{"id":294,"date":"2025-04-29T09:03:47","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T08:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.york.ac.uk\/igdc\/?p=294"},"modified":"2025-05-14T09:52:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T08:52:20","slug":"on-indigeneity-in-settler-colonial-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.york.ac.uk\/igdc\/2025\/04\/29\/on-indigeneity-in-settler-colonial-states\/","title":{"rendered":"On Indigeneity in Settler Colonial States"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Dr Teodora Todorova<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December 2024 I gave a presentation to the IGDC outlining the use of settler colonial theory for the study of Palestine\/Israel \u2013 or the colonisation, occupation and settlement of the land of historic Palestine, on which the state of Israel was established in 1948, and the entirety of which the state of Israel came to control in 1967 through the military occupation of the Palestinian Territories of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The concept of \u2018settler colonialism\u2019 is not new within established Arab, Asian, and African anti-colonial and postcolonial scholarship, or in Indigenous and Native Studies scholarship within the settler colonial states of the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The interdisciplinary field of Settler Colonial Studies, however, is just over a decade old and the systematic inclusion of the case of Palestine\/Israel within Anglophone scholarship on settler colonialism is also a recent, if proliferating, phenomenon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Settler colonialism refers to a process of an exogenous (external) collectivity migrating (moving) to a new territory where they establish sovereign dominance by acquiring power and control over the land and its inhabitants, and by dispossessing and denying indigenous (long established) inhabitants\u2019 rights to self-determination and sovereignty in and over the land. One of the founding scholars of the field, Patrick Wolfe, is often quoted for having described settler colonialism as \u2018a structure and not an event\u2019, or rather as an ongoing socio-political process of governance and not a one-off invasion. In The Settler Colonial Present<\/em>, Lorenzo Veracini highlights that settler colonialism remains an ongoing and unfinished project which is inherently characterised by structural violence against indigenous communities. Previously, Veracini has argued that settler colonialism needs to be understood as not \u2018pure colonialism\u2019 nor as \u2018migration\u2019 even though settlers move across territories and colonize land to establish settler colonial states.      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, it may be more useful to define who settlers are by highlighting what they are not. Firstly, although settler colonialism in the Americas and elsewhere has been tied to the advent of European Imperialism from the 15th<\/sup> century onwards: 1) Settlers are not straightforward colonialists because they do not colonise to exploit indigenous labour and resources before they return to the imperial metropole. Rather they abandon the notion of return, they stay and transform the settler colony into a \u2018homeland\u2019 over which they enjoy exclusive sovereignty. 2) Settlers are not indigenous because they can trace their heritage to somewhere else, often another continent altogether, such as Europe in the case of Anglophone settler colonialists. 3) Settlers are not immigrants because migrants lack sovereignty. Unlike migrants, settlers do not seek to assimilate or acculturate to indigenous societies which they often view as inferior, as in dominant 19th<\/sup> century Orientalist discourses about Palestine and Arab-speaking communities. Or alternatively they perceived indigenous people as \u2018non-human\u2019, as in the case of the terra nullius<\/em> or \u2018empty land\u2019 doctrine which dominated the onset of Anglophone settler colonialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The contemporary USA, and its ongoing settler colonial project, is an illustrative case in point. White European-heritage Americans constitute the majority of American citizens and dominate the notion of the American settler-nation. Although American settlement began under the patronage of the British Empire, American settler colonialists do not see themselves as British either historically or by heritage but as \u2018Americans\u2019. The settler colonial relationship to the indigenous peoples of the USA (who are often referred to as the \u2018First Nations\u2019) has been one of physical elimination, cultural genocide, forced assimilation, and mass displacement. Indigenous presence on the land predates European-heritage colonialists by thousands of years, yet their rights to national self-determination and sovereignty remains denied and they suffer huge structural inequalities in contemporary society. Historically and in the present, migrants, and particularly racialised migrants, who move to the USA are subject to settler colonial sovereignty in the forms of a migration regime that is characterised by hospitality<\/em> or, as is more often the case, by hostility<\/em>. That is, they are either granted legal entry and\/or citizenship if they decide to stay, or they are constituted as \u2018undesirable\u2019 and are expelled and deported. The migrant becoming a citizen, importantly, is always premised on assimilating into the dominant settler colonial culture and accepting settler colonial sovereignty, and not on the recognition of the diminished and minoritised indigenous communities who remain displaced on their land.