settler colonial studies blog

Indigenous people and the devil (in Australia): Juanita Feros Ruys, ‘The Devil’s Coach House and Skeleton Cave: Colonial Tales, the Medieval Demonic, and the Absence of the Indigenous’, Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural, 5, 2, 2016, pp. 159-188

08Nov16

Access the abstract here.

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Climate Change is settler colonialism (II): James Ford et al, ‘Adaptation and Indigenous peoples in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’, Climatic Change, 2016

06Nov16

Abstract: Indigenous peoples are uniquely sensitive to climate change impacts yet have been overlooked in climate policy, including within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). We identify and characterize the discourse around adaptation in the UNFCCC, examining implications for Indigenous peoples based on a critical discourse analysis of the original Convention and decision texts from subsequent Conference of the Parties (CP). CP16 in Cancun (2010) was a critical juncture after which adaptation emerged as a central component of climate policy in the Convention, with a shift from a purely scientific approach to adaptation to one where local, Indigenous, and traditional knowledge are also valued. Since CP16, the discursive space for incorporating the voices, needs, and priorities of Indigenous peoples around adaptation has expanded, reflected in decision texts and engagement with Indigenous issues in the work streams of relevant bodies. We outline opportunities for greater engagement of Indigenous issues in the UNFCCC post-Paris Agreement, noting the underlying State-centric nature of the Convention limits what can ultimately be achieved.

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Climate Change is settler colonialism (I): Kathryn Norton-Smith et al, ‘Climate change and indigenous peoples: a synthesis of current impacts and experiences’, Research & Development Treesearch, 2016

06Nov16

Description: growing body of literature examines the vulnerability, risk, resilience, and adaptation of indigenous peoples to climate change. This synthesis of literature brings together research pertaining to the impacts of climate change on sovereignty, culture, health, and economies that are currently being experienced by Alaska Native and American Indian tribes and other indigenous communities in the United States. The knowledge and science of how climate change impacts are affecting indigenous peoples contributes to the development of policies, plans, and programs for adapting to climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This report defines and describes the key frameworks that inform indigenous understandings of climate change impacts and pathways for adaptation and mitigation, namely, tribal sovereignty and self-determination, culture and cultural identity, and indigenous community health indicators. It also provides a comprehensive synthesis of climate knowledge, science, and strategies that indigenous communities are exploring, as well as an understanding of the gaps in research on these issues. This literature synthesis is intended to make a contribution to future efforts such as the 4th National Climate Assessment, while serving as a resource for future research, tribal and agency climate initiatives, and policy development.

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Deschooling, abolition, decolonisation: Sujani K. Reddy, ‘We Don’t Need No Education: Deschooling as an abolitionist practice’, abolitionjournal, 11/10/16

06Nov16

Excerpt: Naming the relationship between education and settler colonization is critical, particularly given the way in which school curricula promotes a national culture characterized by an amnesia that enables the continuous reproduction of settler colonialism and its social, political, economic, cultural, biological and spiritual brutality.

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Decolonization: Inter/national action: Steven Salaita, Inter/Nationalism: Decolonizing Native America and Palestine, University of Minnesota Press, 2016

06Nov16

Description: The age of transnational humanities has arrived.” According to Steven Salaita, the seemingly disparate fields of Palestinian Studies and American Indian Studies have more in common than one may think. In Inter/Nationalism, Salaita argues that American Indian and Indigenous studies must be more central to the scholarship and activism focusing on Palestine.

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Reconciliation? Indigenous law as law: Hadley Louise Friedland, Reclaiming the Language of Law: The Contemporary Articulation and Application of Cree Legal Principles in Canada, PhD Dissertation, University of Alberta, 2016

06Nov16

Abstract: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada states the revitalization and application of Indigenous laws is vital for re‐establishing respectful relations in Canada. It is also vital for restoring and maintaining safety, peace and order in Indigenous communities. This thesis explores how to accomplish this objective. It examines current challenges, resources and opportunities for recovering, learning and practicing Indigenous laws. It develops a highly structured methodology for serious and sustained engagement with Indigenous legal traditions, based on reviewing existing methods, then combining the methods of two leading Indigenous legal scholars, John Borrows and Val Napoleon. This method approaches Indigenous stories as jurisprudence. It uses adapted legal analysis and synthesis to identify Indigenous legal principles from stories and oral histories and organize these principles into a rigorous and transparent analytical framework. These legal principles can then be readily accessed, understood and applied. This thesis demonstrates this adapted legal analysis method is teachable, transferable and replicable, using research outcomes of Cree legal principles responding to violence, harms and conflicts. Through the example of a foundational Cree legal principle, “wah-ko-to-win” (our inter-relatedness), it demonstrates how this method can also deepen our understanding of background or ‘meta-principles’ within Indigenous legal traditions, which can help us interpret, apply and change laws in legitimate ways. It then demonstrates how the research outcomes from this method may be understood and applied by Indigenous communities, through a case study exploring the development of a contemporary Cree criminal justice process based on Cree legal principles, by and with the Aseniwuche Winewak. Finally, it examines the current narratives about the appalling rates of violence against and over‐incarceration of Indigenous people in Canada and the existing gap between legitimacy and enforcement. It proposes Indigenous legal reasoning as a bridge, and develops the conceit of the “reasonable Cree person” to examine whether principled Cree legal reasoning can be explicitly recognized and implemented within Canada’s current political and legal systems. It concludes that, while there are many potential spaces for doing so, more intellectual work is necessary first, in which both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people engage with Indigenous laws as laws. It is this kind of deep engagement that is necessary to effectively and respectfully operationalize the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s compelling calls for greater recognition of Indigenous laws in Canada.

