settler colonial studies blog

With a chapter on settler theology (‘The Christian Settler Imaginary: Repentant Remembrances of Christianity’s Entanglement with Settler Colonialism in Aotearoa New Zealand’, by Andrew Picard and A. D. Clark-Howard, and ‘): Al Barrett, Jill Marsh, Anthony G. Reddie (eds), Towards a Critical White Theology, Routledge, 2025

26Mar25

Description: Towards a Critical White Theology is a landmark text bringing together contributions from scholars and practitioners, Black/Postcolonial theologians and critical White theologians, from the UK, the USA and New Zealand, exposing the dynamics of whiteness in the history and the present of the Christian church, and setting an agenda for the future, especially for White-racialised theologians committed to dismantling whiteness. With sections addressing whiteness in relation to the Bible, church history, education and mission, congregational life, the contemporary USA, and public theology, this book tracks the emerging of a new theological discipline of Critical White Theology, that consciously follows in the wake of the long-established discipline of Black liberation theology. It acknowledges that so much that has passed for ‘theology’ over the centuries has been White Theology without naming it as such, and reaches out to its Black and Postcolonial theologian siblings in repentant, receptive humility and hopeful solidarity for a future liberated from the toxic sin of racism. The chapters in this book were originally published in Practical Theology and Black Theology.

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Visiting settlers: Vanessa Whittington, Visitors, Settler Colonialism and Aboriginal Cultural Heritage: Australian Protected Areas as Transformative Landscapes, Routledge, 2025

25Mar25

Description: This book analyses visitor responses to the interpretation of Aboriginal cultural heritage in Australian protected areas, focusing on Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in the Northern Territory and the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area in New South Wales. It provides insights into the discursive features that structure various forms of interpretation of Aboriginal cultural heritage at these locales, ranging from on-site interpretative signage to audio tours available on mobile phone applications. It draws on visitors’ first-hand accounts of the experience of participating in Traditional Custodian led cultural tours and camps, and the visitor learnings that resulted from these. Based on extensive interviews with visitors, the author argues that visitor responses to these experiences both perpetuate and challenge settler-colonial assumptions about Aboriginal peoples and their cultures in both more urban and remote locations. The book provides insight into the forms of interpretation that foster visitor transformations, thereby advancing a politics of reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and the types of interpretation that may hinder such transformations, by reinforcing settler-colonial discourses and affective states. The book is aimed at students and academics attempting to develop a more critical practice in relation to heritage interpretation, tourism, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage and settler-colonialism. It will also have appeal to heritage professionals, cultural tour operators and agencies responsible for the provision of protected area interpretation, including both government sector and Indigenous organisations.

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Is genocide the end of settler colonialism? Raz Segal, ‘Israeli Settler Colonial Genocide’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 53, 1, 2025, pp. 182-191

25Mar25

Abstract: The article examines the combined violence of settler colonialism in Israel and the US in two parts. The first part discusses the Jewish supremacism at the heart of Israeli settler colonialism, focusing on Israel’s genocide in Gaza since October 2023. It traces how genocidal rhetoric by state leaders, articulated in the language of Jewish supremacy, shaped the dynamics of violence on the ground, as documented by Israeli soldiers and officers in Gaza who described their own crimes in videos they recorded and uploaded to social media. The second part of the article addresses US settler colonialism as a key element in explaining the unconditional support that the US extends to Israel. This support now includes an unprecedented assault on documented reality and evidence. Senior administrators on university campuses in the US also partake in this Orwellian attack, though growing numbers of faculty and students continue to resist and insist on truth and justice – in Israel and in the US.

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The imperialism of ‘imperialism’ (subordinating ‘settler colonialism’, or how to misunderstand dialectics): John Bellamy Foster, ‘Imperialism and White Settler Colonialism in Marxist Theory’, Monthly Review, 76, 9, 2025, pp. 1-21

23Mar25

Excerpt: The concept of settler colonialism has always been a key element in the Marxist theory of imperialism, the meaning of which has gradually evolved over a century and a half. Today the reemergence of powerful Indigenous movements in the struggles over cultural survival, the earth, sovereignty, and recognition, plus the resistance to the genocide inflicted by the Israeli state on the Palestinian people in the occupied territories, have brought the notion of settler colonialism to the fore of the global debate. In these circumstances, a recovery and reconstruction of the Marxist understanding of the relation between imperialism and settler colonialism is a crucial step in aiding Indigenous movements and the world revolt against imperialism. Such a recovery and reconstruction of Marxist analyses in this area is all the more important since a new paradigm of settler colonial studies, pioneered in Australia by such distinguished intellectual figures as Patrick Wolfe and Lorenzo Veracini, has emerged over the last quarter-century. This now constitutes a distinct field globally—one that, in its current dominant form in the academy, is focused on a pure “logic of elimination.” In this way, settler colonialism as an analytical category based on autonomous collectives of settlers is divorced from colonialism more generally, and from imperialism, exploitation, and class. Settler colonialism, in this sense, is often said to be an overriding planetary force in and of itself. In Veracini’s words, “It was a settler colonial power that became a global hegemon.… The many American occupations” around the world are “settler colonial” occupations. We are now told that not just the “pure” or ideal-typical settler colonies of the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel can be seen as such, as originally conceived by Wolfe, but also the “whole of Africa,” plus much of Asia and Latin America, have been “shaped” to a considerable extent by the “logic of elimination,” as opposed to exploitation. Rather than seeing settler colonialism as an integral part of the development of the imperialist world system, it has become, in some accounts, its own complete explanation.

