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Decolonising settler art: Michael J. Farnan, Representing Wilderness: Community, Collaboration, and Artistic Practice, PhD dissertation, University of Western Ontario, 2016

23Oct16

Abstract: This dissertation project serves as an inquiry into Canadian representational practices and discourses surrounding colonialism, wilderness, nature and nationhood. The written thesis presented here is part of a multidisciplinary project that also comprised of an art exhibition held at Western’s McIntosh Gallery, from June 3rd to Junes 25th, 2016. This paper, alongside the drawing, sculpture, and videos created for my exhibition, examine depictions of nature and nation in Canada through an analysis of antimodernism, primitivism, and a seeking of the spiritual connected to constructions of “white wilderness” and the spatial imaginary of Canada’s colonial frontier. This paper also explores ways in which decolonial art and theory seeks to challenge those same configurations of identity and power, including the development of settler-based decolonizing strategies aimed at unsettling dominant political and cultural narratives.

Specifically in relation to my own art practice, this means challenging the enduring colonial legacies of Canada’s settler past and the contemporary representational practices that continue to privilege and empower colonial constructions of space and place. This
dissertation project proposes a collaborative-based research practice that operates in relation to issues of the local, domestic, and lived practices of people and their interaction with the environment. As such, this paper examines mainstream articulations of nature and nation in Canada through historicized interpretations of dominant Settler/First Nation narratives and demonstrates how an understanding of this history becomes vitally important when trying to achieve performative, transformative, and collaborative understandings of the colonial experience that continues to define life in Canada.


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On the sacred role of the most recent colonisations (II): Theresa Miller, ‘Conjuring Property: An Interview with Jeremy Campbell’, Engagement: A blog published by the Anthropology and Environment Society, a section of the American Anthropological Association, 15/09/16

23Oct16

This piece discusses Jeremy Campbell’s Conjuring Property: Speculation and Environmental Futures in the Brazilian Amazon (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2015).


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On the sacred role of the most recent colonisations (I): Paerau Warbrick, ‘A cause for nervousness: The proposed Māori land reforms in New Zealand’, AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples , 12, 4, 2016

23Oct16

Abstract: This commentary reflects upon the major Māori land reforms in te Ture Whenua Māori Bill (2016). The reforms implement more bureaucracy and replace some mechanisms used by the Māori Land Court to protect against Māori land loss. The Waitangi Tribunal, which has dealt with Māori grievances over land loss for over 30 years, issued a critical report in March 2016 along with recommendations about the reforms. That report was largely ignored by the New Zealand Government. This commentary contains a review of the literature on Māori land to date, as it helps to understand the ideas behind the Tribunal’s report as well as the reforms. There is also an examination of the main points made by the Waitangi Tribunal, as well as aspects of te Ture Whenua Māori Bill (2016). The overall conclusion is that the Māori people should be very nervous about the reforms for their lands.


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On the sacred role of the most ancient colonisations: Karin W. Tikkanen, ‘On the Building of a Narrative’, Mnemosyne, 2016

23Oct16

Introduction: The ver sacrum ritual remains a riddle in the early history of the Apennine peninsula. Several ancient Roman as well as Greek sources use the ritual in explaining Samnite movements across the peninsula, as ritual group expulsion of settlers sent out to colonize new lands. In short, this becomes the narrative ‘plot’ of archaic colonization.The ritual is however described very differently in the different sources, with regard to detail and to the plot elements involved in the tale. This article explores the various layers in the rendering of the ritual, and the different voices that take part in forming the ver sacrum narrative. With this perspective the ver sacrum becomes an expanded testimony of a tradition, used by different authors to stress various elements of their own historical reports.


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Different modes of domination always overlap: Justin Leroy, ‘Black History in Occupied Territory: On the Entanglements of Slavery and Settler Colonialism’, Theory & Event, 19, 4, 2016

18Oct16

Abstract: Recent work in black and indigenous studies has made claims to exceptionalism that leave the two fields at an impasse. This article argues that since the nineteenth century, US colonial projects have relied upon a simultaneous logic of anti-blackness and settlement. It further argues that social movements have been able to capitalize on radical forms of solidarity by suspending claims to exceptionalism so pervasive in scholarship. It concludes with a sketch of black-Palestinian solidarity activism, paying particular attention to how the anti-blackness at work in the Israeli settler project makes blackness resonate in Palestine and occupation resonate among black Americans.


