settler colonial studies blog

Settlers and debt and what it all means: Christie Swanepoel, Johan Fourie, ‘”Impending ruin” or “remarkable wealth”? The role of private credit markets in a settler colony’, Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA) Working Paper, 2015

22May15

Abstract: Credit markets develop hand in hand with a market economy. Pre-industrial credit markets, like credit (and capital) markets today, developed in order to smooth consumption, ease trade, and enable long-term investment. Yet in the eighteenth century Cape Colony, a Dutch settlement at the southern tip of Africa, commentators of the day were skeptical about what an active credit market could contribute to the economy: for them, borrowing was a sure sign of poverty. Historians have expressed the same view. We present a different picture of the Cape Colony. We use 4,160 probate inventories, listing 12,637 credit trans actions and 12,580 debt transactions, to show that the main reason for borrowing was long-term capital investmentin property through bonds, and that a particular driver of the Colony’s extensive use of credit was slaveownership. We also show that those who benefited from the Colony’s thriving credit market were rich, not poor.

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On (indigenous) death as (settler) improvement: Sherene Razack, Dying from Improvement: Inquests and Inquiries into Indigenous Deaths in Custody, University of Toronto Press, 2015

20May15

Description: No matter where in Canada they occur, inquiries and inquests into untimely Indigenous deaths in state custody often tell the same story. Repeating details of fatty livers, mental illness, alcoholic belligerence, and a mysterious incapacity to cope with modern life, the legal proceedings declare that there are no villains here, only inevitable casualties of Indigenous life.

But what about a sixty-seven-year-old man who dies in a hospital in police custody with a large, visible, purple boot print on his chest? Or a barely conscious, alcoholic older man, dropped off by police in a dark alley on a cold Vancouver night? Or Saskatoon’s infamous and lethal Starlight Tours, whose victims were left on the outskirts of town in sub-zero temperatures? How do we account for the repeated failure to care evident in so many cases of Indigenous deaths in custody?

In Dying from Improvement, Sherene H. Razack argues that, amidst systematic state violence against Indigenous people, inquiries and inquests serve to obscure the violence of ongoing settler colonialism under the guise of benevolent concern. They tell settler society that it is caring, compassionate, and engaged in improving the lives of Indigenous people – even as the rates of incarceration of Indigenous men and women increase and the number of those who die in custody rises.

Razack’s powerful critique of the Canadian settler state and its legal system speaks to many of today’s most pressing issues of social justice: the treatment of Indigenous people, the unparalleled authority of the police and justice system, and their systematic inhumanity towards those whose lives they perceive as insignificant.

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On Aboriginal Rights and legal practice in a settler society: S. Ronald Stevenson, ‘The Political Theory of Aboriginal Rights Law in Canada: Prospects for Reconciliation, University of Ottawa, 2015

20May15

Abstract: While the thesis will proceed with a step by step development of the core arguments from the political theory literature, followed by a detailed analysis of corresponding issues in the jurisprudence, it may help the reader to have a summary statement of the thesis argument from the very start. The core argument is that the Canadian approach to constitutionalism reflected in the model centered on Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, provides a framework, a methodology and a model for practice that could lead the Crown and aboriginal peoples within Canada towards the elusive goal of reconciliation. This framework, rooted firmly in the obligations of the nation-state, is materially different from most normative and legal literature that tends to gravitate to positions that emphasize either the lack of legitimacy of the nation-state or the lack of legitimacy of efforts to recognize aboriginal claims. In other words, this thesis develops an argument for the practical utility of a “middle-ground” approach. This middle-ground approach will depend on a novel interpretation of the foundational methodology adopted by the Supreme Court of Canada to animate Section 35, a particular interpretation of the “nested” relationship between Canadian domestic law, international law and indigenous legal systems and a development of the embryonic emphasis placed on dialogical processes to resolve deep disagreement about fundamentally disparate ontological and epistemological assumptions about attachments to land. In other words, the thesis attempts to develop a constitutional framework to support a practical blueprint to achieve a morally and politically defensible conception of aboriginal rights. Rather than simply defending the constitutional status quo, the thesis will develop what is intended to be a unified approach to Section 35 that will point the way towards several crucial additions to the jurisprudential framework so it can enable the deep deliberation that lies at the very heart of the best aspirations of Canadian constitutionalism.

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On violence against indigenous women in a settler colonial context, with a chapter on ‘Women in the West Bank’: Rashmi Goel, Leigh Goodmark (eds), Comparative Perspectives on Gender Violence: Lessons From Efforts Worldwide, Oxford University Press, 2015

20May15

See Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian and Adrien K. Wing: ‘Women in the West Bank’, pp. 59-70.

