2. Colonialisms, decolonization, decoloniality

2020 ◽  
pp. 32-40
Author(s):  
Robert J. C. Young
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Colonial Culture ◽  
Foreign State ◽  
Permanent Home

‘Colonialisms, decolonization, decoloniality’ explains that colonization took two major forms: the first, with colonizers gradually taking over land where sovereignty was not established in a European way, or occupying a foreign state, and then administering and taxing it; the second, with the settlement of Europeans arriving with the intention of adopting the colony as their permanent home. Such ‘settler colonialism’ has had continuing effects on the indigenous peoples right up to the present day. Here, anti-colonial activists argue that decolonization begins with decolonizing oneself from the settler colonial culture. Intellectual decolonization has to form a part of political decolonization.

Indigenous Planning: From Forced Assimilation to Self-determination

2021 ◽  
pp. 088541222110266
Author(s):  
Michael Hibbard
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Indigenous Cultures ◽  
Indigenous Planning ◽  
Indigenous Land Rights ◽  
Indigenous Land

Interest in Indigenous planning has blossomed in recent years, particularly as it relates to the Indigenous response to settler colonialism. Driven by land and resource hunger, settler states strove to extinguish Indigenous land rights and ultimately to destroy Indigenous cultures. However, Indigenous peoples have persisted. This article draws on the literature to examine the resistance of Indigenous peoples to settler colonialism, their resilience, and the resurgence of Indigenous planning as a vehicle for Indigenous peoples to determine their own fate and to enact their own conceptions of self-determination and self-governance.

Jeremy Bentham: Pauperism, Colonialism, and Imperialism

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
BARBARA ARNEIL
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Jeremy Bentham ◽  
Theoretical Contribution ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Poor ◽  
First Contact

Using two recently published folios by Jeremy Bentham, I draw out a fundamental but little-analyzed connection between pauperism and both domestic and settler colonialism in opposition to imperialism in his thought. The core theoretical contribution of this article is to draw a distinction between a colonial, internal, and productive form of power that claims to improve people and land from within, which Bentham defends, and an imperial, external, and repressive form of power that dominates or rules over people from above and afar, that he rejects. Inherent in colonialism and the power unleashed by it are specific and profoundly negative implications in practice for the poor and disabled of Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries subject to domestic colonialism and indigenous peoples subject to settler colonialism from first contact until today. I conclude Bentham is best understood as a pro-colonialist and anti-imperialist thinker.

scholarly journals Origins: Colonies and Statistics

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 735-754
Author(s):  
Barbara Arneil
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
English Language ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Mass Survey ◽  
Waste Land ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
History Of

AbstractIn this address, I examine the lexical, geographic, temporal and philosophical origins of two key concepts in modern political thought: colonies and statistics. Beginning with the Latin word colonia, I argue that the modern ideology of settler colonialism is anchored in the claim of “improvement” of both people and land via agrarian labour in John Locke's labour theory of property in seventeenth-century America, through which he sought to provide an ideological justification for both the assimilation and dispossession of Indigenous peoples. This same ideology of colonialism was turned inward a century later by Sir John Sinclair to justify domestic colonies on “waste” land in Scotland—specifically Caithness (the county within which my own grandparents were tenant farmers). Domestic colonialism understood as “improvement” of people (the “idle” poor and mentally ill and disabled) through engagement in agrarian labour on waste land inside explicitly named colonies within the borders of one's own country was first championed not only by Sinclair but also his famous correspondent, Jeremy Bentham, in England. Sinclair simultaneously coined the word statistics and was the first to use it in the English language. He defined it as the scientific gathering of mass survey data to shape state policies. Bentham embraced statistics as well. In both cases, statistics were developed and deployed to support their domestic colony schemes by creating a benchmark and roadmap for the improvement of people and land as well as a tool to measure the colony's capacity to achieve both over time. I conclude that settler colonialism along with the intertwined origins of domestic colonies and statistics have important implications for the study of political science in Canada, the history of colonialism as distinct from imperialism in modern political thought and the role played by intersecting colonialisms in the Canadian polity.

Re-presenting Genocide: The Canadian Museum of Human Rights and Settler Colonial Power

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita Kaur Dhamoon
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Colonial Power ◽  
National Narratives ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Settler Societies ◽  
Forced Movement

AbstractIn settler societies like Canada, United States, and Australia, the bourgeoning discourse that frames colonial violence against Indigenous people as genocide has been controversial, specifically because there is much debate about the meaning and applicability of genocide. Through an analysis of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, this paper analyzes what is revealed about settler colonialism in the nexus of difficult knowledge, curatorial decisions, and political debates about the label of genocide. I specifically examine competing definitions of genocide, the primacy of the Holocaust, the regulatory role of the settler state, and the limits of a human rights framework. My argument is that genocide debates related to Indigenous experiences operationalize a range of governing techniques that extend settler colonialism, even as Indigenous peoples confront existing hegemonies. These techniques include: interpretative denial; promoting an Oppression Olympics and a politics of distancing; regulating difference through state-based recognition and interference; and depoliticizing claims that overshadow continuing practices of assimilation, extermination, criminalization, containment, and forced movement of Indigenous peoples. By pinpointing these techniques, this paper seeks to build on Indigenous critiques of colonialism, challenge settler national narratives of peaceful and lawful origins, and foster ways to build more just relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

Protecting the Empire's Humanity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoë Laidlaw
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
South Australia ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
British Colonialism