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I have argued in my book Decolonial Solidarity in Palestine-Israel: Settler Colonialism and Resistance from Within<\/em>, the above definition of settler colonialism applies equally to the case of Palestine\/Israel. Firstly, Israel explicitly defines itself as \u2018a Jewish state\u2019 in its constitution. Secondly, Israeli citizenship is reserved and privileged for those who are racialised as Jewish, despite the continuous presence of Palestinian Arab-speaking communities in historic Palestine for over a thousand years prior to the establishment of Israel. Simultaneously, the majority of Jewish migration to historic Palestine can be traced to the late 19th<\/sup> century onwards. Comparatively, Euro-Americans have a history of claiming that they are a migrant nation, which is understood within Indigenous Studies scholarship as a claim to \u2018innocence\u2019, or the desire to repudiate responsibility for the displacement of indigenous communities in the USA. By contrast, Jewish Israelis draw on biblical scripture to evoke \u2018indigeneity\u2019 on the basis of \u2018self-defining\u2019 as the descendants of the biblical Hebrews. \u2018Nativist\u2019 not to be confused with \u2018Native\u2019 claims to \u2018indigeneity\u2019 among settler colonial collectivities are not new; and settler colonial sovereignty is premised on a perceived exclusive right to dominate and rule over the settler colonial state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, \u2018nativist\u2019 claims are colonial, if not settler colonial, in nature and they find different albeit comparable expressions among white European nationalists and European-heritage settler colonialists. State sovereignty since the 19th<\/sup> century has been claimed by nativist ethnic groups who come to conceive of themselves as \u2018ethno-nations\u2019 and often come to dominate other ethnic groups in the formation and emergence of the nation-state polity. The cultural and linguistic community which comes to dominate the concept of \u2018the nation\u2019 is formed through assimilation (often forced) and\/or the physical or cultural elimination of the diverse inhabitants of the land. I define the nation-state as a relationship of domination because the very emergence of the concept of the nation results in the existing multiplicity of indigenous ethnic groups being assimilated into the emergent dominant national group, and\/or their displacement or elimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a continent Europe is one of the key historical sites of the emergence of the Janus-faced process of assimilation\/elimination characterising the settler colonial character of the modern world. For example, the Sami people of Scandinavia who reside in the present-day ethno-national states of Sweden, Norway, and Finland, as well as in parts of the Russian Federation, are widely recognised as the last remaining indigenous group of Europe. The case of the Sami is particularly illuminating as it highlights the relationship between indigenous communities and dominant ethno-nations in modern nation-states. The emergence of the modern nation-state has relegated indigeneity to the status of marginality<\/em> by virtue of having a culture that is distinct from the dominant national group. The relationship between the dominant ethno-nations of Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia, and the indigenous Sami people whose land crosses over these state borders is widely understood as one of \u2018internal\u2019 settler colonialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Settler claims to indigeneity based on \u2018self-definition\u2019 is premised on a profound misunderstanding of the settler colonial relation. In the case of Palestine-Israel, the Jewish Israeli group represents the dominant national culture which enjoys state sovereignty over the land it inhabits and occupies. Moreover, the majority of Jewish-Israeli citizens can trace their ancestry to recent migrations from Europe, Asia and Africa, largely since the late 19th<\/sup> century onwards. In contrast, the majority of Palestinian inhabitants of the territories of Palestine\/Israel and their ancestors have inhabited the land of historic Palestine over the past millennium, irrespective of which empire or state has claimed dominion. Denial of national self-determination and sovereignty to long-established communities who are not recognised as belonging to the dominant ruling ethno-nation is a key characteristic of indigeneity<\/em> in modern state polities. The Palestinians in Israel continue to be denied equal citizenship in a self-defined Jewish nation-state, while the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are denied self-determination and sovereignty, and Palestinians in the diaspora are denied the right to return to their ancestral lands. This relationship of domination is what constitutes the Palestinian-Israeli case as settler colonial. