Talk:Settler colonialism

Origins as a theory Maxime Rodinson

please add: Maxime Rodinson "Israël, fait colonial ?" in Les Temps Modernes 253 bis, Israel: A Colonial-Settler State? transl. David Thornstad, New York: Monade Press 1973 2A02:8109:B6A2:5500:484E:F430:F863:29E9 (talk) 04:54, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why is Ireland mentioned but doesn’t have its own section? I believe along with Lapland and Poland it should be given it;s own Ajron Bach (talk) 11:33, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Disclarity in the article?

It is unclear whether the article is supposed to be about settler colonialism as a historical and present-day phenomenon, or about the relatively young academic discipline (also of the same name) focused on the subject.

As well as being confusing, this has the potential to create POV issues, particularly as the eponymous discipline is one of several which studies the phenomenon. It also results in the non-inclusion of settlers who established societies where there were none pre-existing (e.g. the Falklands), since these are not of concern to the discipline.

A potential solution, as I see it, is to divide the article; have one called Settler colony (or merge such with Settler), and one called Settler colonialism (discipline) or similar.

Else, the article must be clearer about what it is supposed to be about.

Cheers, Will Thorpe (talk) 11:34, 11 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why it can't be both about the phenomenon and academic discipline.
Inclusion or non-inclusion should be based on WP:PAGs such as WP:DUE. Bogazicili (talk) 20:33, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The matter is that one is an objective phenomenon, and the other is an academic discipline guided by a particular disciplinary viewpoint. There is a lack of clarity which inhibits neutral coverage of either.
The article on history demonstrates what should be done. Note the header: 'This article is about the academic discipline. For a general history of human beings, see Human history. For a general history of Earth, see History of Earth. For other uses, see History (disambiguation).'
This article can be about one or the other. But it cannot appropriately cover both. Will Thorpe (talk) 07:32, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This article can be about one or the other I don't see any justification of that in WP:PAGs.
There can be a separate article about the academic discipline, Settler colonialism studies, but it would still be summarized here in a section. Using your example, there is also a section Human_history#Academic_research Bogazicili (talk) 16:18, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Re.: I don't see any justification of that; the phenomenon and the discipline are two seperate subjects.
The article either covers settler colonial studies, or is made redundant by the more even-handed article on settlers. Looking at this article's subsections, it is principally about an academic theory and discipline. That is fine. But it must make that clear, so as to not violate WP:NPOV, as it presently does, because there is no pretence of due weight in the article if it is supposed to be about the historic and modern phenomenon of settler colonisation.
It is no secret that the arguments made by settler colonial academics do not hold consensus amongst reputable historians, and so any article which presents this particular academic viewpoint with no or insubstantial pushback may be perceived as WP:POVPUSHING.
The article's importance ratings, particularly as regards WikiProject History, reflect the significance of the academic discipline, not settler colonisation.
This article needs considerable reform and clarification so as to meet encyclopaedic standards. The present quality rating is erroneous.
Will Thorpe (talk) 09:43, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is no secret that the arguments made by settler colonial academics do not hold consensus amongst reputable historians
Really? You are welcome to expand the article using high quality sources in line with WP:NPOV and WP:DUE.
This article has better sources than Settler. Settler seems to be about people, Settler colonialism about the process, including replacing the existing peoples. If you want, you can request merging settler into this article. Bogazicili (talk) 21:17, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's interesting you said It is no secret that the arguments made by settler colonial academics do not hold consensus amongst reputable historians
I'm seeing settler colonialism in The Cambridge World History Volume 7: Production, Destruction and Connection, 1750-Present, Part 1, p. 216, bolding mine:

Colonialism, depopulation, and repopulation
Considered at a global level, the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century expansion of Europe was both demographic and geographic. Colonizers and colonized alike understood – and explicitly stated – that this process necessarily entailed the “extermination” or else the “assimilation” of indigenous peoples. Unless they were to become a labor pool, indigenous groups needed to be removed or incorporated, a spatial or a sexual solution to the phenomenon of settler-colonialism. In what some mid-twentieth century demographers called early population transfers, US policy was to remove Indians across the natural borders of the Appalachian Mountains and then (in most cases) across the Mississippi River. In comparable and contemporary displacements, Aboriginal people in the British colonies in Australia (Van Diemen’s Land, New South Wales, Queensland) were removed by colonial governors to protectorates or reserves.

