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The settler garden: Gabrielle Doiron, ‘The settler garden: Tending settler-colonial innocence: Pioneer garden exhibits and colonial grammars of conservation in Toronto’, EPF: Philosophy, Theory, Models, Methods and Practice, 2025

01Aug25

Abstract: In open-air museums and restored historic sites in Toronto, Canada, the pioneer garden exhibit is an integral part of creating a “pioneer setting” and attracting visitors. Since the 1960s, following a boost in public funding for heritage projects to celebrate the Canadian Centennial, groups and conservation authorities in Toronto have devoted time and resources to researching, implementing, and maintaining these garden exhibits. Taking for granted that the pioneer garden is a non-innocent site that was not only crucial to colonization, but continues to produce and maintain settler ecologies, this paper asks what work the pioneer garden exhibit does today. Using the analytic of “colonial grammars” and paying special attention to the history of settler colonial gardening, ongoing claims to settler innocence, erasures of settler complicity in ecological crises, and attempts to invoke contemporary ecological sensibilities, this paper describes how the pioneer garden exhibit re-narrativizes colonial planting in a way that territorializes white, settler-colonial belonging on contested Indigenous lands. This paper builds on work in political ecology, anti-colonial geography, and Black and Indigenous feminisms that clarifies the insidiousness and everydayness of white supremacist landscapes in settler-colonial places.


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Definitely, absolutely stolen (I am adding a link to this book only because this blog is a repository): Jeff Fynn-Paul, Not Stolen: The Truth About European Colonialism in the New World, Bombardier Books, 2023

01Aug25

Description: A renowned historian debunks current distortion and myths about European colonialism in the New World and restores much needed balance to our understanding of the past. Was America really “stolen” from the Indians? Was Columbus a racist? Were Indians really peace-loving, communistic environmentalists? Did Europeans commit “genocide” in the New World? It seems that almost everyone—from CNN to the New York Times to angry students pulling down statues of our founders—believes that America’s history is a shameful tale of racism, exploitation, and cruelty. In Not Stolen, renowned historian Jeff Fynn-Paul systematically dismantles this relentlessly negative view of U.S. history, arguing that it is based on shoddy methods, misinformation, and outright lies about the past. America was not “stolen” from the Indians but fairly purchased piece by piece in a thriving land market. Nor did European settlers cheat, steal, murder, rape or purposely infect them with smallpox to the extent that most people believe. No genocide occurred—either literal or cultural—and the decline of Native populations over time is not due to violence but to assimilation and natural demographic processes. Fynn Paul not only debunks these toxic myths, but provides a balanced portrait of this complex historical process over 500 years. The real history of Native and European relations will surprise you. Not only is this not a tale of shameful sins and crimes against humanity—it is more inspiring than you ever dared to imagine.


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Settler colonial legacies, current struggles (in Brazil): Geverson Ampolini,  Arlene Renk,  Silvana Winckler, ‘Colonial Legacies and Indigenous Land Disputes in Brazil’, IJRIIS, 2025

31Jul25

Abstract: The situation of Indigenous peoples in Brazil is marked by persistent historical and structural inequalities that hinder the full realization of their fundamental rights—particularly those related to land, cultural integrity, and self-determination. Although constitutional provisions and international agreements, such as International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 169, formally safeguard these rights, their implementation is undermined by institutional inertia, delays in land demarcation procedures, and regressive legal measures—notably the “time frame” thesis. These dynamics exacerbate territorial disputes and expose Indigenous populations to structural violence, criminalization, and environmental degradation. This study offers a critical analysis of the key challenges facing Indigenous peoples in contemporary Brazil, with particular emphasis on land-related conflicts, ethnopolitical resistance, and the limitations of current public policy frameworks. Drawing on a qualitative methodology grounded in recent academic and institutional literature, the research employs content and thematic analysis to explore analytical categories such as legal coloniality, environmental racism, and Indigenous self-determination.The findings suggest that Indigenous territorial struggles transcend demands for land recognition, constituting broader assertions of collective rights, alternative epistemologies, and ways of life that challenge an exclusionary and extractivist development model. Strengthening Indigenous political agency, ensuring effective land demarcation, and implementing intercultural and participatory public policies are essential steps toward dismantling colonial structures and promoting socio-environmental justice. Recognizing Indigenous peoples as political subjects is a prerequisite for building a truly pluralistic, democratic, and equitable society.


