settler colonial studies blog

There is no such thing as a free land: Rebecca Clarren, The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance, Viking, 2023

01Jun25

Description: Growing up, Rebecca Clarren only knew the major plot points of her tenacious immigrant family’s origins. Her great-great-grandparents, the Sinykins, and their six children fled antisemitism in Russia and arrived in the United States at the turn of the 20th century, ultimately settling on a 160-acre homestead in South Dakota. Over the next few decades, despite tough years on a merciless prairie and multiple setbacks, the Sinykins became an American immigrant success story. What none of Clarren’s ancestors ever mentioned was that their land, the foundation for much of their wealth, had been cruelly taken from the Lakota by the United States government. By the time the Sinykins moved to South Dakota, America had broken hundreds of treaties with hundreds of Indigenous nations across the continent, and the land that had once been reserved for the seven bands of the Lakota had been diminished, splintered, and handed for free, or practically free, to white settlers. In The Cost of Free Land, Clarren melds investigative reporting with personal family history to reveal the intertwined stories of her family and the Lakota, and the devastating cycle of loss of Indigenous land, culture, and resources that continues today. With deep empathy and clarity of purpose, Clarren grapples with the personal and national consequences of this legacy of violence and dispossession. What does it mean to survive oppression only to perpetuate and benefit from the oppression of others? By shining a light on the people and families tangled up in this country’s difficult history, The Cost of Free Land invites readers to consider their own culpability and what, now, can be done.

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The national settler Midwest: Peter S. Onuf, ‘Rethinking The Midwest and the Nation’, Middle West Review, 11, 2, 2025, pp. 577-582

01Jun25

Excerpt: Celebration of the Ordinance—the original organic law of the states that would be carved out of the new nation’s northern borderlands—was overshadowed by simultaneous celebration of the drafting of the federal Constitution. Historically, local patriots took pride in the coincidence of national and regional beginnings. In the free land north and west of the Ohio River, they claimed, old sectional distinctions dissolved, and the national promise was fulfilled. The Northwest Territory and its successor states constituted a region that transcended regionalism, drawing streams of immigrants from—and through—all parts of the union. The Civil War seemed to confirm this identification or conflation of region and nation, and historian Frederick Jackson Turner’s famous “frontier thesis” (1893) marked its apotheosis: America’s distinctively democratic character was forged on its first great settlement frontier, the land of the free—and not in the Southern “slave power’s” empire of slavery.

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The open road of settler colonialism: Nak-chung Paik, ‘Settler Colonialism and the “Open Road”: Apropos of Studies in Classic American Literature’, Journal of English Studies in Korea, 47, 2024, pp. 5-25

01Jun25

Excerpt: But let me first indicate that my discussion rests on the premise that, despite
the talk of the demons of the place and ghost of dead Indians, the book presents
a cogent historical narrative tracing the history of the United States since the
colonial days. For all its idiosyncratic language, Lawrence’s approach seems
essentially in line with that of ‘historical materialism’, namely, attending to the
actual motives and their material consequences rather than the historical actors’
own perceptions and ideals. Thus he begins the book by challenging the myth
of Puritan settlers first coming to New England in search of freedom of
worship …

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Stroke settler colonialism: Anna Ranta et al, ‘Stroke Care in Indigenous Populations: A World Stroke Organisation (WSO) Scientific Statement’, International Journal of Stroke, 2025

31May25

Abstract: Background: Indigenous Peoples have been reported to experience higher rates of stroke, poorer access to high-quality acute and rehabilitation stroke services, and worse post- stroke outcomes compared to dominant cultures residing in the same countries. The aim of this statement is to summarise available evidence on access barriers contributing to these inequities, effective solutions that have been deployed and tested, and present key recommendations to advance the field. Methods: We conducted a scoping review searching Medline, Embase, CINHAL, PubMed, Scopus, and Informit Indigenous Collection using the broad search terms “stroke” and “Indigenous” without date restriction until 1 August 2024. We screened 673 unique titles, 96 abstracts, and 80 full text papers of which we retained 41. We added ten additional key references known to authors. Articles were analysed to identify key cross-cutting themes. Results: We identified five key themes: (1) Historical context, colonisation and racism; (2) wholistic strength-based approaches to health, well-being, and recovery; communication, health literacy, and cultural safety; (4) Iindigenous knowledge systems, research principles, and community-led action; (5) achieving local acceptance versus wide generalisability. Recommendations: Key priority areas, detailed in the form of eleven specific recommendations and based on six core values, include improving stroke service responsiveness, Indigenous Peoples empowerment, and Indigenous research support to better meet the needs of Indigenous Populations globally.

