Settler States in Conversation: Intergovernmental Policy Exchanges, Settler-Colonial Urbanism, and the Politics of Comparison

Abstract

In October 1963, top officials from the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Affairs Branch of the Canadian Department of Citizenship and Immigration convened in Scottsdale, Arizona. This article mobilizes the records of the 1963 meetings to contribute to broader debates about the relationship between settler colonization and the production of urban space. It argues that by focusing on the relationships between settler states scholars can strengthen existing understandings of “settler-colonial urbanism” and reveal a broader set of influences that has shaped its varied trajectories. Ultimately, it seeks to demonstrate that settler-colonial urbanism in Canada and the United States has been shaped by not only internal politics but also relations that extend beyond the boundaries of the national container and include relationships cultivated between and among other settler states. It is concerned not simply with the role that individual settler states have played in the urban process but also with how they have interacted and learned from one another.