Excerpt: An examination of settler colonialism from a psychoanalytic perspective is valuable in several ways. Unfortunately, too many people view this very complex topic from a binary perspective, oversimplifying causes as well as modes of redress. One source of oversimplification is a result of the difficulty in managing/mastering our own aggression that is stirred up when we think of horrors from the past and observe them in the present. A variety of defense mechanisms are available to us to deal with our own pain and conflict. Splitting allows us to see the world as consisting of either good people or bad people, denying the ever present ambiguities. Projection allows us to imbue our own forbidden impulses and wishes onto those with whom we disagree.

Abstract: When does settler-colonialism begin? Using the case of Israel/Palestine, this article moves through multiple historical possibilities proposed by scholars and activists to understand the “beginning” of the colonization of Palestine. Patrick Wolfe’s nowfamous work argued that such colonization should be thought of as a structure. I call for expanding his analysis, arguing that thinking about temporality with structure—that is, thinking about the implications of settler-colonialism’s beginnings and ends–allows us to see the continuities and deeper structures that pre-exist particular settler invasions in specific places. Rather than presenting a linear analysis, I look for patterns that help us think with and beyond the stale categories of oppressed and oppressor, colonizers and colonized, which work to entrench the very systems they seek to dismantle. To move beyond such binaries, I build on Gil Anidjar’s theorizing about the idea of Europe that constructs Muslims and Jews as enemies, and about the continuities of al-Andalus. If the Spanish capture of Grenada and expulsion of Muslims and Jews from their land (1482–1492) is also a form of settler-colonialism, then other forms of expulsion such as the enclosure movement in early modern England might be as well. The long-term continuities of settler-colonial structure rest on interrelated processes of change in the ways we define enemies, organize property regimes, and eliminate or reformulate indigeneity as such.

Abstract: This dissertation explores how Canadian drug laws impact Indigenous sovereignty and
perpetuate settler colonialism. It analyzes cannabis, liquor, and tobacco regulations to show how
they have historically undermined Indigenous rights. The first chapter examines cannabis laws
from 1923 to the 2018 Cannabis Act, revealing how these laws limit Indigenous control and
criminalize resistance. The second chapter discusses liquor laws from the late 1800s to the early
1900s, highlighting how they shaped white settler identities by penalizing those who interacted
with Indigenous people. The third chapter critiques the Canadian tobacco industry’s portrayal of
the Mohawk tobacco trade as illegal, showing how this benefits the industry economically
through the criminalization of Indigenous peoples. Drawing on Settler Colonial Theory, Critical
Race Theory, and Indigenous Criminology, this study uncovers the complex ways colonial
power dynamics operate, helping us understand how drug laws continue to control Indigenous
peoples and legitimize the theft of their lands.

Abstract: The notion that farming is an unusually stressful occupation has become a cultural truism, with calls to investigate ‘root causes’ of stress on the farm. This paper argues the racialized, colonialist foundations of United States fee simple property is a ‘root cause’ of farm stress in the US corn belt. I build on work that sees farm property as not just a vehicle for economic gains, but imbricated in the performance and affective experience of whiteness and settler personhood. Drawing on interviews with Midwestern women farmers, I find many of their concerns fall into a category that I call ‘property-stress’. That is, while most are fiercely allegiant to the sanctity of the fee-simple farm and vigorously ‘defend’ their land rights, the very nature of the fee simple as abstract, commodifiable, and perpetual simultaneously engenders a competitive landscape that generates much stress. I argue that the racialized agrarianist logics undergirding Midwest agriculture produce particular racial and colonialist valences in land as well as a contradictory relationship with the federal sovereign who is ultimately the underwriter of white possession. These dynamics mean when the colonialist-capitalist vision of fee-simple property ‘fail’, it creates existential stress and forecloses opportunities to imagine a Midwest otherwise.

Description: In the 1817 Treaty of Fort Meigs, Anishinaabe leaders granted land to a college where their children could be educated. At the time, the colonial settlement of Anishinaabe homelands hardly extended beyond Detroit in what settlers called the “Michigan Territory.” Four days after the Treaty of Fort Meigs was signed, the First College of Michigania was founded to claim the land that the Anishinaabeg had just granted. Four years later, the newly-chartered University of Michigan would claim this land. By the time that the university’s successor moved to Ann Arbor twenty years later, Anishinaabe people had been forced to cede almost all their land in what had become the state of Michigan, now inhabited by almost 200,000 settlers. Under the Campus, the Land narrates the University of Michigan’s place in both Anishinaabe and settler history, tracing the university’s participation in the colonization of Anishinaabe homelands, Anishinaabe efforts to claim their right to an education, and the university’s history of disavowing, marginalizing, and minimizing its responsibilities and obligations to Anishinaabe people. Continuing the public conversations of the same name on U-M’s campus in 2023, Under the Campus, the Land provides a new perspective on the relationship between universities and settler colonialism in the US. Members of the U-M community, scholars of Midwest history, and those interested in Indigenous studies will find this book compelling.