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Expelling settlers: Inaya Khan, ‘”Not So Much a Melting Pot”: White Expulsions and the Diplomatic Safety Valve in Kenya, 1964–1967’, The English Historical Review, 2-25, #ceaf073

31May25

Abstract: This article examines the political impact of two rounds of arbitrary expulsions of white and Asian British citizens by the Kenyan government—first in 1964, and then in 1967. It analyses the consolidation of the relationship between the British and Kenyan states after the latter’s independence in 1963, and the evolving position of the white settler community within that equation. The article examines elements of coercion on the part of the Kenyan government, and embarrassment on the part of the British government. The expulsions illustrated the dual objectives driving the British state’s decolonisation process in Kenya—fulfilling its ‘moral obligation’ towards settlers via financial compensation and repatriation at state expense, and safeguarding British political, defence and economic interests in Kenya. The manner of execution of the expulsions was symptomatic of the chaos that characterised the decolonisation process, with the reconfiguration of the existing political order as well as the hierarchy of authority and power within a coalition of individuals with varying ethnic and ideological allegiances. Finally, the article contrasts the privileged treatment accorded to problematic white deportees by the British government with the callous and discriminatory treatment of British Asian expellees. Decolonised countries, having achieved independence through nationalist civilian action, thus learned to appropriate the colonial weapon of sedition against ‘undesirables’ or dissidents and, in this case, to justify arbitrary action against powerful minorities in the name of national security. The deportations in 1964 and 1967 created a precedent that left a lingering sense of fear and uncertainty within the white settler community in Kenya.

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Against digital enclosures: Cindy Tekobbe, ‘Turtle, Water, and Silicon: Storyworking Indigenous Digital Methodologies’, Social Media + Sociology, 2025

31May25

Abstract: The author of this article contends that current digital research methodologies tend to extract and commodify knowledge in ways that can replicate social, cultural, racial, economic, and global inequities. This article presents an Indigenous approach to digital methodology, including examples of posts to Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky, as well as algorithmic search results. Finally, the author discusses new opportunities within Indigenous methodologies as approaches for performing more inclusive digital research beyond settler colonial research paradigms.

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Against wild enclosures: Michael Richard, Exceeding Enclosure: Indigenous Modernisms and U.S. National Parks, PhD dissertation, University of Colorado, 2025

31May25

Abstract: This dissertation argues that Indigenous peoples use national parks both spatially and
imaginatively to maintain a continuum of place-based community and innovate tribal expression.
It thus restores the national park as a site crucial for exploring the intersections between
Indigenous and modernist studies. The Indigenous studies aspect inheres in how the parks were
territorialized by the U.S. government but Native Americans resided in them conditionally under
a rubric of Western ethnography and primitivism. Tribal interventions to stay on their ancestral
lands despite colonial enclosure expand Indigenous studies conversations about Native peoples’
self-determination and outdoor tourism. The modernist component is intrinsic inasmuch as their
self-determining efforts were creative uses of the epistemological, technological, and aesthetic
changes that national parks bring to their homelands. Within and/or with the park, tribal
communities innovate an Indigenous modernism that is part traditional or stemming from longheld practices, part adaptation based on settler influence. By highlighting the respective logics
and philosophies undergirding their conglomerate (hybrid settler and Indigenous) houses,
clothing, baskets, and poetry, we see that the national park operates as a zone of density where
settler and Indigenous epistemologies and praxes of nation, time, place, and health are enacted,
challenged, and appropriated. Tracing this density permits grasping Indigenous, relational modes
of conceptualization and praxis; aesthetic, imaginative elements of Indigenous agency in U.S.
colonial history; and how modernism existed outside of the metropole, at the confluence of the
American West and Indian Country particularly.

