“The evidence is absolutely consistent with dismemberment and de-fleshing of this body,” said Doug Owsley, a forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC.

Written documents had previously suggested the desperate colonists resorted to cannibalism – but the discovery of the 14-year-old girl’s bones offers the first scientific proof.

Smithsonian researchers believe the dead child became food for a community struggling to survive the harsh winter of 1609-10, known to historians as the Starving Time.

“There were numerous chops and cuts – chops to the forehead, chops to the back of the skull and also a puncture to the left side of the head that was used to essentially pry off that side,” Dr Owsley said. “The purpose was to extract the brain.”

The marks also indicate that the tongue and facial tissue were removed.

Jane O’Brien, BBC News.

Zimbabwe’s starving San community, commonly known as bushmen, are demanding to be taken back to the bush saying the government has neglected them for many years.

The San were moved from Hwange National Park in the 1920s during the colonial era by the Europeans and most of them settled in Mgodimasili area in Tsholotsho South in Matabeleland North Province.

There are over 1 500 San people in Zimbabwe and some are found in Plumtree in Matabeleland South.

[...]

They said going back to the bush to survive on hunting and gathering is better than staying under a government which treats them like animals.

“We want to go back to the bush, they should open up Hwange National Park and we go back.

“Our grandfathers had better lives that side than here where we are still treated like animals.

“The government has totally failed to help us to improve our lives for the past years and some politicians have been telling us lies all these years.

They only want our votes but they have not done anything for us,” Madlela Maphosa, a 70-year-old headman for the San people in Mtshina Village said.

Bulawayo24.

The Awa live in north eastern Brazil and survive as hunter-gatherers in remote areas of rainforest. Of their number around 100 have never had contact with outsiders.

However, the tribe’s four protected territories have been whittled away over the years by settlers and loggers who are now said to outnumber the Awa by ten to one.

Matt McGrath for BBC News.

Lorenzo Veracini, ‘The Other Shift: Settler Colonialism, Israel, and the Occupation’, Journal of Palestine Studies 42, 2 (2013).

 This densely argued essay offers an original approach to the study of Israel-Palestine through the lens of colonial studies. The author’s argument rests, inter alia, on the distinction between colonialism, which succeeds by keeping colonizer and colonized separate, and settler colonialism, where ultimate success is achieved when the settlers are “indigenized” and cease to be seen as settlers. Referring to the pre-1948 and post-1967 contexts, the author shows how and why Israel, itself a successful settler colonial project emerging from the British mandate, has failed to create a successful settler project in the occupied territories; indeed, and paradoxically, the occupation’s very success (in terms of unassailable control) renders the project’s success (in terms of settler integration/indigenization) impossible. Also addressed are the consequences of occupation, particularly what the author calls Israel’s “recolonization,” and the implications of the approach outlined for the Israel-Palestine conflict and its resolution.

Christopher Alcantara and Jen Nelles, ‘Indigenous Peoples and the State in Settler Societies: Toward a More Robust Definition of Multilevel Governance’, Publius (2013).

Over the past fifty years, Indigenous peoples in settler countries have mobilized to demand policy and institutional changes from their respective states. Although some scholars have employed multilevel governance (MLG) to make sense of these developments, none has examined systematically whether MLG accurately describes these phenomena. We address this lacuna by creating a more robust definition of MLG and applying it to a sample of Indigenous–settler interactions in Canada. Our findings suggest that MLG is an applicable concept for some, but not for all of the Indigenous–state interactions that are typically assumed to be instances of MLG. This conceptual clarification should help scholars from a variety of countries to use MLG more effectively to analyze the relationships between Indigenous peoples and their respective states.

Anna Maria Kowalczyk, ‘Indigenous Peoples and Modernity: Mapuche Mobilizations in Chile’, Latin American Perspectives (April 15, 2013).

