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Indigenes to migrants to settlers: Mary L. Mullen, ‘How the Irish Became Settlers: Metaphors of Indigeneity and the Erasure of Indigenous Peoples’, New Hibernia Review, 20, 3, 2016, pp. 81-96

18Oct16

Excerpt: In an 1844 article in the London-based Fraser’s Magazine, Morgan Rattler opens his account “Of the Red Indian” with a story of an Irish landlord attending the Greenwich fair to see “a wild man!” This “wild man” seems to be a Native from North America: he appears with “face covered with a profusion of red, shaggy hair, a regular glib, nearly naked, and with a chain about his waist.” But as the landlord gets closer, he realizes that the man is one of his own Irish tenants, observing that “the savage seemed to display towards him some uncouth and uneasy signs of recognition.” This opening anecdote prepares the way for Rattler’s analysis, which depends upon a sustained comparison between the “Ojibbeways” of North America and the “Celtic Irish.”


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Decolonial scholarship: Jessica Venable, Brandy Ann Sato, Jimi Del Duca, Franklin Sage, ‘Decolonizing Our Own Stories A Project of the Student Storytellers Indigenizing the Academy (SSITA) Group’, International Review of Qualitative Research, 9, 3, 2016, pp. 341-362

16Oct16

Abstract: During the 2013 American Indigenous Research Association (AIRA) conference, it was noted that graduate students using Indigenous research methodologies make unique contributions to academia and have unique needs. In response, Student Storytellers Indigenizing the Academy (SSITA) was formed, a worldwide support network of graduate students using an online forum. A SSITA working group launched a project with two goals: to gather SSITA members’ stories about decolonizing research and to reflect on how decolonizing research may impact their sense of place in the Western academy. This project was also an opportunity for students to develop a method for conducting collaborative research across space, time, and cultures and share that knowledge with the broader scholarly community. Several themes emerged: our varied, sometimes disorienting, educational experiences; our difficulty in locating and accessing mentors and resources; and our resilience in developing and sharing our solutions to decolonizing our research.


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Apology as a settler colonial brand: N. Carah, E. Louw, ‘The Apologetic Brand: building Australia’s brand on a post-colonial apology’, in Z. Volcic, M. Andrejevic (eds), Commercial Nationalism: Selling the Nation and Nationalizing the Sell, Palgrave, 2016, pp. 27-45

16Oct16

Excerpt: Baz Luhrmann’s film Australia (2008) is the most expensive and one of the highest grossing films in Australian history (Connell 2008). While cinema has long been recognised for its role in constructing and mediating national identities, Australia was also an exercise in branding and promoting the nation. The film is an example of how commercial films form part of the nation-branding industry. The film was partly financed and subsidised by Australian governments and it was accompanied by a $50 million print and advertising campaign funded by Tourism Australia that reached an estimated audience of 580 million viewers worldwide (Hogan 2010). Australia uses the visual and narrative form of a Hollywood epic to construct a mythological history for the Australian identity organised around the motif of apology. Australia addresses questions of native title, colonial and frontier relations, the stolen generations and reconciliation. In doing so, the film references key events in settler-indigenous relations since the 1990s: the High Court’s 1992 Mabo decision which recognised Native Title; the 1997 Bringing Them Home report on the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, and which first called for a national apology; and the Federal Parliament’s 2008 Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples.


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Exogenous labour, settler food, indigenous lands: Elise Hjalmarson, Robyn Bunn, Amy Cohen, Edna Terbasket, Levi Gahman, ‘Race, Food, and Borders: Situating Migrant Struggle in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia’, Journal of Agriculture Food Systems, and Community Development, 5, 4, 2015

12Oct16

Abstract: Over the past century, the Okanagan Valley’s social, economic, and physical landscape has been largely shaped by the region’s agricultural industry. Within this landscape migrant farmworkers have an essential role, yet are rendered invisible and remain marginalized. This commentary explores migrants’ struggle by looking at the intersections of colonialism, race, borders, and the local food economy. We begin with a historical examination of the racialized nature of the region’s agricultural labor force, and also provide an overview of the local food economy. Following this, we outline Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) and discuss how the SAWP places migrant laborers in positions of precarity, often resulting in worker isolation and superexploitation. We then turn to the social conditions migrant workers encounter upon arriving in the Okanagan Valley by describing the institutional discrimination they face, as well as the everyday prejudices and aggressions they endure due to their status of being labeled both “foreign” and “temporary.” Next we provide a brief explanation of settler colonialism, the imposition of borders, and the common struggles shared by migrant workers and Aboriginal people. Finally, we offer some recommendations for change that would ameliorate some of the challenges migrant workers experience upon arriving in the Okanagan.


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Indigenous-settler (and other settler) relations in Quebec: Daniel Salée, Carole Lévesque, ‘The Politics of Indigenous Peoples-Settler Relations in Quebec: Economic Development and the Limits of Intercultural Dialogue and Reconciliation’, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 40, 2, 2016, pp. 31-50

12Oct16

Access the article here.


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Indigenous internationalism and the question of legal settler orders: Jonathan Crossen, ‘Safe Haven for an Indigenous Fugitive: Indigenous Internationalism and Illegal Protests’, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 40, 2, 2016, pp. 51-71.

12Oct16

Access the article here.


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Is ‘regimentation’ (of wealth) assimilation? David Kamper and Katherine A. Spilde, ‘The Legal Regimenting of Tribal Wealth: How Federal Courts and Agencies Seek to Normalize Tribal Governmental Revenue and Capital’, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 40, 2, 2016, pp. 1-29.

12Oct16

Access the article here.


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On the meaning of Old World politics in the new one: Katherine L. Hull, ‘Concerns at Home, Concerns Abroad: Irish and English Political Ephemera in Southern Ontario’, International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2016

12Oct16

Abdtract: Four unusual artifacts reflecting an unambiguous connection with a particular politician or political movement have recently been recovered from archaeological sites in Southern Ontario. These items reflect socio-political issues from the homelands of immigrant families. Politically charged items carry meaning for the user and also serve to forge bonds and create divisions within the community. Recently discovered artifacts relating to the Irish Repeal movement and the British Great Reform Act of 1832 provide examples.


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Losing colonies, dreaming of settler ones: M. Godfroy, Kourou and the Struggle for a French America, Palgrave 2015

12Oct16

Description: Kourou was to be a wonderful revenge, a French colony in America after the Seven Years War in 1763. However, the fantastic ideal became a grand failure and political disaster, marking the end of the French attempts for an American colony.


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On Marxism and indigenous struggles (part of a special issue on Red Skin, White Masks): Roxanne Amanda Dunbar-Ortiz, ‘The Relationship between Marxism and Indigenous Struggles and Implications of the Theoretical Framework for International Indigenous Struggles’, Historical Materialism, 24, 3, pp. 76–91

09Oct16

Abstract: Glen Coulthard’s masterly work, Red Skin, White Masks, raises the theoretical work of Indigenous scholarship in North America to a new level, bringing Marxism into the mix in looking at the political-economic effects of settler-colonialism on Indigenous peoples in North America. He charts a way forward for Indigenous activism outside the state, eschewing the politics of recognition. In addition to assessing Coulthard’s perspective on Marxism, this paper poses questions about privileging Indigenous social movements without addressing the national question and without including the role of the robust international Indigenous movement that has entered its fortieth year.


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