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The pain of Indigenbous peoples: Lívia G. Fernandes, Cheryl Davies, Chrystal Jaye, Jean Hay-Smith, Hemakumar Devan, ‘“We do not stop being Indigenous when we are in pain”: an integrative review of the lived experiences of chronic pain among Indigenous peoples’, Social Science & Medicine, 2025, # 117991

23Mar25

Abstract: Background: Chronic non-cancer pain is a major burden worldwide. Indigenous communities experience additional inequities in pain care and management influenced by long-standing impacts of colonization, including systemic racism, oppression, and marginalization. Traditional healing knowledges, practices and methods are valued by Indigenous people when managing their pain. However, mainstream health services often disregard this knowledge and fail to provide culturally safe management strategies. Aim: To understand how Indigenous peoples across the globe make sense of pain when experiencing chronic non-cancer pain. Methodology and methods: This integrative literature review is reported according to the PRISMA checklist and CONSIDER statement. We focused on qualitative data reported by Indigenous adults with chronic non-cancer pain in empirical and theoretical studies. Electronic searches were performed in databases from health and humanities scopes, in addition to grey literature, from 1990 to August 2023. We drew from critical theory approaches to thematically analyze data from the included studies, privileging Indigenous perspectives through a Western intellectual framework (Two-Eyed Seeing epistemology). Data extraction and thematic analysis were managed using NVivo. Primary data were mapped according to geography and theoretical framework. Results: After removal of duplicates, 1352 studies were screened using title and abstract, from which 99 full texts were assessed and 29 studies and 3 dissertations/theses were included. Included studies reported lived experiences of chronic pain among Indigenous peoples from Oceania, North America, and South America. Thematic analysis derived four main themes that indicated pain is entwined with nature, Indigenous identity, historical trauma, and the collective. Our findings suggest that pain is interconnected to a broader scenario of feelings, thoughts, peoples and places. Conclusion: Our findings highlight the layered and complex aspects of the lived experiences of chronic pain among Indigenous people. Indigenous-led alternatives focusing on culturally safe care can guide approaches to clinical pain practice and contribute to achieving health equity.

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Humanitarian settlers? Pietro Stefanini, Settler colonial humanitarianism: a genealogy of the settler subject in Palestine/Israel, PhD dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 2025

23Mar25

Abstract: This thesis reorients settler colonial studies towards an understanding of humanitarianism’s role in the constitution of the settler subject. Grounded in the case of Palestine/Israel, the settler colonial modality of humanitarianism that I illustrate is two-fold: enabling the continuous establishment of the settler society; and providing a tool for the dispossession of Palestinians. To substantiate these central claims, I draw from a genealogical methodology that reconstructs the changing patterns and spaces in which humanitarianism came to shape the settler subject, tracing its appearance and evolution to present day. To trace this genealogy linking different historical moments to the present, I relied on research in multiple archives and over 60 interviews conducted primarily during fieldwork in Palestine/Israel. The global history of humanitarianism in colonial and settler colonial contexts tells us a story in which it is usually the native subject the recipient of humanitarian aid and sentiment. But archival research on the relief work of the Zionist Commission (1918-1921), which targeted settlers in need of aid to rebuild damaged colonies, reveals a distinct form of settler colonial humanitarianism which breaks from that historical pattern. After the First World War, humanitarian relief transformed into an instrument of settler sovereignty formation within the bounds of British imperial rule. Meanwhile, in revisiting the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe), I argue that the 1923 precedent on Greek-Turkish ‘population exchanges’ influenced how the expulsion of Palestinians was framed as a ‘humanitarian’ population transfer. This moment opens an avenue for understanding humanitarianism’s function in the dispossession of Palestinians. Yet, at this historical conjuncture, for the Israeli statehood project to succeed the mass depopulation of Palestinians that took place in 1948 had to be coupled with populating the conquered land with settlers. Here I argue that the ‘humanitarianisation’ of the Jewish immigration process facilitated the creation of the Israeli settler state. Drawing from an ethnographic approach and interviews with Israeli settlers, Israeli military officials, and staff of international humanitarian organisations, I explore the contemporary manifestations of the settler subject through two different processes. First, I examine a recent form of humanitarian governance adopted by the Israeli military which serves to buttress the control, counterinsurgency strategies, and ultimately dispossession of Palestinians. Second, a close appraisal of Israeli settlers evacuated from Gaza in 2005 reveals the multiple ways in which a settler colonial form of humanitarianism emerged. Israeli settlers began mobilising the figure of the refugee and the mental health discourse of trauma to disavow the process of de-settlement from Palestinian land. Through a reconstruction of the historical and contemporary contours of Israeli settler colonialism, this genealogical investigation thus shows how humanitarianism generates an eliminationist settler subjectivity that heralds the removal and replacement of Palestinians.