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The settlers’ first Right of Return: Samuel Agbamu, Restorations of Empire in Africa: Ancient Rome and Modern Italy’s African Colonies, Oxford University Press, 2024

29Jul25

Description: The histories of Europe and Africa are closely intertwined. At times, this closeness has been emphasized, at other times, suppressed and denied. Since the nineteenth century, European imperial powers have carved up the continent of Africa among themselves, drawing borders and charting shorelines; in the process, inventing Africa. This was a project anchored in ancient Greek and Roman representations of Africa. For Italy, colonialism in Africa was a matter of consolidating its project of national unification, nominally completed in 1870 with the capture of Rome. By asserting its position as an imperial power, the young nation of Italy hoped to join the club of European nation-states and, in so doing, be rid of the perception that it was a country somewhere in between Europe and Africa. Yet, Italy’s colonial endeavour in Africa was also a project with deep historical meaning. Italy posed its imperial project in Africa as a national return to territory which was rightfully Italian. Italian ideologues of imperialism based this claim on the history of Roman history on the continent. When Italian soldiers disembarked on the beaches of Libya during Italy’s invasion of 1911-1912, and came across the ruins of Roman imperialism, they were, according to prominent cultural and political figures in Italy, rediscovering the traces of their ancestors. Yet, when Italian imperial ambitions set their sights on East Africa, regions that had not been conquered by Rome, how could Italy nevertheless shape its imperial project in the image of ancient Rome? This book charts this story. Beginning with Italy’s first imperial endeavours on the African continent in the last decades of the nineteenth century and continuing right through to Italy’s current attitudes towards Africa, this book argues that empire in Africa was a central aspect of Italian nation-building, and that this was a project which anchored itself in memories of ancient Rome in Africa. Although Fascism’s invasion of Ethiopia (1935-1936) is the best-known moment of Italian imperialism in Africa, this book shows that Italian imperialism, modelled on ancient Rome, has a history which long predates Mussolini’s movement, and has a legacy which continues to be acutely felt.


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Settler colonial Kashmir: Saba Ghulam Nabi, Abdul Rehman, ‘Hegemony, Settler Colonialism, and Dispossession: Decoding India’s Restructuring of Jammu and Kashmir, International Journal of Social Sciences Bulletin, 3, 7, 2025, pp. 669-680

29Jul25

Abstract: This paper interrogates the contemporary transformation of the Kashmir conflict through the theoretical lenses of settler colonialism, Gramscian hegemony, and David Harvey’s concept of accumulation by dispossession. In the aftermath of the revocation of Article 370, the Bhartiya Janata Party-led Indian government has intensified its Hindutva-oriented policies in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir, employing coercive legal frameworks, demographic reengineering, and cultural repression. The study situates these developments within a settler colonial framework, wherein state-led infrastructural expansion and legal manipulation facilitate the displacement of indigenous populations and the restructuring of territorial control. Simultaneously, the BJP’s invocation of development and normalcy operates as a hegemonic project, relying not solely on coercion but on the cultural and institutional internalization of Hindu nationalist ideology to legitimize domination and suppress dissent. These processes are further examined through the prism of accumulation by dispossession, as land acquisition, ecological degradation, and the restructuring of the region’s agrarian economy disproportionately benefit state and corporate interests at the expense of Kashmir’s local population. The paper argues that the BJP’s policies represent an intertwined project of ideological, territorial, and economic domination, reshaping the identity, demography, and political landscape of the region under the guise of development.


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The green settler: Maya B. Henderson, Jennifer L. Rice, ‘The Good Green Settler: An Examination of Settler-Colonial Climate Action in Seattle, Washington’, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2025

29Jul25

Abstract: Cities are important sites to address climate change; however, it is crucial that urban climate action does not reinforce systems of oppression that created the climate crisis in the first place. This article explores the tensions that exist when a settler-colonial city aims to define what it means to be climate friendly. We examine climate mitigation efforts of Seattle, Washington—a city that prides itself on its close relationship with nature and Indigenous peoples. By critically evaluating Seattle’s climate policies and programs, we demonstrate the presence of colonial logics in Seattle’s climate mitigation plans, showing how urban climate action can reinforce settler-colonialism through logics of control, efficiency, and universalism. We then demonstrate how a lack of attention to settler-colonial power dynamics justifies what we call the “good green settler” as who belongs in the climate-friendly city. Their presence further naturalizes the settler-colonial city as stewards of land, marginalizing Indigenous ways of knowing and being. We conclude by arguing that achieving true climate justice requires listening to populations that have historically and contemporarily been harmed by settler-colonialism, as they are most affected by climate change and their experiences hold world-changing knowledge.


