistance within the enduring structures of settler colonialism. Drawing from my lived experiences and guided by story-sharing methodology, it examines the systematic oppressions and reconstruction of identity, land, and spirituality imposed by settler colonial education, immigration, and governance systems. These Eurocentric systems sustain disconnections from land-based relationships while imposing hierarchical identities designed to maintain colonial power. Challenging these imposed narratives, this work affirms the significance of relational ways of knowing rooted in land-based ceremonies, responsibilities, and teachings. Positioned as both inquiry and activism, reflective story-sharing emerges as a vital decolonial method to resist settler colonial domination and advocate for land-based adaptions. Reclaiming stolen identities is framed not only as resistance but also as a political and spiritual act of love, responsibility, and healing—toward a future grounded in justice, reciprocity, and relational accountability.

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Settler Salvador: Hector M. Callejas, ‘Remembering Indigenous Genocide Indigenous Land Rights Advocacy and the Settler State in El Salvador’, Latin American Perspectives, 2025

02Dec25

Abstract: Indigenous movements in Latin America advocate for the collective rights of Indigenous communities to land, territory, and natural resources. This article shows how the production and mobilization of Indigenous genocide memory during the 2010s revealed the limits of Indigenous land rights advocacy in El Salvador. Since the late 19^th century, settler state authorities have facilitated Indigenous dispossession for the development of agro-extractivism across the national territory. In recent decades, the Salvadoran Indigenous movement has reframed a peasant massacre in 1932 as an Indigenous genocide to demand state reparations for Indigenous landlessness. In 2019, the Jaguar Sonriente network organized a commemoration and court case on the genocide to explore the possibilities for reparations within the national judicial system. The still-pending case status foregrounds the inefficacy of using rights-based discourses to challenge the state formation of Indigenous dispossession in El Salvador and beyond.

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All decentering is a recentering: Shabana Ali, ‘Unsettling the South Asian settler: Decentring (non-Indigenous) racial oppression An anti-colonial autoethnography’, Journal of Emerging Sport Studies, 12, 2025

02Dec25

Abstract: Several scholarly works have opened discourse around the complicity of non-White settlers in continuing the oppression of Indigenous Peoples through their ideological adoption of and material participation in White supremacist neoliberal capitalist structures, structures set in place through settler-colonial possibility (Chen, 2021; Pulido, 2018; Saranillio, 2013; Tuck & Yang, 2012; Upadhyay, 2016). This anti-colonial autoethnography (Laurendeau, 2023) attempts to add to this existing body of scholarship, by further considering the nuances and specificities of settler identities. More specifically, it is an exploration—without territorialization—of this author’s struggles as a racialized settler, scholar, and outdoor enthusiast involved in social justice work. In holding the twin rope tensions of being the subject of oppressive forces, while reinscribing oppression through these same forces, I attempt to engage in the on-going process of unsettling a settler self, as a means to support decolonization (Steinman, 2020).

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