Settler Identity Research Articles

“What You Need is a Good Old‐Fashioned Spanking”: Childishness, Sexuality, and Appropriative Settler Identity in Blue Hawaii

The Journal of Popular CultureVolume 55, Issue 3 p. 672-691 Original Article “What You Need is a Good Old-Fashioned Spanking”: Childishness, Sexuality, and Appropriative Settler Identity in Blue Hawaii Lizzy Nichols, Corresponding Author Lizzy Nichols lizzynichols0@gmail.com Corresponding Author Email ID: lizzynichols0@gmail.comSearch for more papers by this author Lizzy Nichols, Corresponding Author Lizzy Nichols lizzynichols0@gmail.com Corresponding Author Email ID: lizzynichols0@gmail.comSearch for more papers by this author First published: 19 June 2022 https://doi.org/10.1111/jpcu.13140Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume55, Issue3June 2022Pages 672-691 RelatedInformation

Südwester Reiter: Fear, Belonging, and Settler Colonial Violence in Namibia

ABSTRACT This article examines the continuities between the Herero and Nama genocide and the history of the Reiterdenkmal statue in Windhoek, Namibia. It interprets the statue as an extension of the lived experience of the genocide and a contested symbol of settler belonging. The Reiterdenkmal reformulated colonial violence as white victimhood and black savagery, and advanced German settler claims over African soil. Violence and the “rider” together remade black African space into white settler space. Yet, this settler belonging was and remains grounded on fears. Uncertainty over belonging and fear of the Natives had driven the killing and exploitation of black Africans in the first place, and settler identities remain uncertain as the legacies and reckonings of past violence continue unresolved in independent Namibia.

“A vast field in itself”: Acclimatisation, Phrenology and Salvage Ethnography in the Goldfields Mechanics’ Institutes

This article investigates the dual project of colonial improvement and settlement shaping the identity and purpose of Victorian goldfields mechanics’ institutes in their pursuit of colonial knowledge and their participation in networks of imperial science. Focussing on three institutes established during the first decade of the Australian gold rush—the Sandhurst Mechanics’ Institute (SMI, est. 1854), the Beechworth Athenaeum (est. 1856) and the Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute (BMI, est. 1859)—this article examines the institutes’ support of acclimatisation societies and their interest in developing local natural histories; their fascination with and encouragement of debates surrounding phrenology; and their practices of collecting ethnographic material that shaped their involvement with the evolving theories of racial science in the Australian colonies. In studying these social and scientific activities, this article demonstrates how the institutes promoted and embodied a local settler identity and ideology that worked to alleviate the moral and social anxieties accompanying the gold rush. In doing so, this article also reveals the imperial reach of regional literary institutions and elucidates the scholarly benefits of treating these institutes as significant participatory nodes in imperial networks as we shift our focus from traditional metropole-colony exchanges.

Repeating Englands: The Transatlantic Archipelago and Early Modern Britain

abstract: In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, English conquest narratives set in the Americas and popular entertainments increasingly represented a unified Britain through the figure of a “repeating England”: an insular refuge in an inchoate ocean of dangers that linked the work of English homemakers to colonial settlers. This article charts that development in two parts. It begins in the late sixteenth century, when conquest writers like George Peckham and John Hutchinson were exchanging the geographic insularity of earlier English self-representation for a model that viewed Englishness not as genealogical or place-based, but as archipelagic and mobile, maintained in and across English homes on both sides of the Atlantic. Englishness here is not a geographic context but a blueprint for producing and possessing an English place through the labors of English “planters.” Jacobean entertainments by Thomas Dekker and John Middleton then drew on this earlier conquest writing to stage Britishness through perspectival techniques that unified subjects in radically different viewing positions and made Britishness a matter of perspective. By following these repeating Englands from page to stage and from Ireland to the Americas, this analysis shows how English writers created a unified Britain from colonial materials and represented Britishness as an extension of settler identity.

‘This stuff speaks to me’: Settler materiality, identity and nationalism among collectors of Native American material culture

ABSTRACT This article examines the collection activities of Paul Dyck (1917–2016), a collector of Native North American Plains objects. Paul Dyck’s extensive archive is employed to explore networks of collectors and their practices, spanning the entirety of the United States in the mid-twentieth century. Weaving ethnographic material conducted with private collectors and heirs alongside Dyck’s correspondence, Dyck’s activities are situated within the history of anthropological thought, a discourse on the nature of settler colonial practices of collection, and U.S. settler identity formation. The article draws on these insights to introduce settler materiality, a new theoretical term and definition with relevance for anthropologists, Native American and Indigenous Studies scholars, historians, and settlercolonial theorists interested in the way material culture functions in settler colonial societies.