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Settler colonising the Apocalypse: Hannah Swearingen, Fu Otani, Sara Siddiqui, Ekem Dhesi, ‘Postcolonialisms in Post-Apocalyptic Landscapes: Colonially-Driven Environmental Degradation and Coloniality in Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind’, Trail Six, 19, 2025, pp. 68-76

23Mar25

Abstract: This paper builds on postcolonial and Indigenous climate change studies’ understanding of environmental degradation as a mode of colonial domination. We argue that a parallel can be drawn between the subjugation of Indigenous peoples under settler colonialism and that of both wajin – the dominant group – and Indigenous peoples (Ainu, Uchinanchu) of Japan under US imperialism. These groups’ similar experiences of inferiorization and subjugation under Eurocentric coloniality has generated a rich literary tradition of liberational futurities, expressed in Indigenous science fiction and Japanese apocalyptic science fiction. Through an analysis of Hayao Miyasaki’s (1984) film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, we argue for the subversion of colonial discourses as a powerful and necessary action in order to combat contemporary colonial oppression and environmental degradation.

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Settler hegemonies: Aidan Huang, ‘Gender(ed) Imaginations, Hegemony, and Counter-hegemony in Guatemala’, Trail Six, 19, 2025, pp. 31-41

23Mar25

Abstract: Guatemala’s socio-political landscape is well known as one marked by enduring conflict and state repression, often traced to settler colonialism and US imperialism. Compared to the attention on overt, physical violence, however, the role of ideological and cultural strategies in enabling this violence is less extensively discussed. In this paper, I draw upon Gramsci’s theory of hegemony to analyse how colonial-capitalist relationships of power in Guatemala operate not only through physical and political force, but are also underpinned by ideological and cultural domination. I argue that the cultural hegemony of Spanish colonisers and the settler colonial state have been and are reinforced by certain patriarchal ideas of gender, which are used to establish control over people in Guatemala, especially Indigenous Mayans. To illustrate this, I use examples from both colonial and post-independence periods, as well as my own experiences during a university study program. However, cultural hegemony in Guatemala remains incomplete, as counter-hegemonic imaginations and expressions of gender–rooted in Mayan cultures and resistance–challenge dominant gender roles and notions of identity, illustrating the ongoing contestation of power.

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Refugee settlerhood: Ambihai Akilan, ‘Between Borders and Histories: Refugee Settlerhood, Forced Migration, and Decolonized Belonging’, Trail Six, 19, 2025, pp. 77-84

23Mar25

Abstract: This paper explores the complexities of refugee settlerhood, examining the intersection of forced migration, settler colonialism, and the implications for Indigenous communities. Through the lens of personal experiences as a Tamil-Canadian, the tension between being both a product of colonization and a participant in the settler colonial project comes into focus, highlighting the differential experiences of migration that shape varying degrees of complicity. Using the insights of scholars like Xavier (2022), Wiegel et al. (2019), and Ellerman & O’Heran (2021), the paper critiques the commodification of citizenship and belonging in settler states and examines how refugees and migrants, despite fleeing violence and persecution, contribute to the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples. The paper argues that understanding settler complicity requires a shift away from binary notions of guilt and innocence, advocating instead for a framework of decolonized belonging. In this framework, belonging is redefined through Indigenous sovereignty, relational accountability, and active engagement in dismantling settler colonial structures. Ultimately, confronting colonial legacies and working toward transformative justice for Indigenous communities necessitates a collective responsibility, with refugee settlers playing a critical role in this process.

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You shall (not) have the (Indigenous) body (habeas corpus): Matthew Villeneuve, ‘Habeas Corpus and American Indian Boarding Schools: Indigenous Self-Determination in Body and Mind, 1880-1900’, Western Historical Quarterly, 2025

22Mar25

Abstract: This article examines the history of Native people’s use of habeas corpus to resist family separation employed in the United States’ system of Indian boarding schools. It highlights three cases brought by Native petitioners from Alaska, New Mexico, and Iowa between 1885 and 1900. These cases show how Native parents, husbands, and cousins challenged the federal agents responsible for boarding schools by appealing to federal courts for intervention on behalf of their kin confined in such schools. Moving beyond legal interpretations, however, this article further argues that Native people used these petitions to assert their capacity to make their own decisions about the proper education of their young people and to convey Indigenous values of teaching and learning. Consequently, these cases illustrate an important but understudied means by which Native people used the legal tools available to them to assert self-determination in education. These habeas corpus cases are therefore a crucial part of boarding school history, American Indian and Indigenous history, and the history of U.S. education.

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