Contested Indigeneities: “Adivasi” Politics Historically and in Contemporary Times

This article focuses on the development and transformations of adivasi political identity and its articulations with indigenous consciousness in India since the advent of colonial capitalism. The apogee of adivasi politics and the “politics of indigeneity” since the 1970s has coincided with the networking among indigenous groups within the United Nations. The history of such politics will be traced in order to illustrate the forms in which social identities appear over a long historical process. In other words, the changing character of the antagonistic contradictions between the hegemon and different sections of the oppressed will be illustrated, including the articulation of “indigeneity” and “ adivasi” consciousness. Methodologically, the article promotes a dialectical interpretation of the phenomenon and counters a metaphysical analysis of identity politics.

Surviving School and “Survival Schools”: Resistance, Compulsion and Negotiation in Aboriginal Engagements with Schooling

In Australia, Aboriginal peoples have sought to exploit and challenge settler colonial schooling to meet their own goals and needs, engaging in strategic, diverse and creative ways closely tied to labour markets and the labour movement. Here, we bring together two case studies to illustrate the interplay of negotiation, resistance and compulsion that we argue has characterised Aboriginal engagements with school as a structure within settler colonial capitalism. Our first case study explains how Aboriginal families in Victoria and New South Wales deliberately exploited gaps in school record collecting to maintain mobility during the mid-twentieth century and engaged with labour markets that enabled visits to country. Our second case study explores the Strelley mob’s establishment of independent, Aboriginal-controlled bilingual schools in the 1970s to maintain control of their labour and their futures. Techniques of survival developed in and around schooling have been neglected by historians, yet they demonstrate how schooling has been a strategic political project, both for Aboriginal peoples and the Australian settler colonial state.

Keynote Speech: Colonial-Capitalism and Its Impact on Natural Resources in The Colonised World

This keynote speech was delivered at the International Conference on Interdisciplinary and Strategic Studies (ICRIS) on August 12, 2021. It explains the concept of colonial-capitalism and highlights the importance of understanding the underlying logic of capitalism behind the praxis of colonialism. From the middle to late stages of colonialism over the past 500 years, the underlying logic of colonial conquest continued to evolve. Initially, it was the Crusades that prompted the Europeans to start their exploration but then it was the conflicts and competition among the European powers themselves that galvanised their desire to conquer the world. This speech also illustrates how colonial-capitalism has changed our view of nature and our human relationship with the natural world, which in turn has influenced how we manage our natural resources. It concludes by reflecting on how we are still living in the long shadow of the 19th century and why the struggle for mental liberation continues until today.

FROM COLONIAL CAPITALISM TO CRONY CAPITALISM. HISTORICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL DETERMINANTS OF THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC MODEL FROM THE MALAYSIAN PERSPECTIVE

During the period of colonialism the implementation of colonial capitalism resulted in the integration of Southeast Asia into the global economy, which directly influenced the local socio-economic system. The changes occurring in the region since the 19th century, which is the period discussed in this article, can be analyzed from many points of view. The following paper focuses on the territory of present-day Malaysia, an exceptionally heterogeneous country, and it analyses the results of this transformation and the influence it had on the current socio-economic system. Colonialism has undeniably contributed to the economic growth of the Malay Peninsula while excluding parts of the population and destroying local institutions and existing models of the socio-economic system. Despite this apparent quantitative growth, oligarchic institutions were created, impeding the area's actual qualitative socio-economic development. The decolonization process did not change it sufficiently. The first aim of the article is to indicate the direct historical relationship between colonial capitalism, violently implemented by colonial empires in the conquered territories, and the crony capitalism formed after the decolonization period. Secondly, the author tries to identify oligarchic institutions and the outcomes of their influence. These institutions were created in the historical process within colonial capitalism and are still present today. They fundamentally influence the politics and society of contemporary Malaysia, thus inhibiting qualitative socio-economic transformation. Thirdly, the author, using a variety of indicators and indexes measuring, for example, corruption, the democratization process, or social development, seeks to demonstrate the power of crony capitalism and its institutions and their impact on impeding socio-economic development.

A Decolonial Race-Centered Case Analysis of Bottom-up System Change

The Degrowth movement strives to address the grave and adverse social and ecological conditions that currently disrupt life across our planet and that are chiefly caused by evolving systems of colonial capitalism. A core strategy of colonial capitalism is to socially divide peoples, especially through racial classifications. This social dividing has a long history and continues to occur spatially and socially in localities across the globe today. Many movements countering colonial capitalism are adopting horizontal, translocal strategies. Such strategies are promulgated as a way of building horizontal counter knowledge and counter power. A case example of an effort to build a North American Confederation for bottom-up democracy will be presented. A decolonial, race centered analysis will show how a decolonial opening occurred and will then propose three themes for carrying decoloniality further in the case situation.

‘Authorizing the Peril’: Mythologies of (Settler) Law at the End of Time

The promised paradises of colonial capitalism and neoliberalism are set in a perpetually elusive future (Fitzpatrick 1992). This future is not a set destination, but an endless linear journey set to the thrum of ‘progress’ and ‘development’. This paper considers, in the context of recent cases relating to development in the Athabasca tar sands region, what the law of the Canadian settler state does when it is faced with interruptions and ruptures in its timescape. Drawing on Fitzpatrick’s seminal work, The Mythology of Modern Law, I argue that a conceptualisation of law’s behaviour in these contexts as functionally mythological highlights some of the elusive ways that settler law maintains a stranglehold over legal imaginaries of oil and gas developments: by distorting and flattening the pasts and presents of Indigenous societies that pre-dated (and continue to co-exist with) the settler state on ‘Canadian’ land, by mediating between the ‘origin’ of the settler state and the daily rhythms of colonial time through ‘Eternal Objects’ such as property and economic development, and by asserting a general ‘objectivity’ of law to evade any direct grappling with the stark possibilities of the ‘end of the world’ created by the climate crisis. I conclude, drawing on Indigenous scholarship and the work of de Goede and Randalls, that a meaningful response to the climate crisis requires re-enchanted attachments to life that necessitate a departure from the one-dimensional temporality of the mythologies of settler law.

The Nimbleness of Neoliberalism in Queerness and EDI policy

This paper seeks to explore how queerness has been mobilized in this current historical context of neoliberal Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) policies. First, I will briefly overview the historical materialism of queerness under racial colonial capitalism. I will discuss what the lenses of surplus populations and social reproduction can and cannot help us see about queerness. Then, I will discuss how the mechanisms of neoliberalism both mobilize and repress queerness, as convenient. Finally, I will interrogate how (queer) EDI policy is implemented and negotiated in educational institutions, and situate it specifically within K-12 schools in Alberta.