Mercedes López, Pilar Foronda, Carlos Feliu, Mariano Hernández, ‘Genetic characterization of black rat (Rattus rattus) of the Canary Islands: origin and colonization’, Biological Invasions (May 2013).

In the Canary Islands two invasive rat species, Rattus rattus and Rattus norvegicus are present, but little is known about the origin and colonization. To this end, a molecular study was performed on R. rattus from the Archipelago and from the nearest continents. Partial cytochrome b gene sequencing offered very low levels of haplotype and nucleotide diversities, with only seven haplotypes identified. All of them belong to the European Lineage I, specifically to the “ship rat” cluster. The haplotype network showed a star-like topology. Haplotype distribution showed a genetic subdivision between eastern and central/western islands, suggesting a double colonization event. This hypothesis is congruent with historical human colonization and it is similar to that proposed for the rodent parasite Hymenolepis diminuta. In addition, a possible role of the Canary Islands as a faunal link with the European and American continents is discussed.

Check out the Australian Historical Association conference (8-12 July 2013) program here.

Matthew Fitzpatrick, ‘New South Wales in Africa? The Convict Colonialism Debate in Imperial Germany’, Itinerario 37, 1 (2013).

In 1852, the naturalist and writer Louisa Meredith observed in her book My Home in Tasmania: “I know of no place where greater order and decorum is observed by the motley crowds assembled on any public occasion than in this most shamefully slandered country: not even in an English country village can a lady walk alone with less fear of harm or insult than in this capital of Van Diemen’s Land, commonly believed at home to be a pest-house, where every crime that can disgrace and degrade humanity stalks abroad with unblushing front.”

Meredith’s paean to life in the notorious Australian penal colony of Hobart was in stark contrast to her earlier, highly unfavourable account of colonial Sydney. It papered over the years of personal hardship she had endured in Australia, as well as avoiding mention of the racial warfare against Tasmania’s Aborigines that had afforded her such a genteel European existence.

Such intra-Australian complexities, however, were lost when Meredith’s account was superimposed onto German debates about the desirability of penal colonies for Germany. Instead, Meredith’s portrait of a cultivated city emerging from the most notorious penal colony in Australia was presented as proof that the deportation of criminals was an important dimension of the civilising mission of Europe in the extra-European world. It was also presented as a vindication of those in Germany who wished to rid Germany of its lumpen criminal class through deportation. The exact paragraph of Meredith’s account cited above was quoted in German debates on deportation for almost half a century; first in 1859 by the jurist Franz von Holtzendorff, and thereafter by Friedrich Freund when advocating the establishment of a penal colony in the Preußische Jahrbücher in September 1895.

“The evidence is absolutely consistent with dismemberment and de-fleshing of this body,” said Doug Owsley, a forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC.

Written documents had previously suggested the desperate colonists resorted to cannibalism – but the discovery of the 14-year-old girl’s bones offers the first scientific proof.

Smithsonian researchers believe the dead child became food for a community struggling to survive the harsh winter of 1609-10, known to historians as the Starving Time.

“There were numerous chops and cuts – chops to the forehead, chops to the back of the skull and also a puncture to the left side of the head that was used to essentially pry off that side,” Dr Owsley said. “The purpose was to extract the brain.”

The marks also indicate that the tongue and facial tissue were removed.

Jane O’Brien, BBC News.

Zimbabwe’s starving San community, commonly known as bushmen, are demanding to be taken back to the bush saying the government has neglected them for many years.

The San were moved from Hwange National Park in the 1920s during the colonial era by the Europeans and most of them settled in Mgodimasili area in Tsholotsho South in Matabeleland North Province.

There are over 1 500 San people in Zimbabwe and some are found in Plumtree in Matabeleland South.

[…]

They said going back to the bush to survive on hunting and gathering is better than staying under a government which treats them like animals.

“We want to go back to the bush, they should open up Hwange National Park and we go back.

“Our grandfathers had better lives that side than here where we are still treated like animals.

“The government has totally failed to help us to improve our lives for the past years and some politicians have been telling us lies all these years.

They only want our votes but they have not done anything for us,” Madlela Maphosa, a 70-year-old headman for the San people in Mtshina Village said.

Bulawayo24.

The Awa live in north eastern Brazil and survive as hunter-gatherers in remote areas of rainforest. Of their number around 100 have never had contact with outsiders.

However, the tribe’s four protected territories have been whittled away over the years by settlers and loggers who are now said to outnumber the Awa by ten to one.

Matt McGrath for BBC News.

Lorenzo Veracini, ‘The Other Shift: Settler Colonialism, Israel, and the Occupation’, Journal of Palestine Studies 42, 2 (2013).

 This densely argued essay offers an original approach to the study of Israel-Palestine through the lens of colonial studies. The author’s argument rests, inter alia, on the distinction between colonialism, which succeeds by keeping colonizer and colonized separate, and settler colonialism, where ultimate success is achieved when the settlers are “indigenized” and cease to be seen as settlers. Referring to the pre-1948 and post-1967 contexts, the author shows how and why Israel, itself a successful settler colonial project emerging from the British mandate, has failed to create a successful settler project in the occupied territories; indeed, and paradoxically, the occupation’s very success (in terms of unassailable control) renders the project’s success (in terms of settler integration/indigenization) impossible. Also addressed are the consequences of occupation, particularly what the author calls Israel’s “recolonization,” and the implications of the approach outlined for the Israel-Palestine conflict and its resolution.

Christopher Alcantara and Jen Nelles, ‘Indigenous Peoples and the State in Settler Societies: Toward a More Robust Definition of Multilevel Governance’, Publius (2013).

Over the past fifty years, Indigenous peoples in settler countries have mobilized to demand policy and institutional changes from their respective states. Although some scholars have employed multilevel governance (MLG) to make sense of these developments, none has examined systematically whether MLG accurately describes these phenomena. We address this lacuna by creating a more robust definition of MLG and applying it to a sample of Indigenous–settler interactions in Canada. Our findings suggest that MLG is an applicable concept for some, but not for all of the Indigenous–state interactions that are typically assumed to be instances of MLG. This conceptual clarification should help scholars from a variety of countries to use MLG more effectively to analyze the relationships between Indigenous peoples and their respective states.

Anna Maria Kowalczyk, ‘Indigenous Peoples and Modernity: Mapuche Mobilizations in Chile’, Latin American Perspectives (April 15, 2013).

The twenty-first century has ushered in a new era for the numerous social and political movements of Mapuche indigenous groups in Chile. Apart from distancing themselves from state institutionality and demanding autonomy, they have tended to reject alliances with the traditional left, considering it alien to indigenous subjectivities. Study of these various “new wave” movements paying particular attention to the relationship between indigenous and modern subjectivities suggests that, while the historical memory of Mapuche social and political organization may contribute to the creation of a powerful progressive social movement, the highly modernized Mapuche indigenous cultures are also quite compatible with an indigenous brand of neoliberalism.

El siglo veintiuno dio paso a una nueva era para los numerosos movimientos sociales y políticos de grupos indígenas mapuches en Chile. Aparte de distanciarse de la institucionalidad estatal y exigir autonomía, también solían rechazar una alianza con la izquierda tradicional, considerándola ajena a las subjetividades indígenas. Un estudio de la relación entre subjetividades indígenas y modernas sugiere que, mientras la memoria histórica de organización social y política mapuche podría contribuir a la creación de un poderoso movimiento progresista social, las modernizadas culturas indígenas mapuches son también altamente compatibles con una marca indígena de neoliberalismo.