American/Medieval Future(s) and the Transit of Whiteness

The American/Medieval project began as an interdisciplinary faculty research seminar at Wake Forest University some ten years ago. It aimed to look beyond, or differently, at current understandings of medievalism and, in particular, to identify geographically distinct currents of connection between the 'American' and the Western-centric European 'Medieval'. The collaborative work of Wake Forest scholars and external colleagues who subsequently joined the project resulted in two co-edited volumes of essays, American/Medieval: Nature and Mind in Cultural Transfer and American/Medieval Goes North: Earth and Water in Transit (V&R UniPress, 2016 and 2019). This essay outlines the project's genesis and development and considers what direction(s) future iterations might take. How might it address questions about the ongoing effects of settler identity, environmental crises, systemic racism, and Indigeneity in the United States; about the continuing co-optation of the European medieval in white supremacist contexts; about the current divisions and exclusions within our field; about the pandemic-related revisions of our relations to community? The A/M project does not (yet?) look to the medieval as a solution to contemporary challenges but seeks to comprehend the entanglement that is American/Medieval and how our work as medievalists might be inextricably dependent on the contemporary moment in place and time, whether aesthetic, political, or both, or more.

Unsettling emotions: settler innocence in Australia Day debates

ABSTRACT Contestation over the date of Australia Day is waged yearly as a passionate culture war between conservatives who wish to ‘save the date’ and progressives arguing to ‘change the date’. This article argues that despite clear ideological differences, settler engagements with both movements reflect a common emotional commitment to preserving a positive self-understanding as innocent and benevolent political actors. Both movements are therefore similarly invested in the maintenance and justification of settler authority, though by way of very different strategies. It follows that broader relations between settlers and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are at least partially constituted by dynamics of collective settler emotion that are felt deeply in relation to disputed qualities of Australian nationhood, sovereignty and culture. This analysis further reveals the pressing need to move beyond the narrow boundaries of ‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’ settler identity in which discussions of Indigenous politics are all too often trapped.

Performing the ‘Pied-Noir’ Family: Constructing Narratives of Settler Memory and Identity in Literature and On-Screen. Par Aoife Connolly

<i>Performing the ‘Pied-Noir’ Family: Constructing Narratives of Settler Memory and Identity in Literature and On-Screen</i>. Par Aoife Connolly

Wakefield's Offspring

Wakefield's Offspring

Land, Settler identity, and tourism memories

This paper draws on theoretical insights associated with settler colonial studies and a collective memory work methodology to illuminate the multiple and contested meanings of land conveyed in tourism memory narratives of Settler Canadians. As part of a multi-day nature-based tourism experience in June 2019, 16 Settler co-participants wrote, and collectively analyzed, memory texts associated with travel experiences that they felt expressed genuinely Canadian and Indigenous qualities. Thematic analysis of memory narratives and co-participant discussions show how land meanings—specifically, land as organizer, educator, connector, and sustainer—relate to the dynamics of Settler identity. The paper thus builds upon emerging scholarship on tourism and settler colonialism and contributes pathways for decolonizing Settler-Indigenous relations in tourism and tourism research.

Working for Justice in Food Systems on Stolen Land? Interrogating Food Movements Confronting Settler Colonialism

The evolving practice and scholarship surrounding food movements aim to address social, political, economic and ecological crises in food systems. However, limited interrogation of settler colonialism remains a crucial gap. Settler colonialism is the ongoing process of invasion that works to systematically erase and replace Indigenous Peoples with settler populations and identities. While many progressive and well-intentioned food movements engage directly with issues of land, water, identity, and power, critics argue they have also reified capitalism, white supremacy, agro-centrism and private property that are central to the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous Peoples. Scholars and advocates have called for greater accountability to the contradictions inherent in working towards social and ecological justice on stolen land. We write this paper as three settler activist-scholars to interrogate ways that social movements are responding to this call. A community-engaged methodology was used to conduct semi-structured interviews with individuals working in settler-led food movement organizations in Northwestern Ontario, Canada and in Southern Australia. We present our findings through three intersecting categories: 1) Expressions of settler inaction; 2) Mere inclusion of Indigenous Peoples and ideas; and, 3) Productive engagements and visions to confront settler colonialism. To explore the possibility of deeper engagements that confront settler colonialism, we suggest a continuum that moves from situating our(settler)selves within the framework of settler colonialism to (re)negotiating relationships with Indigenous Peoples to actualizing productive positions of solidarity with Indigenous struggles. We argue that this work is essential for food movements that aim to transform relationships with the land, each other, and ultimately forge more sustainable and equitable food futures.