Abstract: The last 30 years has seen a re-affirmation of the importance of canoeing for Indigenous communities throughout North America. These practices put an urgency to recent re-evaluations of the role of the canoe as a national symbol. Given these changes, those who guide canoe trips professionally are working through a unique landscape. This paper examines how those guides are navigating the relationship between canoeing and colonialism. Based on semi-structured interviews with guides working in Canada, the research found that awareness of colonialism and reconciliation has impacted the practices of guides, especially around the recognition of territory the trips travelled through, the relationship with Indigenous communities, the framing of wilderness, and the learning they hoped to pass on. The paper concludes by considering how recreational backcountry travel by settler organizations can engage with current discussions of reconciliation and decolonization, specifically around the discourse of wilderness and the affirmation of Indigenous jurisdiction.

Excerpt: The keen preservation of British colonial architecture as heritage sites signals the Singapore government’s gratitude to its white predecessors. The government’s conservation policy, which reflects its public biases in terms of its favoured historical narratives, and its partnerships with private development, have directly encouraged businesses like Riders Café and The White Rabbit to market themselves according to colonial belief systems, values, and aesthetics. Together, these conserved colonial-themed restaurants express a dual ideal of Anglicisation and Sinicisation, culminating in the creation of a postcolonial patron: the Anglophone Chinese Singaporean, the exemplary citizen able to receive the full benefits of British colonial heritage and ethnic Chinese settler colonial rule. Yet there is in fact nothing postcolonial about this idealised figure. The keen preservation of British colonial architecture as heritage sites signals the Singapore government’s gratitude to its white predecessors. At the same time, this focus on preserving colonial buildings and the Raffles Town Plan fails to locate any kind of meaningful indigenous history that existed before colonial contact. Singapore’s conservation ethics clearly prioritise and preserve the racialised layout of Raffles’ Town Plan in their creation of a multicultural narrative where every race allegedly has equal footing in Singapore’s past, present and future. The state turns physical reminders of colonial racial categorisation and segregation into a story of postcolonial racial integration. This narrative, as laid out in Singapore’s heritage districts, perpetuates the settler colonial trope of the terra nullius (“nobody’s land”), presenting Singapore as uninhabited land that needed to be divided up and managed by the British, so that it could be passed on to the current government for more development. The state turns physical reminders of colonial racial categorisation and segregation into a story of postcolonial racial integration… if Singapore has any racial harmony at all, colonialism had no part to play in it. But if Singapore has any racial harmony at all, colonialism had no part to play in it. Colonialism was, and is, dependent on the reification of invented racial hierarchies in order to tear a population apart for the benefit of colonisers and elites. As long as the Singaporean public venerates the aesthetics of a colonial era tightly yoked to the disenfranchisement and erasure of Malay people, Singapore will never be truly postcolonial. By exonerating the British colonial era of its virulent racism, Singapore’s preservation policies encourage us to think of colonialism as a key part in the country’s thrust towards modernity and affluence. And if Singaporeans revere colonialism, then they celebrate an ideology based on dangerous rhetoric about the Malay community’s racial and cultural shortcomings, which is still mobilised today to explain contemporary Malay socioeconomic and political disenfranchisement. Singapore cannot effectively fight the legacies of British colonialism, or confront the present state of Chinese settler colonialism, without interrogating, critiquing, and ultimately divesting from the cultural tools—even the most pleasurable ones—which help to normalise the disenfranchisement of Malay people on their own land. Perhaps colonial-themed restaurants seem innocuous and apolitical, or perhaps they hold a seductive power, always offering chic service, delicious food, comfortable surroundings, and an ineffable feeling of luxury. But Singapore cannot effectively fight the legacies of British colonialism, or confront the present state of Chinese settler colonialism, without interrogating, critiquing, and ultimately divesting from the cultural tools—even the most pleasurable ones—which help to normalise the disenfranchisement of Malay people on their own land. So what can Singapore do, moving forward? Where do we go after the Singapore Bicentennial, and how do we let go of our colonial past? Perhaps Singapore could tear down the architecture of the colonial era, to prevent the local population from venerating these symbols of racial inequality and subjugation. But this is a symbolic move, and although it would be a massive administrative and physical undertaking, it is actually too easy, ideologically speaking. (And anyway, which exploited labourers would have to do the dangerous, backbreaking, and underpaid work of tearing down every colonial building in Singapore?) Ultimately, the work of decolonisation lies in social consciousness, civic participation, and political action. The truth is, colonialism still rules Singapore’s present, and it is now Chinese people who share the shameful title of coloniser with our white forebears. Colonial buildings are only physical manifestations of a social, political, and economic architecture that undergirds modern life in Singapore. Even if black-and-white mansions were to suddenly disappear off the face of the island, the structures of racial inequality, white supremacy, and Chinese privilege would still remain entrenched in Singaporean society. Nothing would change. So while tearing colonial buildings and statues down might initially signal a serious commitment to decolonisation, it would be an empty gesture if Chinese Singaporeans do not also work to demolish the legacies left by colonialism in our political and social structures. Ultimately, the work of decolonisation lies in social consciousness, civic participation, and political action. Then, perhaps, we could render these colonial houses truly insignificant—just abandoned structures, empty of meaning, holding power over no one at all.