The twenty-first century has ushered in a new era for the numerous social and political movements of Mapuche indigenous groups in Chile. Apart from distancing themselves from state institutionality and demanding autonomy, they have tended to reject alliances with the traditional left, considering it alien to indigenous subjectivities. Study of these various “new wave” movements paying particular attention to the relationship between indigenous and modern subjectivities suggests that, while the historical memory of Mapuche social and political organization may contribute to the creation of a powerful progressive social movement, the highly modernized Mapuche indigenous cultures are also quite compatible with an indigenous brand of neoliberalism.

El siglo veintiuno dio paso a una nueva era para los numerosos movimientos sociales y políticos de grupos indígenas mapuches en Chile. Aparte de distanciarse de la institucionalidad estatal y exigir autonomía, también solían rechazar una alianza con la izquierda tradicional, considerándola ajena a las subjetividades indígenas. Un estudio de la relación entre subjetividades indígenas y modernas sugiere que, mientras la memoria histórica de organización social y política mapuche podría contribuir a la creación de un poderoso movimiento progresista social, las modernizadas culturas indígenas mapuches son también altamente compatibles con una marca indígena de neoliberalismo.

Maile Arvin, Eve Tuck, Angie Morrill, ‘Decolonizing Feminism: Challenging Connections between Settler Colonialism and Heteropatriarchy’, Feminist Formations 25, 1 (2013).

The article explores two intertwined ideas: that the United States is a settler colonial nation-state and that settler colonialism has been and continues to be a gendered process. The article engages Native feminist theories to excavate the deep connections between settler colonialism and heteropatriarchy, highlighting five central challenges that Native feminist theories pose to gender and women’s studies. From problematizing settler colonialism and its intersections to questioning academic participation in Indigenous dispossession, responding to these challenges requires a significant departure from how gender and women’s studies is regularly understood and taught. Too often, the consideration of Indigenous peoples remains rooted in understanding colonialism as an historical point in time away from which our society has progressed. Centering settler colonialism within gender and women’s studies instead exposes the still-existing structure of settler colonialism and its powerful effects on Indigenous peoples and settlers. Taking as its audience practitioners of both “whitestream” and other feminisms and writing in conversation with a long history of Native feminist theorizing, the article offers critical suggestions for the meaningful engagement of Native feminisms. Overall, it aims to persuade readers that attending to the links between heteropatriarchy and settler colonialism is intellectually and politically imperative for all peoples living within settler colonial contexts.

Radha D’Souza, ‘Imperialism and Self-determination: Revisiting the Nexus in Lenin’, Economic & Political Weekly vol xlvIiI no 15 (2013).

This essay examines the nexus between self-determination, imperialism and the importance of Marxist theory in Lenin’s writings. It argues that the three strands were inseparably connected in Lenin’s thinking. The breakdown of the unity of the three strands of thought has impeded our understanding of contemporary imperialism.

Critics of Israeli pinkwashing in the United States and Canada have increasingly engaged in comparative critiques of settler colonialism. Queers Against Israeli Apartheid in Toronto has invoked this critique for many years. Pinkwatchers across Canada also draw ties between Palestinian and Indigenous solidarity that are heightened by the recent emergence in Canada of the Indigenous people’s movement Idle No More. Today, scholars and activists ask how homonationalism and pinkwashing perform settler colonialism in Palestine, Canada, and the United States, and how settler colonialism in each state impacts their work. I write this piece to encourage such questions, and to invite questioners to address their relationship to Indigenous solidarity. As a white queer critic of United States and Canadian settler colonialism, my experience with Indigenous solidarity in these states informs how I engage Palestinian solidarity. Queer / trans Indigenous critiques and allied work by non-Natives already model a critique of settler colonialism and sexualization in Canada and the United States. Their potential synergy with critiques of Israeli pinkwashing can explain the forms of power we face and can expand and deepen our alliances.

Scott Lauria Morgensen, ‘Settler Colonialism and Alliance: Comparative Challenges to Pinkwashing and Homonationalism’, Jadaliyya.