Editor’s note

Abstract

Settler colonialism is a truly global phenomenon marked by multiple connections that arise from diverse human actions, span great distances, include diverse voices, and engage numerous places. Forming networks of multidirectional linkages, these connections bridge local communities, nations, and empires and they connect the past with the present. Thus, settler colonialism moves within, between, and beyond nations and empires. It leaves its marks and impacts great powers and smaller states alike, while also shaping local communities and individual lives in a myriad of ways. This intricate and nuanced connectivity comes evident also in the articles of our present issue. While this set of articles spotlights the Middle East and Canada, it illustrates the workings of connected settler colonialism by underlining questions of sovereignty, identity, and belonging. Yara Sa’di-Ibraheem and Tovi Fenster provide a very personal story of replacement and dispossession in West Jerusalem. Focusing on one house in Jerusalem that was once a Palestinian family home, they elaborate on the intricate relationship of property in relation to identity and belonging. Jasmin Habib and Amir Locker-Biletzki in turn delve into the dynamics of Zionist settler culture by analyzing the songs of the Jewish-Israeli Communist youth movement. By focusing on communist youth, they interpret cracks and critique of a dominant settler colonial culture. Then the discussion shifts to Canada. Heather L. Elliott, Monica E. Mulrennan, and Alain Cuerrier take a closer look at the relationship between food insecurity and settler colonialism by focusing on the Food Secure Canada’s 2018 Assembly. Much like in the previous articles of this issue, here too contested identities, insecurities, and sovereignty operate at the core of networked phenomenon. Next article continues to map the contested connotations and connections of sovereignty, this time in relation to violence and the Quebec’s Viens Commission, set up in 2016 to investigate allegations of public abuse of Indigenous peoples. Here Trycia Bazinet examines how settler colonialism moves in the personal and the collective, and marks questions of identity and dispossession. Modern-day issues come with deep historical roots also in our article on settler colonial urbanism in Canada’s National Capital Region. Paul Sylvestre and Heather Castleden discuss entangled histories of racial capitalism and settler colonization, stressing how Algonquin people struggle to exercise jurisdiction over lands in the face of colonial invasion. This very local form of placeand race-making signified wider ramifications of the processes of settler colonization. So did Canada’s Treaty No. 6. By examining this treaty, Keavy Martin asks should we understand treaties as mere legal transactions or as marking the making of kinships, and as such central to the possibility of good relations in settler societies today. If kinship should be seen as much more than a metaphor, then how should we understand schooling in shaping settler colonial relations and identities? Matt Henderson describes how settler educators understand Indigenous learners by taking a close look at one paper, The Manitoba Teacher. This article showcases the many tensions of settler colonial schooling, between cultural erasure and assimilation, and fight for self-expression and Indigenous resurgence.