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The sound of settler colonialism: Matthew C. Graham, ‘Heralding the Other: Sousa, Simulacra, and Settler Colonialism’, Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education, 15, 2, 2016, pp. 146-177

16Apr16

Abstract: This paper addresses the role of music and music education in the perpetuation of settler colonialism (a particular colonial configuration predicated on the expulsion of indigenous people and occupation of indigenous land) within the United States. Using Baudrillard’s notion of simulacra, or “false truths,” to look at racialized depictions in John Philip Sousa’s 1910 suite, Dwellers of the Western World, this article identifies both the historic and ongoing discursive functions of such representations in the maintenance of a specific set of social relations. Through such examination, we can engender conversations regarding music education’s roll within settler colonial society and work towards redressing the resulting inequities of this societal structure. It is only through a resultant praxis that we can affect material change.

 


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Basic income and specific location (an indigenous predicament): Jon Altman, ‘Basic Income for Remote Indigenous Australians: Prospects for a Livelihoods Approach in Neoliberal Times’, in Jennifer Mays, Greg Marston, John Tomlinson (eds), Basic Income In Australia and New Zealand, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 179-205

15Apr16

Abstract: In early 2015, the prime minister of Australia delivered the seventh annual Closing the Gap Prime Minister’s report (Australian Government, 2015). In it he reported that the government’s goal to halve the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and other Australians by 2018 was not on track, a euphemism for failing, and that there was a decline in employment outcomes since the target was set in 2008. The report notes:

It is clear that since 2008, no progress has been made against the target to halve the gap in employment outcomes within a decade (by 2018). The proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples aged 15–64 years who are employed fell from 53.8 per cent in 2008 to 47.5 per cent in 2012–13. In addition to the fall in Indigenous employment, the proportion of non-Indigenous Australians who are employed rose from 75.0 per cent to 75.6 per cent. Consequently, between 2008 and 2012–13 there has been an increase of 6.9 percentage points in the employment gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous working age people (up from 21.2 to 28.1 percentage points). (Australian Government, 2015, p. 18)

The report highlights variation in employment outcomes by remoteness declining from an employment/population ratio of nearly 50 percent in major cities to just 30 percent in very remote regions.


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Reconciliation? Penelope Edmonds, Settler Colonialism and (Re)conciliation: Frontier Violence, Affective Performances, and Imaginative Refoundings, Palgrave, 2016

15Apr16

Description: In contemporary settler societies, reconciliation has emerged as a potent and alluring form of utopian politics. This book examines the performative life of reconciliation and its discontents in settler societies. It explores the affective refoundings of the settler state and reimaginings of its alternatives and, in particular, the way the past is mobilized in the name of social transformation within a new global paradigm of reconciliation and the ‘age of apology’. In search of a new emancipatory politics, the book takes particular account of Indigenous-led refutations or reworkings of consensus politics in public culture that directly confront the ongoing structural legacy of colonial violence. Taking case studies from the USA, Australia, and Aotearoa New Zealand the book traces the prehistory of reconciliation’s present in settler states, a contested political process, which is especially salient where formal decolonization cannot occur. The dynamic process of drawing on the past to forge new alliances and imagined futures is a crucial aspect of the political realm – one that we are jointly acting out together; and it is worked out from the affective and overlapping spaces of heart and horror.


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On signing and signs: Alison Jones, Te Kawehau Hoskins, ‘A Mark on Paper: The Matter of Indigenous-Settler History’, in Carol A. Taylor, Christina Hughes (eds), Posthuman Research Practices in Education, Palgrave, 2016, pp. 75-92

15Apr16

Abstract: Here is an object of research, found in the archives: a piece of ‘data’, an ink-on-paper mark. It exists on the bottom right-hand side of a sturdy square of parchment. The intriguing drawing (Figure 5.1) represents the unique tā moko or facial tattoo of a Maori leader, Hongi Hika. The central whorls are the lines from either side of the bridge of Hongi Hika’s nose and the curved lines below frame his mouth — all shapes from the most sacred part of the body: the head. This ink-on-paper mark played a significant role in the earliest Indigenous-settler (Maori-Pakeha) relationships in Aotearoa-New Zealand. Hongi Hika drew his tā moko on 4 November 1819 on the second New Zealand land deed: 13,000 acres at Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands, sold to the Church Missionary Society for 48 axes.