Rooted in the extraordinary archive of Quaker physician and humanitarian activist, Dr Thomas Hodgkin, this book explores the efforts of the Aborigines' Protection Society to expose Britain's hypocrisy and imperial crimes in the mid-nineteenth century. Hodgkin's correspondents stretched from Liberia to Lesotho, New Zealand to Texas, Jamaica to Ontario, and Bombay to South Australia; they included scientists, philanthropists, missionaries, systematic colonizers, politicians and indigenous peoples themselves. Debating the best way to protect and advance indigenous rights in an era of burgeoning settler colonialism, they looked back to the lessons and limitations of anti-slavery, lamented the imperial government's disavowal of responsibility for settler colonies, and laid out elaborate (and patronizing) plans for indigenous 'civilization'. Protecting the Empire's Humanity reminds us of the complexity, contradictions and capacious nature of British colonialism and metropolitan 'humanitarianism', illuminating the broad canvas of empire through a distinctive set of British and Indigenous campaigners.

scholarly journals Book Review: An Indigenous Peoples' History Of The United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 127-130
Author(s):  
Judith B. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Genocide Studies ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Indian Perspective

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's, An Indigenous Peoples' History Of The United States, confronts the reality of settler-colonialism and genocide as foundational to the United States. It reconstructs and reframes the consensual narrative from the Native Indian perspective while exposing indoctrinated myths and stereotypes. This masterful and riveting journey provides truth and paths towards the future progress for all peoples. It is a must read and belongs in every classroom, home, library, and canon of genocide studies.

Intolerance toward Native American Religions

2020 ◽  
pp. 125-146
Author(s):  
John Corrigan ◽  
Lynn S. Neal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native American ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
North America ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Native American Religions

Settler colonialism was imbued with intolerance towards Indigenous peoples. In colonial North America brutal military force was applied to the subjection and conversion of Native Americans to Christianity. In the United States, that offense continued, joined with condemnations of Indian religious practice as savagery, or as no religion at all. The violence was legitimated by appeals to Christian scripture in which genocide was commanded by God. Forced conversion to Christianity and the outlawing of Native religious practices were central aspects of white intolerance.

scholarly journals Exceeding the Limits of Reconciliation: ‘Decolonial Aesthetic Activism’ in the Artwork of Canadian Artist Meryl McMaster

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-22
Author(s):  
Allyson Green
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Relationship Building ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Critical Engagement

In this paper I consider whether, and if so how artistic creative uncertainty can facilitate processes of imagining new relationships between Indigenous peoples and settlers. Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s model of reconciliation seems to promise improved Indigenous/settler relationships, yet many Indigenous scholars and allies question the efficacy of it as an approach to expedite relationship-building. For that reason, Indigenous critics like David Garneau suggest that alternate methods be deployed such as ‘decolonial aesthetic activism’ in order to build relationships that exceed the limits of reconciliation. Within this model, ambiguous, discordant, and indigestible artworks operate as one method by which we/settlers can become aware of how we are implicated in the structures of settler colonialism. I apply Garneau’s theory by conducting a close reading of the performative self-portraits by Meryl McMaster. My analysis reveals that art can put forward critiques of settler colonialism that unsettle assumptions, thereby creating new spaces for us to imagine worlds otherwise. Accordingly, I argue that McMaster’s art does have the potential to exceed the limits of reconciliation and conclude that critical engagement with her photographs is an important first step in the process that is decolonization, a process that exceeds the limits of reconciliation.

Black Representations of Settlement on Film

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-59
Author(s):  
Beenash Jafri
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Popular Film ◽  
White Settler ◽  
The Law

This article develops a method for analyzing Indigenous erasure in popular film that focuses not on the representations (or lack thereof) of Indigenous peoples but on representations of settlement. Whereas much of the scholarship on Native representations in film has been concerned with Hollywood’s promulgation of the “mythical Indian,” I argue that a focus on settlement—rather than on bodies—is significant in the context of the ongoing, unfinished processes of colonialism, which continue to structure life in white settler states. Cultural representations that reconfigure colonial-occupied life as settled life naturalize settler colonialism while erasing and displacing Indigenous claims to land. I illuminate this method by analyzing how the 1974 “blaxploitation Western” Thomasine and Bushrod imagines settlement. The film features a pair of lovers who are on the run from the law in America’s Southwest from 1911 to 1915. Because it is a film that speaks back to historical constructions of Blackness and Indigeneity, Thomasine and Bushrod productively illuminates how representations of Indigenous erasure work in often ambiguous and contradictory ways.

Land of Opportunity: Anti-Black and Settler Logics in the Gentrification of Detroit

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-133
Author(s):  
Jessi Quizar
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Predominantly Black ◽  
Native Peoples ◽  
Black Neighborhoods ◽  
Land Grabs ◽  
The City ◽  
Black Land

It is an increasingly common trope in anti-gentrification activism to claim that gentrification of Black neighborhoods is a form of settler colonialism. Although Native critics have pushed back against these metaphors as abstractions of, and false equivalencies to, the concrete conditions of settler colonialism, gentrifying discourse frequently draws on the language and logic of settler colonialism in narratives about the city of Detroit. In this article, I ask what it means that terms and logic that are being applied to a predominantly Black city were, and are, also used to rationalize and structure theft of land from Native Americans. Proposing that shifting white interests in Black land have led to “borrowing” of longstanding logics used to dispossess Native peoples, I argue that the reiteration of settler-colonial logics in Detroit to explain and justify gentrification manifestly both validates land grabs in the city and further erases the claims of both Black and Indigenous peoples to Detroit.

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