Bogazicili (talk) 21:27, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As you bold, it refers to the 'phenomenon' of settler colonialism. Yet the first paragraph in this article is about the origins of a theory from the 1960s. Will Thorpe (talk) 06:40, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for providing the above excerpt; I have used this to amend the lede. Will Thorpe (talk) 06:42, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is now a WP:INTEGRITY issue, because sources now say different things.
Also that was a limited excerpt. p. 217, bolding mine:

Over the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries, policymakers imagined “assimilation” in biological terms, and occasionally implemented as a formal policy the breeding of a minority population into a majority, so as to eliminate the former as a group.17 All of these processes involved states and juridical institutions, as well as cultural institutions, pronouncing and ruling on sex and sexuality as population policy. And all of the labor that created population – as states wanted it or regardless of official policy – was the reproductive labor done by women

So even assimilation seems to be about eliminating the group. Bogazicili (talk) 11:18, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This refers to a more specific time period, and the bolded section is in response to the conjunction ('occasionally implemented as a formal policy the breeding of a minority population') before it.
The section directly before your quotation from p. 217 reads:
'There were two alternatives to the problem of depopulation. One was deportation of the colonizing populace (as happened over the long term in some decolonizing processes). The other was assimilation or incorporation of one population into another, involving sex, reproduction, and marriage between groups. In some contexts, mixed populations were more or less unproblematic, even a majority as in Spanish-speaking Latin America. Elsewhere they were more tenuously placed socially, for example in the Netherlands East Indies or in Portuguese India. In other contexts, a self-aware third ethnicity emerged – the Métis of the Canadian prairies, for example, a politically separate national group that resisted federal Canadian government forces in 1869 and 1885.'
The 'formal policy [of] the breeding of a minority ... so as to eliminate' that indigenous minority is hence one example among several of how assimilation occurred or was perceived, whether by government or by the actions of individuals. I cannot provide you with sources for these, but another, for instance, is provided by historic Maori politics in New Zealand, or by the educational programme of the Parramatta Native Institution in New South Wales, a few tens of kilometres from where I live.
I have hence modified the lede once again, keeping your clarifying second sentence. The sentence did not make sense previously, as it contained the first mention of assimilation in the article.
Cheers, Will Thorpe (talk) 04:28, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The whole thing should be available at the Wikipedia Library Bogazicili (talk) 11:45, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't the relatively young academic discipline just more or less Postcolonialism? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:45, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Willthorpe it seems reasonably clear to me that the current article isn't about the discipline but rather about the discipline's object of study. I have therefore reverted your proposed change (as you predicted); I have also edited the lead sentence so relies less on jargon. Newimpartial (talk) 16:35, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Newimpartial, I really dislike editing without looking at the sources. Which cited source says environment or something close?
I used area, but land could also work.
If you look at this source, it says "land", Starting from the premise that ‘the primary object of Australian colonisation was the land’, it was thus ‘predicated upon displacing indigenes from (or replacing them on) the land … the logic of elimination seeks to replace indigenous society with that imported by the colonisers’ [1] Bogazicili (talk) 22:18, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Bogazicili I think "environment" was cited to Whyte? Anyway, I'm fine with "land". Newimpartial (talk) 22:26, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh I see, I was lazy and just read the cited quotes in the first 3 sources lol. Sorry about that! Bogazicili (talk) 22:32, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Edit request 31 October 2025

Description of suggested change: Settler colonialism doesn't necessarily require the imposition of colonial rule - it can involve the creation of a new sovereign political order. For example, Afrikaner settlers in South Africa created independent Boer republics, which were not an extension of any foreign power. Therefore I am suggesting that we add a line to reflect this

Diff:

−
Settler colonialism is a process by which settlers exercise colonial rule over a land and its indigenous peoples, transforming the land and replacing or assimilating its population with or into the society of the settlers.
+
Settler colonialism is a process by which settlers exercise colonial rule or create a new sovereign political order over a land and its indigenous peoples, transforming the land and replacing or assimilating its population with or into the society of the settlers.

Kieranvolbrecht (talk) 23:08, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: I don't think this change is necessary. Even when a new polity created by settlers is legally independent from the metropole, it can still be seen as a form of colonial rule. And in the case of South Africa, the Boer republics were not established until well after the process of settler colonialism began. Day Creature (talk) 23:42, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Modern-day settler colonialism

A section of the article needs to explain why modern movements of people are not considered settler colonialism. Is the concept limited to a period in time and a race of people? ~2026-62704-2 (talk) 03:14, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a reliably sourced based reason why you think 'modern movements of people are not considered settler colonialism'? The article contains several examples of modern movements of people that are regarded by some sources as examples of settler colonialism. Sean.hoyland (talk) 09:44, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Settler_colonialism