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any meaningful discussion of settler colonialism requires an engagement with calls for decolonisation. Responses to which vary and can take multiple forms. For example, the two-state solution in the form of the international recognition of a Palestinian state on the lands of the presently Occupied Territories of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, alongside Israel, would not resolve the settler colonial character of the state of Israel. Indigenous statehood in the USA also might appear impossible. Yet, this perception is premised on a fallacious understanding of sovereignty as statehood. One possibility, Veracini suggests, is to decolonise settler colonial states by constituting them as multinational<\/em>; embracing a proliferation of sovereignties in the form of self-determination which has also been referred to as \u2018indigenous resurgence\u2019 within Indigenous Studies scholarship. Examining devolution models in the United Kingdom, with the caveat that Scottish, Irish, and Welsh demands for self-determination also contain calls for independence, might be a fruitful place to base reflections on. Alternatively, Sami resurgence in the Scandinavian region in Europe might be another useful comparative case.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bio: Dr Teodora Todorova is an Assistant Professor in Sociology at the University of Warwick. She is the author of Decolonial Solidarity in Palestine-Israel: Settler Colonialism and Resistance from Within<\/em> (2021), and is co-editor at Reading Decoloniality<\/em>, an open-source online publication and interdisciplinary reading group, which explores decolonial scholarship for liberation. She co-convenes a UK-based Critical Whiteness Studies Research Group and is currently working on a monograph on Decolonial Human Rights Education<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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by Dr Teodora Todorova In December 2024 I gave a presentation to the IGDC outlining the use of settler colonial theory for the study of Palestine\/Israel \u2013 or the colonisation, occupation and settlement of the land of historic Palestine, on which the state of Israel was established in 1948, and the entirety of which the … Continue reading On Indigeneity in Settler Colonial States<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-blog-posts"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.york.ac.uk\/igdc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2025\/04\/Palestine-image.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"custom_fields":{"_edit_lock":["1747212598:250"],"_g_feedback_shortcode_7a370aa6559a98080b200ebe6bf81430a305a146":["\n\t\t\t\t[contact-field label=\"Name\" type=\"name\" required=\"true\" \/]\n\t\t\t\t[contact-field label=\"Email\" type=\"email\" required=\"true\" \/]\n\t\t\t\t[contact-field label=\"Website\" type=\"url\" \/]\n\t\t\t\t[contact-field label=\"Message\" type=\"textarea\" \/]"],"_g_feedback_shortcode_atts_7a370aa6559a98080b200ebe6bf81430a305a146":["a:17:{s:2:\"to\";s:20:\"l.spencer@york.ac.uk\";s:7:\"subject\";s:87:\"[Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre] On Indigeneity in Settler Colonial States\";s:12:\"show_subject\";s:2:\"no\";s:6:\"widget\";i:0;s:14:\"block_template\";N;s:19:\"block_template_part\";N;s:2:\"id\";i:294;s:18:\"submit_button_text\";s:6:\"Submit\";s:14:\"customThankyou\";s:0:\"\";s:21:\"customThankyouHeading\";s:26:\"Your message has been sent\";s:21:\"customThankyouMessage\";s:30:\"Thank you for your submission!\";s:22:\"customThankyouRedirect\";s:0:\"\";s:10:\"jetpackCRM\";b:1;s:9:\"className\";N;s:9:\"postToUrl\";N;s:14:\"salesforceData\";N;s:12:\"hiddenFields\";N;}"],"_thumbnail_id":["298"]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.york.ac.uk\/igdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.york.ac.uk\/igdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.york.ac.uk\/igdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.york.ac.uk\/igdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.york.ac.uk\/igdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.york.ac.uk\/igdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.york.ac.uk\/igdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.york.ac.uk\/igdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.york.ac.uk\/igdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.york.ac.uk\/igdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}