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Most settlers would not dream of doing what they dream of doing (that’s why we need South Park): David Uahikeaikalei‘ohu Maile, ‘Going Native: South Park Satire, Settler Colonialism, and Hawaiian Indigeneity’ Cultural Studies = Critical Methodologies, 2016

13Apr16

Abstract: In South Park’s “Going Native,” the white character Butters becomes inexplicably angry only to uncover that his family contends the anger is “biologically” caused by their “ancestral” belonging to Hawai‘i. He then travels to Kaua‘i to resolve this anger by connecting with his “native” home. To parody the materiality of white settlers playing and going native, Butters is represented as “native Hawaiian.” This parody functions as a satire to ridicule and criticize settler colonialism in Hawai‘i. Yet, it does so by distorting, dismembering, and erasing Hawaiian Indigeneity. By deploying an Indigenous-centered approach to critical theory, I analyze South Park’s “Going Native” as a popular culture satire to make three arguments. First, “Going Native” produces Indigeneity in racialized, gendered, and sexualized (mis)representations. The representations of “native Hawaiians” recapitulate marginalizing misrepresentations of Native Hawaiians, which inverts the parody. Second, as the parody breaks down, “native Hawaiians” reify settler colonialism. South Park’s satire fails and becomes haunted by specters of settlement that call into question its critique. When the “native Hawaiians” eventually liberate themselves from encroaching tourists and U.S. military forces, an impasse emerges. Rather than signifying Native Hawaiians with agency, only “native Hawaiians” demonstrate the possibilities of self-determination, sovereignty, and decolonization, which exempt white settlers from enacting colonization and produce a discursive impossibility for Native Hawaiians. Third, I suggest cultural studies reimagine its scholarship to exercise an alliance politics that interrupts knowledge produced by popular culture satire attempting critiques of settler colonialism that simultaneously naturalize the dispossession and elimination of Indigenous peoples.  


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The owl flies at dusk: Dierk von Behrens, The Australian Humanist, 121, 2016, pp. 7-8

13Apr16

Abstract: Assimilation is a process by which a person or group belonging to one culture adopts the practices of another, thereby becoming a member of that culture.


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Settling on indigenous waterways: Jane Griffith, ‘Hoover Damn Land, Labor, and Settler Colonial Cultural Production’, Cultural Studies = Critical Methodologies, 2016

13Apr16

Abstract: Hoover Dam is a settler-colonial project, requiring Indigenous land and waterways while producing energy that enables further non-Indigenous settlement. In addition to the Dam’s engineering feats, its cultural production—art, pageantry, commemoration, and media—helped to buttress these claims to land. In this article, I offer the concept of dam/ning: how tactics used to preserve White settler memory, history, and claims to land and water seemingly appear to affirm Black and Indigenous lives but in fact veil violence. Also embedded in the term is damning: the strategies used to resist settler-colonial violence, dehumanization, displacement, and land theft. Dam/ning analyzes whose land these actions take place on, who claims this land and how, and what techniques people have used to resist. I draw from a tripartite archive: personal letters from Hoover Dam’s official artist (1920s-1940s), the Bureau of Reclamation’s magazine (1930s), and the town site’s local newspaper (1979). This article begins by establishing the practices of damming—the physical and cultural practices that enabled White settlement, which denigrated Indigenous and Black peoples while requiring their knowledge, art, and bodies; the second half of the article establishes the practices of damning, exposing ways Indigenous and Black communities fought these settler-colonial practices throughout the 20th century.


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Indigenous struggle is unsettlement: Shana Siegel, ‘What disruption, whose status quo? Non-Native narratives of victimization surrounding a First Nations’ land reclamation’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2016

13Apr16

Abstract: This paper examines some of the non-Native narratives of disruption that were constructed in opposition to a 2006 Haudenosaunee land reclamation in order to discern what these narratives can tell us about the future obstacles Canadians and their government will need to overcome if true reconciliation with First Nations is to be achieved. Some of these obstacles include Western conceptions of linear progress that continue to justify the ongoing dispossession of First Nations peoples from their territories and their treaty, Aboriginal, constitutional and human rights. Other obstacles include non-Native future expected profits from this dispossession, non-Native attachment to settler colonial lifestyles based on both of the former, and –closely related to Western conceptions of linear progress – the ongoing attempts to impose Canadian monoculture on First Nations peoples. The paper concludes with a brief suggestion that Western/Canadian monoculture is, in many ways, harmful to non-Native Canadians as well as those upon whom they seek to impose it. Though this exploration focuses on non-Native expressions of opposition to the 2006 reclamation, and acknowledges that not all non-Natives were involved in these expressions, these expressions are things that all Canadians need to reconcile within their own monoculture if they are to achieve true reconciliation with First Nations.


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Archaeology and settler colonialism: Matthew A. Beaudoin, ‘Archaeologists Colonizing Canada: The Effects of Unquestioned Categories’, Archaeologies, 2016, pp. 1-31

13Apr16

Abstract: The labelling and categorization of archaeological sites have consequences for the interpretation and subsequent research completed. As such, we as archaeologists must always be vigilant regarding the unintended consequences of labels we attach, or choose to omit, from official site information. These problems become compounded when governmental control codifies existing archaeological conventions and renders them rigid and difficult to change. Using the current archaeological registration database information for Brant County, Ontario, Canada, this paper demonstrates how imaginary pasts are created through archaeological convention and governmental codification and the consequences of these uncontested actions.


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Comparative racisms and associated mental blockages: Liz Conor, ‘Dissecting The Anatomy Of Racism: Waleed Aly Got It Wrong’, New Matilda, 04/04/16

06Apr16

Excerpt: In Waleed Aly’s Fairfax column last week he explained the “anatomy” of our national neurosis, the one that periodically erupts whenever white men are challenged about their natural order.


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