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Internal settler colonialism in vacated borderlands: Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, ‘Worldmaking practices of the Polish Bureau of Settlement and Resettlement Studies: Geographical imaginations of settlers in the recovered territories of post-1945 Poland’, Journal of Historical Geography, 2025

28May25

Abstract: This article focuses on the Bureau of Settlement and Resettlement Studies, an institution established to study Poland’s post-1945 ‘recovered territories’. It participated in worldmaking: shaping the geographical imagination and realities of Poland’s postwar recovered territories in historically specific ways. Drawing on data from field collaborators, the bureau’s archival practices contributed to framing the incorporation of the formerly German regions into Poland. By analyzing these materials, I demonstrate how scientific and political narratives were intertwined with settlers’ everyday experiences, revealing how archives became tools of both documentation and active participation in shaping postwar territorial and social realities. While previous research has focused on the methods and processes of resettlement, less attention has been given to the institutions created to plan the process according to scientific criteria. Through a close reading of archival sources, particularly 69 report cards from the bureau’s field collaborators in the Szczecin Voivodeship (1947–1948), this study demonstrates that the on-site correspondents, settlers themselves, actively shaped perceptions of the region, constructing narratives designed to guide official policy. In turn, this study offers new insights into how bureaucratic institutions and settlers co-produced knowledge designed to legitimize territorial claims and influenced the realities of postwar Poland’s shifting borders.

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Taxation with elimination: Anas Iqtait, ‘Taxation and Settler Colonialism: The Palestinian Case’, Forum for Development Studies, 2025

27May25

Abstract: In the context of settler colonialism, taxation and public revenue systems are integral to the political narratives surrounding indigenous nations and peoples. The fiscal arrangements established within these settings often manifest as asymmetrical budgetary structures and tax collection mechanisms. This paper critically examines the typology of public revenues in Palestine to elucidate the complexities of taxation and fiscal management under a settler colonial framework. Employing the theoretical lenses of critical fiscal sociology this analysis provides a nuanced understanding of the dynamics governing taxation, public revenue generation, and service provision in the occupied Palestinian territories. The study contends that external dependencies, Israeli tax control measures, and a fragmented network of service providers collectively undermine efforts to forge a socio-fiscal contract. This situation is exacerbated by declining international aid, necessitating a heightened reliance on domestic tax mobilization. The paper argues that these challenges reflect broader issues inherent in public revenue mobilization within a settler colonial setting. Furthermore, Israel’s settler colonial project is facilitated by the enforced taxation policies in the oPt, which not only impede development and economic liberation but also serve as sophisticated instruments for domination that advance the hegemon’s political objectives. Ultimately, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of fiscal operations within Israeli settler colonial structures and offers critical insights into the politics of taxation and revenue mobilization.

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Planning the settler unplanning: Janice Barry, ‘The ongoing unsettlement of planning thought: The difference that settler-colonial and critical Indigenous theory make’, in Philip Allmendinger, Mark Tewdwr-Jones, Matthew Wargent, Critical Planning Futures New Directions in Planning Theory, Routledge, 2025

27May25

Abstract: This chapter builds on recent calls to ‘unsettle’ planning theory by looking quite directly at what this project of critical reflection and charting of possible ways forward might mean in contexts that are powerfully shaped by the ongoing structures of settler colonialism. Despite its limitations, settler-colonial theory offers a way for non-Indigenous planners to critically interrogate how settler-colonial structures of Indigenous erasure, assimilation, and dispossession are embodied in their actions and ways of thinking. On the other hand, critical Indigenous theory provides a framework for envisioning the possibilities for decolonial planning futures. The concepts of Indigenous resurgence, futurity, and flourishing are particularly instructive in terms of centring Indigenous sovereignty and knowledge systems, while also complementing and extending ideas of insurgent and pluriversal planning as well as planners’ engagements with land and the more-than-human world.

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