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On teaching and settler colonialism: Emma MacKenzie Hunter, Integrating Aboriginal Education into the Elementary School Classroom: How Settler Teachers Meaningfully Include Aboriginal Content, Perspectives, and Pedagogy in their Teaching Practice, MA dissertation, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, 2015

20May15

Abstract: Research has shown that incorporating Aboriginal education into the classroom can increase Aboriginal students’ engagement, interest, and academic success and thereby work towards closing the academic achievement gap that exists between Aboriginal and Settler students in Canada (Cherubini & Hodson, 2008; Kehoe & Echols 1994; Ledoux 2006; Wotherspoon & Schissel 1998). This qualitative research project uses a literature review and semi-structured interviews to investigate how Toronto elementary school teachers can incorporate Aboriginal education into the elementary school classroom in a way that is respectful of the Aboriginal community and does not replicate past injustices against Aboriginal communities. Interviews with two Settler teachers showed that these educators are actively attempting to incorporate Aboriginal content into their teaching practice in a way that goes beyond the Ontario curriculum requirements and is largely consistent with the best practices outlines by Aboriginal scholars. It is my hope that the findings from this study can aid in the process of decolonizing the Canadian classroom by informing policy and curriculum development, teacher education programs and teacher practice.

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On revolution as the antithesis of settler colonialism: Allison Drew, We are no longer in France: Communists in colonial Algeria, Manchester University Press, 2014

17May15

Description: This book recovers the lost history of colonial Algeria’s communist movement. Meticulously researched – and the only English-language book on the Parti Communiste Algérien – it explores communism’s complex relationship with Algerian nationalism. During international crises, such as the Popular Front and Second World War years, the PCA remained close to its French counterpart, but as the national liberation struggle intensified, the PCA’s concern with political and social justice attracted growing numbers of Muslims. When the Front de Libération Nationale launched armed struggle in November 1954, the PCA maintained its organisational autonomy – despite FLN pressure. They participated fully in the national liberation war, facing the French state’s wrath. Independence saw two conflicting socialist visions, with the PCA’s incorporated political pluralism and class struggle on the one hand, and the FLN demand for a one-party socialist state on the other. The PCA’s pluralist vision was shattered when it was banned by the one-party state in November 1962. This book is of particular interest to students and scholars of Algerian history, French colonial history and communist history.

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On settler dilemmas and indigenous evidence: Arthur J. Ray, ‘Traditional Knowledge and Social Science on Trial: Battles over Evidence in Indigenous Rights Litigation in Caxnada and Australia’, The International Indigenous Policy Journal, 6 , 2 2015

17May15

Abstract: Traditional knowledge and oral traditions histry are crucial lines of evidence in Aboriginal claims litigation and alternative forms of resolution, most notably claims commissions. This articleexplores the ways in which these lines of evidence pose numerous challenges in terms of how and where they can be presented, who is qulifies to present it, questions about whether this evidence can stand on its own, and the problems of developing appropriate measures to protect it from inappropriate use by outsiders while not unduly restricting access by the traditional owners.

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On ‘Greater Britain’ and the coming (settler) race: Terra Walston Joseph, ‘Bulwer-Lytton’s The Coming Race and an Anglo-Saxon Global “Greater Britain”’, Nineteenth-Century Contexts: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 37, 3, 2015 p. 233-248

17May15

Excerpt: Upon its anonymous publication, Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s The Coming Race (1871) proved immensely popular …

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On sheep and settler colonialism: Rebecca J. H. Woods, ‘From Colonial Animal to Imperial Edible: Building an Empire of Sheep in New Zealand, ca. 1880–1900’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 35, 1, 2015, pp. 117-136

17May15

Excerpt: Erewhon, or, The Place that is No-Place …

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Lynching as settler colonialism: Jesse Carr, ‘The lawlessness of law: lynching and anti-lynching in the contemporary USA’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2015

17May15

Abstract: This article examines the mutually constitutive nature of mob rule and rule of law, arguing that American histories of lynching indicate it has been a form of state-sanctioned violence rather than a result of ‘lawlessness.’ The article furthermore argues that pro-lynching discourses remain ubiquitous in contemporary US culture, despite ostensible rejection of the practice. The persistence of pro-lynching ideologies and ‘modern-day lynchings’ indicates the ongoing need for anti-lynching movements; but, my analysis suggests these movements will be most successful when they critique the rule of law rather than idealize it.

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