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Settler cinema and beyond: Carson Wang, ‘Beyond an Asian settler cinema: Asian American media, PBS, and the settler colonial state’, Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, 63, 2025

29Jul25

Excerpt: The article examines the complex relationship between Asian American media and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), arguing that Asian American media functions as a settler colonial media movement that reinforces the legitimacy of the U.S. state while seeking equality and redress for Asian Americans. It highlights how PBS’s commitment to a nationalist version of multiculturalism shapes the narratives produced by Asian American filmmakers, often sidelining indigenous sovereignty and struggles. Through case studies of three media works—*Ancestors in the Americas*, *The Great American Recipe*, and *Terminal USA*—the article illustrates how these productions reflect and challenge the dynamics of settler colonialism, ultimately critiquing the limitations of state-supported multiculturalism and advocating for a more radical, decolonial approach to Asian American media.


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Metissage as a way out? Heather Bensler, ‘Self-in-Relation: Seeking Understanding and Transformation through Indigenous Métissage’, Journal of Applied Hermeneutics, 2025

29Jul25

Abstract: In this article, I consider the narrative practice of Indigenous Métissage as a creative, subversive praxis to help understand my identity as a settler in Canada and how settler colonialism has shaped my relationship to Indigenous peoples, history, and Land in Canada. Given the hermeneutic roots of Indigenous Métissage, I suggest it is a research approach that can handle the complexities inherent in these relationships while also providing imagination and hope for transformation. I discuss how personal, and family stories can be textually braided with larger national narratives to draw attention to similarities and differences with the hopes of provoking understanding and new ways of seeing Indigenous and settler relations.


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The frozen language of settlers (II): Karen A. Rösch, ‘The Texas Alsatian Dialect in Medina County, Texas’, YGAS Supplemental Issue, 6, 2025, pp. 191-227

28Jul25

Excerpt: The Alsatian dialect was transported to Texas in the early 1800s, when entrepreneur Henri Castro recruited colonists from the French Alsace to comply with the Republic of Texas’ stipulations for populating one of his land grants located just west of San Antonio. Castro’s colonization efforts succeeded in bringing 2,134 German-speaking colonists from 1843-47 (Jordan 2004: 45-47; Weaver 1985:109) to his land grants in Texas, which resulted in the establishment of four colonies: Castroville (1844); Quihi (1845); Vandenburg (1846); D’Hanis (1847). Castroville was the first and most successful settlement and serves as the focus of this chapter, as it constitutes the largest concentration of Alsatian speakers. This chapter provides both a descriptive account of the ancestral language, Alsatian, and the current Alsatian language as spoken today, as well as a discussion of sociolinguistic and linguistic processes (e.g., use, shift, variation, regularization, etc.) observed and documented since 2007.


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The frozen language of settlers (I): Ryan Dux, ‘Wisconsin Pomeranian Low German’, YGAS Supplemental Issue 6, 2025, pp. 5-36

28Jul25

Excerpt: The U.S. state of Wisconsin is well-known for its rich German (broadly speaking) heritage and culture, yet the number of competent German speakers has drastically decreased over the past century. Here, I discuss the present state of the German language in Wisconsin, with a particular focus on the moribund Pomeranian Low German dialect spoken in Marathon and Lincoln counties in the central area of the state. The primary data for the linguistic analysis come from interviews conducted by the author in 2013 and 2014 with the last generation of German speakers in this area. “Wisconsin German” differs from other German-American varieties such as Texas German and Pennsylvania German in that immigrants from different German dialect areas formed small, relatively isolated communities and largely maintained their regional varieties, and these varieties did not mix or coalesce into a unified, mutually intelligible koiné. Thus, the moniker “Wisconsin German” is less appropriate than community-specific terms such as “Central Wisconsin Pomeranian,” “Dane County Kölsch,” or “New Glarus Swiss German.” Like most German-American varieties, Wisconsin German has undergone drastic language shift since around 1940 and is nearing the point of language death, as most competent speakers are well over the age of 65. The Pomeranian Low German community of central Wisconsin is representative of this linguistic situation: the immigrants formed a small community in a rural area centered around small country churches and most speakers had some command of both the regional dialect and standard High German, resulting in a unique situation of language contact. In this paper, I first provide a general overview of German(s) in Wisconsin (Section 2), before discussing the sociohistorical background (Section 3) and structure (Section 4) of Central Wisconsin Pomeranian.


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