Performing the Pied-Noir Family: Constructing Narratives of Settler Memory and Identity in Literature and On-Screen by Aoife Connolly

Performing the Pied-Noir Family: Constructing Narratives of Settler Memory and Identity in Literature and On-Screen by Aoife Connolly

Becoming and Being Irish-Pākehā: Crafting a Narrative of Belonging That Inspirits Indigenous–Settler Relationships

Irish-Pākehā (a European New Zealander of Irish descent) is a settler identity that embodies ancestral relations with forebears and homelands as well as a relationship with Māori, the Indigenous Peoples of Aotearoa-New Zealand. Being of Irish descent carries multiple meanings that can nourish a sense of identity, a sense of belonging, and significant relationships. How have my Irish ancestral relations and places of belonging cultivated in me those relational qualities and ethical–political commitments that inspirit the Indigenous–settler engagements that are part of my personal and professional life? Here I explore the complexities of becoming and being Irish-Pākehā in response to that question. Travelling across generations and two countries, I utilise a series of guiding questions to help construct an Irish-Pākehā diasporic identity through a narrative of belonging. Following Nash, I explore geographies of relatedness, doing kinship, and the effects of identity-making through kinship as a way to understand who I am/am becoming and why being Irish-Pākehā matters in my work with Indigenous Māori.

Race, Entitlement, and Belonging: A Discursive Analysis of the Political Economy of Land in Zimbabwe

The access, control, and ownership of land and the means of production is an enduring frontier of conflict in post colonial settler states. Whilst racially tinged, colonialism created “structures of feeling” that sanctioned epistemic violence and created an economy of entitlement and belonging that sustained imperial designs. Zimbabwe’s independence meant the redistribution and proprietorship of land became a central leitmotif of cadastral politics. The article explores the interplay of the contested tropes of race, entitlement, and indigeneity as they informed the highly polarized land redistribution discourse. The discussion takes stock of the dominant narratives of post-colonial state predations, patronage, populism, and megalomania in contradistinction to the various ways in which whiteness and its prejudices and stereotypes nurtured some hubris of entitlement and belonging that retrogressively not only perpetuated colonial settler values and identities but also entrenched racial distance and indifference. The polarized contestations on land redistribution discourse coalesce around concepts such as restitution, indigeneity, nativity, patriotism, race, and class. Therefore while critiquing state excesses that have masked the honorable intentions of land redistribution, the article underscores the complex ways in which white Zimbabweans contributed to the enduring crisis by obdurately fixating their energies on colonial settler entitlements, values, and identities.

Journey to Authentic Learning - Enacting Reciprocity in Nursing Graduate Education - A Reflective Writing Circle

The transformative experience of engaged presence in teaching and learning fosters trust and supports learners and teachers to explore, learn, and grow in their understanding of who they are becoming. Enacting presence in teaching becomes an act of care and creates an embodied space for learners to engage in authentic learning and enter the realm of self-authorship. Self-authorship encourages the cultivation of one’s internal voice to construct beliefs, identity, and social relationships to be able to give up one way of making meaning to adopt a deeper meaning (Baxter Magolda, 2009, 2014). This reflective writing circle captures the essence of a master’s student and two educators’ transformative learning as they journey together in relationship towards a deeper understanding of their Indigenous and Settler identities and respond to the Calls to Action.&#x0D; Keywords: presence, authentic learning, self-authorship, Calls to Action, writing circle&#x0D;

“Gather Your People”: Learning to Listen Intergenerationally in Settler-Indigenous Politics

Decolonization requires critical attention to settler logics that reinforce settler-colonialism, yet settler communities, as a rule, operate without a collective sense of identity and history. This article, provoked by Māori protocols of encounter, explores the necessity of developing a sense of collective identity as precursor to meeting in settler-Indigenous politics. It argues that the ability, desire, and experience of being unmarked as a social group—apparent in paradigmatic approaches to engaging social difference in settler communities—is at the heart of the particularity of settler group identity and also stands at the heart of countless failures to meet in settler-Indigenous politics. This essay thus seeks to mark the particular ground of this unmarkedness of settler identity in Western philosophies that set being unmarked as both ontology and ideal; the dominance of settler communities in places of settlement; and the willful forgetting of the colonial histories brought about by such dominance.

