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Decolonising is about engaging: Ravi de Costa, Tom Clark, ‘On the responsibility to engage: non-Indigenous peoples in settler states’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2015

04Aug15

Abstract: Many non-Indigenous peoples in settler societies describe themselves as concerned with the legacies of colonialism and wish to become more engaged with that history and with Indigenous peoples. Paradoxically, however, many do not understand what that engagement might entail, how they could do it or whether, indeed, it is their place to do so. In this research, we survey findings from three sets of focus groups with non-Indigenous peoples in Canada conducted over a two-year period and intersecting with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process that has nearly concluded there. The goal was to see what ‘emergent’ discourses of reconciliation are at play in reflective conversations between non-Aboriginal Canadians. Some strong but complex themes arise from this research, in particular a mode of ‘delegation’ and another, of ‘embodiment’. These are expressed in different rhetorical styles and speak to variations in the geography, history and identity of the participants and their communities. A broad but tentative conclusion is that for reconciliation the politics of the local matter. We explore this finding with one eye toward policy innovations and as part of a broad comparative inquiry into non-Indigenous peoples’ ideas of engagement and responsibility in settler colonial states.


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Decolonising is about reorganising: Marisa Elena Duarte, Miranda Belarde-Lewis, ‘Imagining: Creating Spaces for Indigenous Ontologies’, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 53, 5-6, 2015, pp. 677-702

04Aug15

Abstract: For at least half a century, catalogers have struggled with how to catalog and classify Native American and Indigenous peoples materials in library, archive, and museum collections. Understanding how colonialism works can help those in the field of knowledge organization appreciate the power dynamics embedded in the marginalization of Native American and Indigenous peoples materials through standardization, misnaming, and other practices. The decolonizing methodology of imagining provides one way that knowledge organization practitioners and theorists can acknowledge and discern the possibilities of Indigenous community-based approaches to the development of alternative information structures.


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Why consult with indigenous peoples when it’s only about recognising them? Abbott is from circa 1885

04Aug15

From the BBC: Australia’s Prime Minister has rejected a proposal to consult Aboriginal people first about recognising them in the nation’s constitution.


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With a chapter on Italian settler colonialism (on the recurring myth of settlers as inherently peaceful people, brava gente): Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Stephanie Malia Hom (eds), Italian Mobilities, Routledge, 2016

31Jul15

Description: The Italian nation-state has been defined by practices of mobility. Tourists have flowed in from the era of the Grand Tour to the present, and Italians flowed out in massive numbers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Italians made up the largest voluntary emigration in recorded world history. As a bridge from Africa to Europe, Italy has more recently been a destination of choice for immigrants whose tragic stories of shipwreck and confinement are often in the news. This first-of-its-kind edited volume offers a critical accounting of those histories and practices, shedding new light on modern Italy as a flashpoint for mobilities as they relate to nationalism, imperialism, globalization, and consumer, leisure, and labor practices. The book’s eight essays reveal how a country often appreciated for what seems immutable – its classical and Renaissance patrimony – has in fact been shaped by movement and transit.

See especialy Chapter 6: Francesca Locatelli, ‘Migrating to the Colonies and Building the Myth of ‘Italiani brava gente’: The Rise, Demise, and Legacy of Italian Settler Colonialism’.


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Queering the tense of settler colonialism one artifact at a time: Jamie M Arjona, ‘Sublime perversions: Capturing the uncanny affects of queer temporalities in Mississippian ruins’, Journal of Social Archeology, 2015

31Jul15

Abstract: During the 19th century, sublime depictions of North American mounds captivated Euro-American colonists and Romantic travelers. Settlers frequently embedded farms and homesteads into the material fabric of these Indigenous ruins across the American Bottom region and surrounding uplands, uncovering traces of antiquity in the process. Focusing on the Emerald mound site and broader mound discourses, I examine how material intimacies underlying this 19th-century phenomenon periodically corrupted Romantic sensibilities. Specifically, I highlight aspects of archival and spatial data that capture fleeting moments when mound intercourse generated uncanny affects and queer temporalities. I argue that in moments when uncanny affects haunted colonial homes, Indigenous histories queered the tense of settler colonialism.


