Unsettled grounds: settler colonialism, discourses of violence, and the limitations of settler research

Morton, Katherine (2022) Unsettled grounds: settler colonialism, discourses of violence, and the limitations of settler research. Doctoral (PhD) thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Too often within settler-colonial academia, Indigenous Peoples and communities are treated as “sources” of data, available for harvesting and settler analysis. Even in work that seeks to be with and for Indigenous Peoples, there is an all-too-common pressure for research to be extractive (McCall, 2020). Over the course of several years, embedded colonialism within academia clashed with my intentions as a settler colonial researcher interested in exploring the meaning-making found within Indigenous-state relations and their symbols in Canada. In this dissertation, I discuss not only the decision based on the current political climate and shifting research priorities to end my PhD research field work, but also offer 3 critical discourse analysis based papers related to colonial violence in Canada. These papers, completed while in the midst of my PhD work, demonstrate my interest in unpacking the meaning-making found within settler colonial framing and responses to colonial violence perpetrated against Indigenous Peoples. These papers and what remains of the initial project read together as an exploration of what alternative data collection may look like for settler-colonial researchers pursuing research involving Indigeneity, colonialism, and Indigenous-state relations.

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