[I was preparing to write a rejoinder when I realise that this guy is not contesting the truth of settler colonialism. He thinks it should not be taught but has nothing against the fact that it is a specific mode of domination and that it is ongoing. This is when I rest my case; I guess I have a better relationship with truth than he does.]

Excerpt: Now that Critical Race Theory (CRT) is being exposed as ahistorical indoctrination, a new permutation of neo-Marxist theory is gaining currency in our schools. It’s called postcolonialism. Its stated mission is to fight “settler colonialism,” a term used to describe any society supposedly built upon the oppression and genocide of indigenous people. Examples of “settler societies” include Israel, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Canada, and the United States. The recent student activism against Israel, which denied the country’s right to exist and celebrated terrorist attacks against it, demonstrated the true nature of postcolonialism and its power to inspire hatred on campus. Whereas CRT is largely an American phenomenon, postcolonial ideology developed within a broader global context, emerging out of the various movements to end empire around the world—much as CRT emerged as a mutation of the movement to end racial segregation in America. What the civil rights movement is to CRT, the decolonization movement is to postcolonialism. The intellectual forefather of postcolonial ideology is the Marxist intellectual Frantz Fanon, whose writings glorified Algeria’s violent resistance to French control in the middle of the 20th century.  Starting in the 1990s, the field of settler colonial studies (SCS) brought postcolonial ideology into mainstream academia. Since then, history, anthropology, and sociology departments across the Western world have been teaching college students that their nation is an illegitimate settler colonial society built upon white supremacy, theft, and genocide perpetrated against indigenous peoples. SCS is now quietly becoming the basic framework for K-12 social studies curricula throughout the country. For instance, Oregon’s 8th-grade history standards ask students “to examine the differing forms of oppression, including cultural and physical genocide, faced by Indigenous Tribes and acts of resilience and resistance used by Indigenous peoples in response to settler colonialism.”

Abstract: Previous research has shown that Appalachian Studies as a field, by drawing upon Appalachian Studies scholars and activists such as Harry Caudill, Helen Lewis, and Chris Irwin, misapplied the colonialism model to whites in the region, which resulted in clear remnants of self-Indigenization in the field. I show through a rhetorical analysis of recent (2020–2023) editions of the Journal of Appalachian Studies that these critiques have been left largely unaddressed in the field. In reviewing these issues, a tenet of Appalachian Studies is to employ “Appalachian” as an identity (rather than as solely a regional analytic) that is claimable by whites as distinct from other white settler colonizer identities. Applying the peoplehood matrix, which is a theory of that which imbues Indigenous peoples with Indigeneity and sovereignty, I reveal that white Appalachia often rhetorically presents itself as a colonized Indigenous people—though not necessarily as American Indians.

Excerpt: While it is true that since 1967, Religious Zionists have been the primary promoters of annihilationist rhetoric, the involvement of Secular Israelis in October 2023 does not represent a novel phenomenon. Rather, it is deeply rooted in the eliminatory imagination of transfer – a concept preached and practiced by the founding fathers of Secular Zionism – and in annihilatory rhetoric employed by Secular Zionists as early as the 1930s and during the 1948 war. To understand the apparent sudden mainstreaming of genocidal imagination and the relationship between this imagination and religiosity, a broader historical perspective is essential. This perspective must account for the underlying context of settler-colonialism, its impact on the settlers’ mindset and habitus, and the complex relationship between secularism and religiosity within Zionism. In this article, I examine the interplay of three key factors that have shaped the evolution of genocidal imagination.