Mastodawn

@krisnelson May 20, 2023

I’m seeing “settler colonialism” as a phrase used a lot lately, and I get it but am not sure of its analytic origins nor scope—e.g., how much does its formulation include the racism of American slavery? Is capitalism necessarily part of it, or could the expansionism of communism in some instantiations fit in there too?

In other words, what is included & what is missed by this phrase, which tbf is sounding increasingly rote and rather glib at times in more leftist discourse?

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Eran Zelnik

@krisnelson I tend to agree with Patrick Wolfe’s labor/land division. The American settler collective replaced Natives for their land but still needed black Americans for their labor, thus they constructed blackness around the one-drop rule, so that there will be more of them, but allowed more racial hybridity and assimilation when constructing Indigenous racial characteristics so that they will more easily disappear. Does not always hold, but quite incisive nevertheless

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@krisnelson May 21, 2023

@eranzelnik Yes, that makes good sense to me, analytically. Thanks for pointing me to Wolfe on this.

It seems like some lay writers are using the term more as a shorthand for the negatives of the US (fair enough) but maybe are missing race and other factors at play in US structures of power & history as a result (could be problematic)?

But Wolfe clearly has a sense of both colonialism, settlement, and race, which seems quite powerful.

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Eran Zelnik May 21, 2023

@krisnelson yeah Wolfe coined the phrase and was the most influential theoretician of it. Also, I am told, was a very good man and very active in support of indigenous peoples in Australia.