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On the gender of settler states: Audra Simpson, ‘The State is a Man: Theresa Spence, Loretta Saunders and the Gender of Settler Sovereignty’, Theory & Event, 19, 4, 2016

18Oct16

Abstract: This article examines the relationship between settler colonialism and Indigenous women’s life and death. In it, I examine the incredulity and outrage that obtained to a hunger strike of (Chief) Theresa Spence and the murder of Loretta Saunders. Both affective modes were torn from the same book of exonerating culpability from a public that denied an historic and political relationship between Indigenous women’s death and settler governance. The paper argues that in spite of this denial, these deaths worked effectively to highlight the gendered, biopolitical life of settler sovereignty.


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On the criminalisation of indigenous resistance: Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark, ‘Criminal Empire: The Making of the Savage in a Lawless Land’, Theory & Event, 19, 4, 2016

18Oct16

Abstract: Indigenous resistance in the 19th century was recast as criminal activities, enabling the US and Canada to avert attention from their own illegality. The imposition of colonial law, facilitated by casting Indigenous men and women as savage peoples in need of civilization and constructing Indigenous lands as lawless spaces absent legal order, made it possible for the United States and Canada to reduce Indigenous political authority, domesticating Indigenous nations within the settler state, shifting and expanding the boundaries of both settler law and the nation itself by judicially proclaiming their own criminal behaviors as lawful.


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Settler colonial studies as ‘colonial unknowing’: Manu Vimalassery, Juliana Hu Pegues, Alyosha Goldstein, ‘Introduction: On Colonial Unknowing’, Theory & Event, 19, 4, 2016

18Oct16

Abstract: Colonial unknowing endeavors to render unintelligible the entanglements of racialization and colonization, occluding the mutable historicity of colonial structures and attributing finality to conquest and dispossession. Colonial unknowing establishes what can count as evidence, proof, or possibility—aiming to secure the terms of reason and reasonableness—as much as it works to dissociate and ignore. This essay introduces the issue theme, analyzing epistemologies of unknowing by engaging critical indigenous thought, critical race theory, postcolonial feminist theory, critical disability studies, queer theory, and women of color feminism in order to trouble theorizations of settler colonialism as a stand-alone analytic.


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Settler colonialism is a tribal issue: Christine Brown, Dark legacies: Tracing roots of U.S. settler colonialism in contemporary tribal issues, PhD Dissertation, Washington State University, 2016

18Oct16

Abstract: Drawing on the traditions and perspectives of ethnic studies, history and anthropology, I examine historical roots of U.S. settler colonialism and how they shape contemporary tribal issues in the U.S. Driven by the forces of territoriality and occupation, colonial strategies and derivative mechanisms have fostered misconceptions about the unique socio-political status of tribal nations and, in turn, prompted a range of responses within Indigenous communities. Deconstructive analysis of works by non-Native and Indigenous scholars illuminates settler colonialism’s historical formation and lasting legacies. Tracing Indian responses and resistance reveals an extensive history of Indigenous perseverance that traces back 600 years and continues into the present day.

Two broad issues occupy the analysis: 1) U.S. colonial policy with its racializing legacy of “blood quanta” established during the Allotment Era in the late 1800s extends into present-day controversies surrounding eligibility requirements for tribal membership, and 2) varied colonial assaults on Indigenous cultural landscapes threaten traditional land-use treaty rights for hunting, fishing, and gathering on Indian, federal, and public lands, continuing to facilitate colonial strategies of appropriation, assimilation, and elimination that began as early as the 1600s.

I conclude this project with a contemporary example of strategic Indigenous agency by Colorado Southern Utes against U.S. settler colonial normalization and subjugation followed by valuable insights from Pawnee attorney, activist, tribal judge, and author, Walter Echo-Hawk. Final closing remarks punctuate the imperative of educating the non-Native public to recognize and acknowledge the role of settler colonialism in major contemporary tribal issues in order to clarify misconceptions, promote understanding, facilitate intercommunications, and encourage future collaboration with Indigenous nations in U.S. society.


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Indigenous suicide and settler societies: Simon Hatcher, ‘Indigenous Suicide: A Global Perspective with a New Zealand Focus’, Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 61, 11, 2016, pp. 684-687

18Oct16

Abstract: This perspective article describes the problem of Canadian indigenous suicide from a non-Canadian viewpoint. In particular, the article compares both similarities and differences in suicide prevention between Māori in New Zealand and indigenous peoples in Canada. It emphasises that the problem of indigenous suicide is not being indigenous but coping with losses secondary to colonisation. A useful way to translate this into helpful clinical conversations and actions is to think about loss of belonging. Culture and belonging are key components of identity and as such should be considered in all psychiatric encounters, not just in those who are considered minorities or “other.” The article concludes by suggesting how some of the experiences of addressing health inequalities and suicide in Māori may be applied in Canada.


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