DE-SETTLERING OURSELVES

This article explores the complexities of settler relations within the context of an academic conference hosted by Indigenous hosts and inclusive of Indigenous ceremony and content. The authors explore a range of questions related to their settler identities as participants in the conference. How are we as settlers to engage in a conference entitled “CYC in Action”, held at an institution constructed on Indigenous land, and dedicated to the promulgation of Western thought and culture? How are we to encounter the ghosts of those Indigenous peoples destroyed and removed from this very geography? How are we to be positioned in relation to our Indigenous colleagues who are reclaiming fragments of this colonized space through ceremony, buildings, and the introduction of sacred objects and totems? Should we adopt the studied neutrality of scholars, the moral high ground of activists, or the inclusive posture of the “good” settler? Do we find ways to be comfortable in the space? Is it an option to seek to be comfortable? Is our “Whiteness” as settlers our passport to enter Indigenous space and claim a right to be there as “friends”? Under the contested relation of a conference taking place on stolen lands that includes both the thieves and the survivors of the theft, who is the host and who determines the conditions of inclusion?

This Land Was Made for … : (Re)Appearing Black/Brown Female Corporeality, Life, and Death

Lands and bodies are often conceptualized as exhaustible objects and property within settler-colonial and neoliberal ideologies. These conceptualizations lead to underdevelopment of understandings of lands and bodies that fall outside of these ascriptions, and also attempt to actively obscure the pervasive ways in which settler colonialism violently reinscribes itself on the North American landscape through the murder and disappearance of Black and Brown women's bodies. In this article, I will argue that the continual murder and disappearance of Black and Brown women in North America facilitate the successful functioning of ongoing settler-colonial systems and projects. This violence creates and reinforces the functionality of Black/Brown bodies as the territory upon which settler identity and futurity gains traction, indeed, requires.

Captivity Novels as Critique of South African Colonialism

Captivity narratives are a well-established genre in North American settler literature and many South African shipwreck and captivity narratives also articulated settler identity through fear of indigenous peoples and raised fears of miscegenation. But, as Joe Snader has demonstrated, there are many captivity narratives in European and particularly English writing that offer a more critical view of colonialism and the coloniser. This article explores the relatively neglected latter strand in writing about South Africa, concentrating on three novels: the anonymously produced Makanna, or The Land of the Savage (1834), Edward Kendall’s An English Boy at the Cape (1835), and Isabella Aylmer’s The Adventures of Mrs Colonel Somerset in Caffraria (1858). These novels offer a critical view of colonial expansion and military conquest rather than a moral panic about the dangers of an unsettled interior. Analysis of these novels suggests that these authors developed the genre in response to particular South African circumstances and conditions, supporting Snader’s argument that a European form found a wide range of different expressions in different cultures.Keywords: Captivity narratives, South African literature, colonialism, Edward Kendall, Isabella Aylmer, Makanna

Herman Voaden’s Romantic Ecology: Settler Identity and the Canadian Sublime

If, in Jonathan Bate’s view, literary critics would be well served by turning their attentions to a “historical tradition of ecological consciousness,” one obvious starting point for critics of Canadian drama is with the writings of Herman Voaden. Voaden is well known to Canadian theatre scholars as a playwright and director who drew his creative inspiration from the “natural” world, and who, in the 1920s and 30s, viewed what he perceived as the Canadian wilderness as a crucial factor in the shaping of settler identity. Incorporating Bate’s advice, and drawing on insights from Northrop Frye, Val Plumwood, Christopher Manes, and Akira Lippit, this ecocritical study shows how an ecological consciousness came to the fore in Voaden’s writings and how, in his play Murder Pattern, he brings this to its most fully developed form, portraying elements in the more-than-human physical world, not as the ground for human action, but as actions in their own right: sublime agencies that measure human lives vis-a-vis the frailty of mortal desires.