On Settler Colonialism in Canada: Lands and Peoples

An unflinching examination of the impacts of settler colonialism from first contact to the contemporary nation state.
On Settler Colonialism in Canada: Lands and Peoples is the first installment in a comprehensive collection investigating settler colonialism as a state mandate, a structuring logic of institutions, and an alibi for violence and death. The book examines how settler identities are fashioned in opposition to nature and how eras of settler colonialism have come to be defined. Scholars and thinkers explore how settlers understood themselves as servants of empire, how settler identities came to be predicated on racialization and white supremacy, and more recently, how they have been constructed in relation to multiculturalism.

Featuring perspectives from Indigenous, Black, mixed-race, and other racialized, queer, and white European-descended thinkers from across a range of disciplines, On Settler Colonialism in Canada: Lands and Peoples addresses the fundamental truths of this country. Essays engage contemporary questions on the legacy of displacement that settler colonialism has wrought for Indigenous people and racialized settlers caught up in the global implications of empire.

Asserting that reconciliation is a shared endeavor, the collection’s final section exposes the myth at the heart of Canada’s constitutional legitimacy and describes the importance of affirming Indigenous rights, protecting Indigenous people (especially women) from systemic violence, and holding the Canadian settler nation state--which has benefited from the creation and maintenance of genocidal institutions for generations--accountable.

David MacDonald is a mixed race Indo-Trinidadian and Scottish political science professor at the University of Guelph. He was raised in Regina, Saskatchewan on Treaty 4 territory.
Emily Grafton is a citizen of the Métis Nation raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on Treaty 1 territory. She is an Associate Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Regina (Saskatchewan) in Treaty 4.