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Settlers on Mars! (involuntary reference to Fascisti su Marte): Mary Semaan, Net Zero Water System on Mars, MA Dissertation, University of Miami, 2015

31Jul15

Abstract: A voyage to Mars is no longer a figment of the human imagination. Several agencies are planning to send manned missions to the Red planet as soon as 2025. Two of them are planning to establish bases. Mars One, a non-profit foundation, plans to send manned missions in 2025 (Mars One Foundation, n.d.). NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) plans to send settlers to Mars in the 2030s (NASA, Journey to Mars, n.d.). Given that the voyage is long and costly, the astronauts must set up camp on Mars. A fully functioning water/wastewater management system is thus necessary for the success of such a mission. The objective of this thesis is to evaluate constraints and propose a design for such a system including the identification of the most suitable location and set of unit processes, and to develop mass balances to justify it. The system proposed involves 70% water recycling, with the use of microwave energy to mine for 30% water from the Martian regolith by sublimation. Wastewater will be segregated, urine, greywater and blackwater, and treated separately. Essential plant nutrients will be extracted from the urine to be used later for agriculture. Water will be extracted from greywater and the resulting brine disposed of safely. Water extracted from urine and greywater will be treated by advanced oxidation to provide drinking water to the habitat. Blackwater is proposed for use in a modified compost process to prepare Martian regolith or other base for eventual agriculture. The proposed design operates without chemical feed or other routine external additives, utilizes the temperature difference between night and day during the Martian sols, and minimizes disturbance of the Martian environment.


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On settler colonialism as catastrophe: Scott Kouri, Hans Skott-Myhre, ‘Catastrophe: a transversal mapping of colonialism and settler subjectivity’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2015

28Jul15

Abstract: This paper maps one mode of production within the overall machinery of genocide, appropriation, and subjugation which is colonialism: the settler subject. The settler colonial project is nothing short of a catastrophe, and the subjects who populate Indigenous territory without sanction have been produced through this catastrophe as subjects of colonial conquest, war, and settlement. While bloodshed and bigotry mark the foundational coordinates of North American nation building and settler subjectivities, we here approach catastrophe as a rupture or event that has contemporary potential to open and transforms existing sets of relations. Following Deleuze and Guattari’s insistence that ruptures are opportunities to recreate ourselves in new ethical and aesthetic ways, we map the catastrophic elements of settler colonialism against catastrophe as an event that holds subversive potential. We focus on the settler because its coordinates map each of us within the political, social, and cultural cartography of twenty-first-century North America and ask: How can a transversal mapping of settlement probe aspects of settler subjectivity in order to constitute us as people accountable to colonialism? We therefore probe the affective, relational, and unconscious dimensions of the settler subject in order to develop, following Braidotti, an affirmative and active mode of engaging in the complexities of current relations within settler colonial states.


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Relying on indigenous labour in settler New Caledonia: Stéphane Le Queux, Stéphanie Graff, ‘Industrial relations in New Caledonia: context and focus on the Kanak Indigenous people’s labour struggle in the background of the politics of reconciliation and decolonisation’, Labour & Industry: a journal of the social and economic relations of work, 2015

28Jul15

Abstract: This article examines industrial relations in New Caledonia with a focus on Indigenous labour. Caledonian industrial relations are absent from English speaking industrial relations literature. Therefore, the first objective of this article is to provide a general introduction to the broad industrial relations context including an overview of the political economy; key features of the labour market; labour market regulation and labour issues. The second objective is to provide historical and contemporary insights on the Kanak labour struggle and political (anti-colonial) activism. The research is informed by interviews in 2011 and 2014 and ongoing participant observation among Kanak political forces. Our argument is twofold. First, Caledonian industrial relations are politicised within the politics of reconciliation – the political platform for a so-called common destiny. Second, the politics of reconciliation have been deployed in response to the long-lasting indigenous struggle for sovereignty, with Kanak organised labour at the forefront of this struggle.


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Recognition? George Williams, ‘Constitutional recognition by way of an indigenous advisory body?’, Indigenous Law Bulletin, 8, 18, 2015, pp. 12-16

28Jul15

Abstract: Noel Pearson has injected an additional, important idea into the debate on changing the Australian Constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. He has suggested that recognition should provide Indigenous peoples with a voice in the lawmaking process. New text would be inserted into the Constitution creating a body of Indigenous peoples to advise the federal Parliament on the making of laws.


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On the need to protect indigenous informants: Pauline Foster, Terri Janke, ‘Keeping cultural knowledge with indigenous research protocols: A case study on the Kimberley land council’s intellectual property and traditional knowledge policy’, Indigenous Law Bulletin, 8, 18, 2015, pp. 17-20

28Jul15

Abstract: Indigenous peoples are constantly approached for research purposes. When researchers call on Indigenous peoples to hand over their knowledge, family histories, stories and images, Indigenous cultural and intellectual rights are at risk. The Kimberley Land Council (‘Council’) has implemented a policy to ensure that research is conducted in accordance with ethical standards so that the rights of Kimberley Aboriginal people are protected from exploitation. It aims to ameliorate the impact of Australian intellectual property laws which fall short of protecting traditional knowledge, thereby giving effect to principles recognised in international law. It mandates that researchers obtain the free, prior informed consent of traditional owners through the Council, duly attribute their assistance and ensure that they partake in any resultant benefits and intellectual property rights. This measure has limited avenues for abuse by providing a contractual safeguard in an area where existing legal frameworks are largely inadequate.


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