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Being indigenous under settler colonialism is being homeless: Evelyn J. Peters, Julia Christensen (eds), Indigenous Homelessness: Perspectives from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, University of Manitoba Press, 2016

03Nov16

Abstract: Being homeless in one’s homeland is a colonial legacy for many Indigenous people in settler societies. The construction of Commonwealth nation-states from colonial settler societies depended on the dispossession of Indigenous peoples from their lands. The legacy of that dispossession and related attempts at assimilation that disrupted Indigenous practices, languages, and cultures—including patterns of housing and land use—can be seen today in the disproportionate number of Indigenous people affected by homelessness in both rural and urban settings. Essays in this collection explore the meaning and scope of Indigenous homelessness in the Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They argue that effective policy and support programs aimed at relieving Indigenous homelessness must be rooted in Indigenous conceptions of home, land, and kinship, and cannot ignore the context of systemic inequality, institutionalization, landlessness, among other things, that stem from a history of colonialism. “Indigenous Homelessness: Perspectives from Canada, New Zealand and Australia” provides a comprehensive exploration of the Indigenous experience of homelessness. It testifies to ongoing cultural resilience and lays the groundwork for practices and policies designed to better address the conditions that lead to homelessness among Indigenous peoples.

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When the crown has it: Michael McCrossan, Kiera L. Ladner, ‘Eliminating Indigenous Jurisdictions: Federalism, the Supreme Court of Canada, and Territorial Rationalities of Power’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, 49, 3, 2016, pp. 411-431

02Nov16

Abstract: This paper examines judicial reasoning in the area of Aboriginal title, paying particular attention to the Supreme Court of Canada’s Tsilhqot’in Nation (2014) decision. While the decision has been heralded as a ‘game-changer’ within media circles and legal commentaries for its recognition of a claim to title under section 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982, the authors argue that the decision does not depart substantially from prior judicial logics predicated upon the production of Crown sovereignty and the denial of Indigenous legal orders. In fact, the authors argue that the decision displays a clear judicial orientation towards the present jurisdictional divisions of Canadian federalism which not only serves to eliminate Indigenous legal orders and territorial responsibilities, but also provides federal and provincial governments with enhanced powers of ‘incursion’ into Aboriginal title lands.

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When the crown has no ‘honour’: Kirsty Gover, ‘The Honour of the Crowns: State–Indigenous Fiduciary Relationships and Australian Exceptionalism’, Sydney Law Review, 38, 2016, pp. 339-368

02Nov16

Abstract: The New Zealand and Canadian Crowns are guided in their dealings with
Indigenous peoples by common law fiduciary duties. In both countries, these
duties have evolved into the constitutional principle of the ‘honour of the
Crown’, which requires governments to consult with Indigenous peoples when
contemplating legislative and executive action affecting their distinctive
interests, and to accommodate those interests where appropriate. To date, no
comparable common law duty has emerged in Australia. This article revisits
Toohey J’s remarkable, but under-analysed, judgment in Mabo v Queensland
(No 2) (‘Mabo (No 2)’), in which His Honour found that Australian Crowns
owe a general fiduciary duty to Indigenous peoples, arising by operation of law
from the ‘circumstances of the relationship’ (rather than from a treaty or
express undertaking). The judgment continues to influence contemporary
Australian courts and, in the absence of a High Court of Australia majority
finding to the contrary, the possibility remains that a general fiduciary duty may
yet emerge as a principle of Australian common law. The article argues that
fiduciary obligations of this kind are sorely needed in Australia, because the
High Court has not accepted that relational or consultative obligations to
Indigenous peoples attend the Crowns’ exercise of the ‘race power’, or that
these obligations are a precondition of the Crowns’ reliance on the ‘special
measures’ exception in the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth). As it stands,
Australian law permits and enables a degree of governmental unilateralism that
is not compatible with the role of the Crown as a fiduciary. This article explores
the possibility, suggested by Toohey J’s judgment in Mabo (No 2), that the
common law of native title could yet be the wellspring of general fiduciary
principles that could guide the conduct of Australian Crowns in their dealings
with Indigenous peoples.

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Identifying settlers by their plants: Taylor Spence, ‘The Canada Thistle: The Pestilence of American Colonialisms and the Emergence of an Exceptionalist Identity, 1783-1839’, Agricultural History, 90, 4, 2016, pp. 511-544

02Nov16

Abstract: This research demonstrates how a European plant, Cirsium arvense, common to North America since the sixteenth century and commonly considered a weed, became “Canadian ” when Early National Americans labeled it the Canada thistle in the years leading up to the War of 1812. This naming comprised part of a host of actions citizens of the new United States took to differentiate themselves from their imperial progenitor, and thus, the Canada thistle might be considered an early origin-point of an American exceptionalist identity.

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